Other peoples children - I'm so cross with my friend

[sandyballs]

Am I over-reacting or would this pi** you off?
A friend popped in for coffee with her two DDs (2 and 4). They played with my two upstairs (4) while we chatted. Her elder daughter suddenly appears with a felt tip pen and announced to me that she (and my DDs) had drawn all over DDs bedroom wall. I said quite sternly to her "I do hope you are joking" and she promptly burst into tears and ran to her mother.

I went upstairs and found multi-coloured felt pen scribble all over one wall. I shouted at my DDs, took away the chocolate they were eating and told them to sit on the naughty step. Meanwhile my friend's DD is still having a cuddle with mummy because I spoke sternly to her. This kid hadn't even been told off, her mum didn't apologise to me, the kid still had her chocolate. I was fuming. She then had the audacity to say to me "tell xxx you aren't cross with her anymore because she is very upset". WTF!??? NOT CROSS. I'M BLOODY LIVID WITH YOUR LITTLE BRAT. WHY DO MINE GET SUCH A TELLING OFF AND YOURS GET A CUDDLE.

Sorry, I'm calming down now . Still stunned at her attitude though. I'd be mortified if my DDs did that at someone's house.

ST, very good way of approaching it. I cannot understand why people don't bring their children up to behave. It's part of my warped lazy parenting plan - it's far easier to have a well-behaved child so I'll put any amount of effort in to achieve it!

other peoples children - to be avoided if at all possible.

i would be fuming! theres a kid that comes to my house, he's naughty all the time. the last straw was when he watched me decorate a wall and then stabbed it repeatedly when i wasnt looking. at 10 he's old enough to know better. i finally blew my stack at his mum. she said it wasnt his fault, it was because he saw his dad being nasty to her before they split up (6 years ago?) what the?

I think I ran into your friend's parenting twin in the library yesterday. A 4 or 5-year-old girl hoarded more than half the library toys. I asked her, "Please, my baby really likes things with wheels, could he have one of them?" (there were four or five). She stomped her foot at me!

I was so surprised, I laughed, and said "That doesn't work in my house, does it work in yours?" Then I said, "ok, please give me one of the toys. I will count down from five to one, and if you don't give me one of the toys by then, I will take one." I counted, she sulked and tried to hold all the toys. I got to one, pried her fingers off a tractor, and brought it to my baby.

All through this, the mum just sat there, aware of what was happening, but not helping at all. (If she'd said "she's in a bad mood, we'll be going in a minute, please let her have the toys" or anything of that sort, I'd have let it be. I didn't know all the circumstances ...) Then she started soothing her daughter for the horrible indignity of losing a toy she'd been hoarding. For which her daughter kicked her.

It was like a lesson in how to raise a spoiled princess brat.

We had some friends whose kids were really badly behaved. Luckily their folks did not interfere when we put our foot down in our own house about unacceptable behaviour. Ironically, the kids 3 and 5, thought our house was the best place to come to and always wanted to visit (because we cared enough to set boundaries?).

In the end it just got too hard to discipline their kids with no back up from their parents (even though their parents did not interfere). We also did not want our DS to be around such brats, so we just "drifted" out of touch.

Luckily they didn't do anything too extreme at our house.