poll: other people's kids

[sarack]

be honest, do you like other people's kids?

[jennlin]

i would say it's about 50/50. all my friends/family with kids under 2 are just fine...but when the kids get a little older and develop more personality, it isn't always good. it's usually a selfish/snotty/spoiled/entitled personality...not the kid's fault, unfortunately. i would say about half the "older" kids are on my "no" list.

[dana86]

For the most part. I have a few friends who pretty much let their kids run the roost and those are the kids I can't stand. They get away with murder it seems and the parent's just kind of go with it. They are also the kind of parents that reward kids with treats if they throw tantrums just so they stop.

[sarack]

Apr 8, 2013 16:10:07 GMT -5 spunbutterfly said:

Most of them.

I get it.

Toddlers are assholes. I really get it.

But you know what? Your kid punching me or throwing forks at me even if he is "only" 2 years old is NOT ok. And the fact you do nothing but tell him to stop does not make it ok. It just shows me you have a disciplining problem and are hiding behind the whole toddlers are assholes mantra.

ahahahahahahahahahahaha

bad experience where a kid was throwing a fork at you? hahahahahaha

[sarack]

Apr 8, 2013 16:32:35 GMT -5 spunbutterfly said:

Apr 8, 2013 16:24:40 GMT -5 sarack said:

ahahahahahahahahahahaha

bad experience where a kid was throwing a fork at you? hahahahahaha

It sounds hilarious, but it really wasn't. I was pregnant at the time and his parents did _nothing_. They just said: No, don't do that. and that was it. So what am I supposed to do? Grab his hand? Scold him myself? Discipline him myself? Parents who don't discipline their kids in public when they do shit like this puts an unfair responsibility on the adult/person getting 'injured' (I wasn't injured, but you know what I mean).

i would. depending on how well i know the person, or even if i didn't, if a kid was doing something to me that he shouldn't  and they parents don't immediately intervene , i'l tell them no. 

i agree. i hope that i won't look at how cute my babies are and still tell them no and redirect.

also, it probably was super annoying. 

this brings me back to one night we had some people over for dinner. the mother told me what to buy. i bought exactly what she wanted, and her son was like "this isn't the kind i like!" then proceeded to eat almost an entire thing of cheesy bread. it was SOOO annoying.

[niq]

I'm on a tablet, but I'm SS anyway so I'll just write out my answer :

So far all our friend's small children are awesome. HSIL's boyfriend's young ones are super loud, but still adorable. I might think otherwise if I were with them all the time, LOL. His oldest (10 or 12 or so) is in full angst early teenager, I hate everything especially everything family related mode, but we were like that once so that's cool. HSIL's son is kind of blah most of the time but sometimes he is a riot.

Other than screaming kids on airplanes I think all kids under about 6 are pretty affordable right now.

Even on a tablet, I blame all wrong words in Swype

[jennlin]

Oh this reminds me. At the 1yo bday party I was at this wknd, some punk child took a balloon out of bjl's hands and started bopping her in the face. The third time I screamed loudly, the 4th he knocked her over and she cries. I mean, he was about 3, but that's still completely unacceptable. The mom apologized, but still, not okay. That kid is lucky his mommy was there.

[picksthemusic]

Apr 8, 2013 15:32:40 GMT -5 jennlin said:

i would say it's about 50/50. all my friends/family with kids under 2 are just fine...but when the kids get a little older and develop more personality, it isn't always good. it's usually a selfish/snotty/spoiled/entitled personality...not the kid's fault, unfortunately. i would say about half the "older" kids are on my "no" list.

This. I know it's part of their development for 'older' (by older I mean 3+) kids to be selfish, and that's okay. M will for sure have those phases. I just hope that our parenting skills will be good enough to help her not be a selfish 4 year old.

Case in point, my niece has a real problem sharing (she'll be 4 in June), and when we get together and M starts playing with her toys (because to M, everything is hers anyway - no concept of mine/yours), she gets pretty upset. My B/SIL are really good at curtailing her and getting her to share, though, so I admire their parenting skills.

But the other day, we were outside playing with M (we were blowing bubbles), and this kid from down the block (about 5 or 6 I think) came down and started playing with us (NBD, whatever), and then wanted to take over and start blowing bubbles, and asked if he could use our bubbles, etc. Now, it's not like he was stealing M's toys or whatever, but he was super pushy and didn't seem to take no for an answer very well. I was happy to share the bubbles and let him play with us for a while, but he got really greedy and wouldn't give back the bubbles when I asked for them (I'd let him have them for about 5-10 minutes), and kept saying, "One more, one more..." and blowing more bubbles. It's not the bubbles I have an issue with, it was the principle of the thing... he didn't want to listen to a grown up. But then his mom came out to get him (I side-eyed her hard for not being out there to supervise to begin with, but whatever), he did straighten up.

I just hope we can raise M to be sweet, kind, and giving.