When You Love Your Friends, But NOT Their Kids, Sorry It’s A Little Long

[daycare]

My husband and I are friends with a really nice, sweet, trusting, down to earth married couple. We meet a few years ago and have been very tight with them since we all met. We love to hang out with them, do weekends at each others house, (we live over an hour away from each other) go camping, Disneyland, Las Vegas, wine tasting, and much more.

Every time we hang out with them we have the best time, except one thing. AND I know this sounds horrible, but my entire family, kids included cannot stand their two kids.

Our friends are HORRIBLE parents. There are no rules, no boundaries, no consequences and the kids get away with everything, it's a lot worse than it sounds.

A few things that the kids have done while we were at their house or away on a vacation together.

the kids are 3B and 6G

They will smack their parents across the face, sock them, hit them, kick them, yell at them, spit, curse, tell them to shut up, hold their breath until they puke. They will team up together and gang up on the parents. They even locked the mom out of her car one day while they were inside it and she had to call the Tow company to come open the door, costing her $100.00

They have done all of the above to both myself and my kids.

After this last visit with them before christmas, I told my husband that I just can't do it any more. The kids bad behavior is rubbing off on my 4yr old and I would NEVER tolerate it for one second.

Well now the parents have invited us to their New Years Eve Party. They know that my husband is off of work. It will be a kid friendly party, meaning that their kids will be there. I don't want to go and my husband somewhat understands, but wants to go.

What would you do? We have tried giving some tips to them, we have tried implementing consequences for the children when we go to their house, out or to our house. NOthing will work, as the parents don't back us.

I think it's time for an intervention on the parents, but who am I to tell them ANYTHING?

HELP...Advice please

[cheerfuldom]

If you don't think they will listen at all, then distance yourself and connect with some new friends. You could make an appearance at the party and just keep it short or skip it all together and say you are just having some quiet family time this year. We had some friends like this whose 18 month old was one of the worst kids I have ever met, period. We just started hanging out again now that their child is school age. The little one's daycare provider and private school really cracked down on her wild, spoiled behavior and now she is a really nice little kid.

[daycare]

If you don't think they will listen at all, then distance yourself and connect with some new friends. You could make an appearance at the party and just keep it short or skip it all together and say you are just having some quiet family time this year. We had some friends like this whose 18 month old was one of the worst kids I have ever met, period. We just started hanging out again now that their child is school age. The little one's daycare provider and private school really cracked down on her wild, spoiled behavior and now she is a really nice little kid.

the parents swear that the kids have the best behavior at daycare and school. I dont buy it at all...

I thought about what you said, but these are the only friends that we have up here. We have only been here for 3 years and don't really know any other people, so it would be very hard to walk away from them.

[Ariana]

I go through this with my sister. They aren't very good parents but in the way that they disrespect my niece and fight with her constantly over the stupidest things. She's a good kid but I can't stand their way of parenting and dinner time is always a constant fight to where we can't even hold a conversation anymore during it. There is nothing I can say or do to get them to change. I've said it all and they're not interested in changing. I'm not dealing with anything like what you're dealing with and we've definately been distancing ourselves from them!!

The only time I can tolerate them is when we go out to eat. There's a time limit to the interaction and because their kid is eating junky food she eats and there is no fighting. Could you meet with them at a place where it's convenient for you and is not so painful? Spending long amounts of time with them is too much I think! Those poor parents

[MsMe]

I feel your pain.

My boyfriends niece is turnign out to be H+$$ on wheels and I have a feeling this is ony the start...(she is almost 3)

The part that makes me really sad is he is worried to have our own kids bc he thinks all kids act that way

[daycare]

I told my husband that I think we should just keep it to doing activities that are Adult only... I told him that it was not fair to me that I work with kids all day long 5 days a week and then have to work with their kids the whole time I am there at their house to hang out with them.

I agree with you on limiting the amount of time that we spend with them...Just stinks that we wont be doing any more fun trips together... Wish the parents would wake up and see the damage that they are doing... They cant control them now, they will never be able to control them later...

[sharlan]

First of all, it's not your responsibility to attempt to control their kids, it's their job.

I had a wonderful friend who's company I really enjoyed. I really disliked her daughter. That child was so out of control, especially at their home.

Our friendship ended abruptly when she overheard me telling another friend that I couldn't stand her kids. I tried several times to apologize and make amends, but she refused to talk to me.

I would try to limit the activities to adults only.

[Michelle]

I agree and just tell her you work with kids all day long and you need a break from kids...
When she says,"all kids?"
You say, "no, just your kids!
::::::

Been there, done that!

[daycare]

I agree and just tell her you work with kids all day long and you need a break from kids...
When she says,"all kids?"
You say, "no, just your kids!
::::::

Been there, done that!

..... hahhahah I wish I had the nerve to say something like that...BUT I don't. I just emailed her and told her that we decided to stay home because my husband picked up an early morning shift the next day and we will need to be home at a decent hour....

OK I lied...............ugh...well it is partially true. He did pick up an extra shift on Sunday, but it is not until later in the day....

[erinalexmom]

I love my best friend but when her kids were young they were the same way. Total little turds! What I did was make every get together a 'girls night out" and just get together with her one on one. now that they are older thier easy to deal with and I actually dont mind them at all, but I still love girls night out happyface

[Nellie]

I feel for you. I've kind of been on both sides of the fence. My husband has a brother that is 3 years older that are oldest son. His brother was the youngest in a line of nine and kind of babied. When we would visit my son would fallow his uncle in to a bedroom and immedatly come out crying and holding his head. When he learned to talk he would say his uncle pushed him and hit his head. His uncle was recently diagnosed with autism and we feel that his parents have been easy on him. I know he knows right and wrong. He waits untill he is alone or others aren't watching to hit my children. I recently caught him trying to smash my 16 month old son's head on the floor. When he saw that I was watching he stopped and petted his head and gave him a hug. Then I started talking to my husband and he looked at his dad and took my son's head and smashed it into the floor, he smiled as he was doing it. When I went running over he hid and acted inocently towards his parents like he didn't know what happend. We got to the point where we never asked his mom to babysit. At family avents our children are not out of our eye sight. Sometimes we have to sit away from the grown ups and in the basement(play area) to make sure our children are protected. Also the behavior started rubbing off on my oldest. At 2 he desided it was ok to push his brother down. When we would tell him it wasn't ok and put him in time out he would respond with well X pushes me. I'd have to shadow my son for a week fallowing a family get together to make sure that he wasn't going to push any kids here. It was to stressful.
On the other hand my boys are 15 months apart. They were both to little for a long time for me to take them both out in public by myself. My husband works alot so my kids didn't get out to much. They weren't bad in the sense of hitting, but with a kid friendly house they would think it was ok to run around at others house and items on shelves were ok to touch. My husband and I would get invited to kid friendly parties and we would get a sitter. I didn't want to worry about policing my children. Also they don't do well with missing naps or going to bed late and they would try to pull stunts that they would never normally do or there would be lots of tears and fits. Now they are a bit older and much better behaved, but at the time I didn't think it was right to bring them to functions like these. Even at family events if we can't get them to nap there we go home if there behavior starts to go downhill. My mom says I'm alittle to sensitive and they aren't as loud as I think, but I really don't want to summit others to it. It is also nice to have a sitter when we go to kid friendly parties. I feel like sence I don't have any kids there I don't really need to deal with the other parents kids.
I'd start inviting them to "grown up only" functions. If you can handle seeing there kids when you go to there house get a sitter for your kids(so the behavior doesn't rub off).