"Friend" does not discipline her kids

5411 Views 5 Replies 6 Participants Last post by momsgotmilk4two, Oct 11, 2003

candiland

Discussion Starter · Oct 10, 2003

Okay. I am just highly, highly annoyed and have to share.
My friend's idea of gentle discipline is turning the other way when her kid does something unrighteous. Or she says that if she steps in and "disciplines", she is "stunting her child's spiritual and emotional growth".

I have just about HAD IT. When our daughters were little toddlers, her child would always hit, push, kick, and tackle my child and she would look on and not do anything about it. Now our kids are four, and her child is totally out of control because she never taught her right from wrong.

Problem is, my daughter considers my friend's child her "best friend." She's always talking about how much she loves "X", how she's her best friend, etc. etc. My husband is to the point where they are so rude and disrespectful he doesn't even want them in our house anymore, and I have to kind of agree. But it's just so sad that my daughter would be totally heartbroken if we cut off unnecessary contact with them. (I say "unnecessary contact" because we have the same circle of friends and attend the same playgroup

: How would I deal with only seeing her when I "have" to? It would be really uncomfortable for both of us, kwim?)

To top it off, I watched her kids this weekend for her and I made her daughter sit down for a couple of minutes because she kept pushing my toddler son off of a slide. She freaked out for 20 minutes - because she's not used to anyone actually disciplining her - and when she went home, she told her mother I hit her!

Instead of her mom realizing that her child had obvious discipline problems and was actually manipulating a situation to her advantage, the mom approached me and asked me, like, five or six times, "Did you hit my daughter?"

I am so totally disturbed and disgusted by her and her parenting issues that I really don't feel like we can be close friends anymore. It's all getting really, really, really, really old!

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beachrock

· #2 · Oct 10, 2003

I was in a similar situation with "friends". They claimed to be raising their son as a "free spirit"

:. Which meant everyone in his orbit had to put up with his aggressive, antisocial behaviour, including my son, who was frequently pushed and hit by said free spirit until I got him out of there ASAP.

We don't see them anymore, but not just because of the parenting. More because of a complete incompatibility of values.

I don't have advice. But in my experience, a friendship is doomed if the parenting styles are in conflict.

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Rollermommy

· #3 · Oct 10, 2003

I was in a similar situation with our neighbors. Except that they were totally neglectful parents, and let their children run all over the neighborhood (5 yr. olds), would lock them out of the house so they could nap, ect. But my boys loved to play with them--even though they were constantly getting hit, bullied, taught nasty phrases. Well, i had finally reached my limit with these kids and their parents. So in order to explain to my boys why we had to cut ties with these people (and still had to see them everyday

: ) I told them that it was very sad that "A" and "B's" parents didnt teach them the right way to treat other people, and that real friends dont treat each other the way they treat you, and that if we continued to play with them that they would always think it was ok to be mean to other people. So the next time they played, i overheard my oldest boy say, "if your going to be mean, then I dont want to play with you". And he came inside. That was the last time they played together. As far as the parents go, yes it was uncomfortable but much better than having to put up with their kids behavior.

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rainsmom

· #4 · Oct 10, 2003

I thought when I had a dc, that meeting people and making friends would be easier, but this issue has made it hard. I have an acquaintance that believes in this philosophy of raising her kids this way, not breaking their spirits. Now that they are older and more aggressive, its obvious this way of parenting does not work.

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cottonwood

· #5 · Oct 10, 2003

I don't believe in breaking anyone's spirit, but then I don't define bullying and meanness and causing physical harm as "spirit". I am always flabbergasted when parents act like it is okay for their kids to do these things.

I don't have any advice as to how to break it off, but you can and you should.

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momsgotmilk4two

· #6 · Oct 11, 2003

It looks to me like you'll have to cut ties with them

It's just not fair to your kids for her to allow her dd to bully them like that.

Unfortunatly, this is usually where things like NCP lead. It is a nice ideal to think that kids treated well and given respect will just behave nicely on thier own, but in the real world, it just doesn't happen that way. I feel bad for your dd, but worse for her dd since she is going to have to learn things the hard way on her own when she's older.

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