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Attachment Parenting
renee143
member
it's so hard when you disagree with a friend's parenting!
renee143
member
i have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. i don't feel like it's my place to give parenting advice where it's not asked (like i would hate for someone to advise me to CIO), but i need to get it out, so i'm going to do it here!
i have a good friend whose dd (let's call her Kate)is just a month younger than my oldest. she's a sweet little girl, but a bit of a "bull in a china shop- type." the kind that will pick up a sippy cup and throw it at the tv, "just because" (although i realize that there is probably and underlying reason). we were all together at another friend's house recently, and Kate just turned around and bit me. For that, she got spanked and put in time out.
the same evening, she pushed my dd. marlee looked at me, and i told her she should tell Kate she doesn't like being pushed. i was going to leave it at that. no one was hurt. another spanking.
her mom complains about her behavior. she was recently saying that they were very stern (which to her means yelling and spanking) and that it wasn't working, so they were going to have to dial it up a notch.
umm, your violence is making your kid violent. it's not "working," so you're going to do it more?
i feel so bad for poor Kate.
ugh. thanks for letting me vent.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: it's so hard when you disagree with a friend's parenting!
oh no.
i don't know what i would do in your shoes but i'm not sure i'd be able to keep my mouth shut.
i can't imagine spanking a two year old. yeesh. then again i can't imagine ever spanking my daughter.
any chance you could just "happen" across some discipline info that she "might find helpful" and you could send it in an email? like, "hey, i was on the internet and i found this, thought you might find it interesting" or something....
i feel bad for Kate too.
That sucks - but for the sake of your friendship I would just bite my tongue. No one wants to hear they're doing it wrong, and unless they're doing something that endangers their child's well being, its more of a disagreement over parenting styles than anything else.
Plus, I hate to say it but some kids really are just rule breakers that push the limits. I worked in daycare for 6 years during undergrad/grad school and saw lots of AP parents, lots of Ferber parents, lots of parents who disciplined and lots that didn't. Sometimes, no matter what, the kid's just going to be a PITA. Let's hope for your friends sakes its temporary.
***ETA*** - I just went back and realized you were just venting not wondering whether you should say anything. Disregard my post - vent away!
Oh dear. This part worries me. Elliot is constantly doing things that one of my friends will say her son used to do all the time at his age. This little boy is WILD. Everytime she says this I worry and think to myself, "What if it can't be helped".
I feel your pain. DH and I don't have kids yet but we know already what things in parenting styles will be used in our house vs. what won't on a couple big issues (ie, no spanking, no sleep training if we absolutely can avoid it, etc)
Our best friends (I have known her since we were 7 and DH is best friends with her DH; they introduced us) have a 2.5 year old son and are expecting DS #2. They've spanked DS1 since he was 9 mos old and intend to put the new baby on a CIO/Babywise type schedule from day 1. I really have to bite my tongue a lot or just not talk about kid-related anything.
You know, I only partly think that you should keep your mouth shut. IF she were to ever say again "We're having such a hard time with her, what we are doing isn't working", I think it would be okay to say "Hey, I know of a great article about disciplining difficult children. I can send it to you if you want".
I have a big mouth, so I probably WOULD have said something like "You're trying to teach your kid not to hurt others by spanking her? That makes no sense". But that is NOT what you should do!!
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I don't think it would be wrong of you to suggest alternatives if she brought it up again and was basically saying what she's doing isn't working. Sometimes parents don't really know what to do other than spank b/c they too were spanked.
I think you would need to be careful not to insinuate that b/c she spanks her dd that's why she acts the way she does b/c honestly you really don't know for sure and it will make any mother defensive hearing that what they are doing is causing the problem.
"When it comes to sleeping, whatever your baby does is normal. If one thing has damaged parents enjoyment of their babies, it's rigid expectations about how and when the baby should sleep." ~ James McKenna, Ph.D., Mother Baby Behavioral Sleep Center, University of Notre Dame
That is hard. And so sad. It has happened to us before, too.
We are part of a great church. None of us are perfect. But we've met several familes who espouse what DH and I believe to be this false dichotomy that discipline equals spanking and other punitive measures. I always respond by saying that the word discipline is derived from words that mean to teach. Then I sort of list off a couple books that I've found really helpful for our 20mo.