Tricky situation with friend & her 3 year old wild child!

[Spangletine]

Hello you lot
I've name-changed because this is a really hard one
I have a great friend. Close for years. we both have 3 year olds.
I'm a believer in firm boundaries. My child is pretty low maintenance & lovely (apart from in this heat!) ever since my friend's child was about 18 months old she has been quite violent (has pushed/hit my child/bitten several people & last week hit my friend in the face) Child also rarely listens, has melt downs all the time, and is very difficult. My friend is constantly saying how 'lucky' I am to have such an 'angel' & gets really upset as she 'can't take hers anywhere' but I have never seen her give boundaries/tell her child that her behaviour isn't ok etc. Ever. In fact she is always walking on eggshells while the kid calls the shots. Her child tried to hit my child again last week.
Finding it hard to be around them & not really able to relax as her child's behaviour is unpredictable. Really hard to say 'how about some consequences for your child?' Without offending her when there are things been thrown at me & my child or just general chaos. Found myself making excuses to not hang out the other day....
Asked her if she thinks she need any support with child & she dismissed it. My child said ' I don't like %#* anymore the other day. WWYD?

there are many reasons for a child with SN to hit, especially if they are 3, and not many of them are about naughtiness or bad behaviour.

this discussion is redundant anyway because the OP has already (rightfully) agreed to consider all possibilities.

So all the huge offence at even mentioning SN is unwarranted.

It's me who tries to ignore my DS hitting people. I'm afraid I did shout at him this morning for kicking me with his shoes on. I know this does not help him and I do feel that my parenting can get in his way sometimes too. Children with SN can have poor parenting too.

I don't "allow" him to hit other children and he much less often hits children outside the family but he's frequently hit DD in public (and occasionally hit/snatched things from other children). I am then left with the dilemma of a) do what we think is helping, and we are pretty sure it is, i.e. comfort the victim and make a huge fuss of them while saying nothing at all about DS' actions or b) do what the average parent would expect me to do i.e. at least tell DS off for hitting or possibly put him in time out/make him sit out.

If I don't do b) I get the judgy looks and I'm sure the "what a bad parent who doesn't give her child consequences" but if I tell him off he thinks "great game! everyone's talking about me!" and does it more and if I try and restrain him he hits/kicks me. Again, I made that mistake at our dancing class the other day and ended up with about 20 minutes of raging.

womb, we're so sorry you went through this.

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