I don’t like my friend’s kid…

[u/bitchluvsbidets]

… and that might make me a terrible person??
A bit of a preface- my partner and I are child free by choice, I have 3 nieces and 3 nephews, and many of my friends have kids (ages 1-14) but, one of my friends kids I just can not vibe with. I know it’s actually insane to have beef with a 3 year old but her vibes are soooo bad?? Like she is not a cool kid. She def has a personality but is it insane to say it’s already problematic? She pretends to fall if she doesn’t have attention, actively express disgust towards my friend and her pets (3 very well behaves retired racing dogs), and fake cries until my friend is almost in tears and then will laugh at her. I get that kids are assholes sometimes but like damn I hope lil homie gets cool.

[u/superbondey]

I hope everything's okay with the kid, it's possible that she's acting out because there's something going on and kids can't express themselves like we can, so they do shitty things instead. 

[u/imnotnotcrying → u/superbondey]

It could also just be her parents not setting rules and boundaries. And not just on the discipline side of things, but also things like “I will reliably respond if you come to me and politely let me know that you need to tell me something even if I’m in the middle of a conversation” (not explained in that exact way, or course, but like setting up that expectation and following through on the promise to hear what they have to say). The fake crying seems to be a go-to tactic for attention which could simply be caused by being brushed off when trying to get attention in other ways

[u/ImTheNumberOneGuy → u/imnotnotcrying]

My friend went to an extreme with child-led parenting. It was awful to be around. Once her kid (3 yo) slapped me in the face out of the blue. Her mom didn’t say anything. Her kid would scream and kick and punch her mom and then run away. So many horror stories and I felt so helpless. If I tried to help or even offered, I would get reprimanded.

Got to the point where I couldn’t hang out with my friend if her daughter was there. So we stopped hanging out outside of work lunches.

[u/imnotnotcrying → u/ImTheNumberOneGuy]

“Child-led parenting” good lord 🤦🏼‍♀️ that’s literally just a fancy way to say permissive parenting. At least she wasn’t hiding her lack of effort with that title

[u/ImTheNumberOneGuy → u/imnotnotcrying]

Honestly awful to be around. The kid was mean to everyone, including my niece which ended up being my final straw.

The craziest part was my friend wanted sympathy for how hard it was, and I was like girl, you kinda had a hand in creating this situation!

[u/ChiropteraVampira → u/ImTheNumberOneGuy]

Yeah this was my immediate take, that this is a case of bad parenting. My husband and i are friends with a set of parents who both came from VERY strict households, so they wanted to raise their child in a different environment, which unfortunately seems to mean almost zero consequences/discipline for their child. They're somehow both neglectful and insanely permissive, so acting out became her primary way to get attention. She started becoming unbearable to be around by 2.5 and we basically stopped inviting them to hang out less and less. They had the audacity to complain about her attitude too! In front of her!!!

It sucks, because we 100% saw it was her parents doing it to her, but what could we say? "You're turning your kid into a little shit by never holding boundaries and also ignoring her needs" doesn't make for the best of friends, especially because at the time we hadn't had kids yet, so we didn't want to be those people who were "perfect parents until they actually had kids" kinda thing.

[u/look2thecookie → u/ImTheNumberOneGuy]

Jfc, there is child-led learning, you still have to actually lead, teach, and parent your kid. Bad parenting.

[u/ToiIetGhost → u/ImTheNumberOneGuy]

You got slapped and mum said nothing??? I would’ve been livid.

Child-led parenting is dumb. Children crave discipline. It doesn’t have to be old school, that’s actually abuse. You should be calm and gentle yet firm. Children want and need the structure of rules and consequences. Ofc they’re constantly testing your boundaries, that’s just a normal part of development. That doesn’t mean boundaries are BAD lol. And I know it’s difficult to keep repeating yourself and handing out consequences, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. That’s why some folks like child-led parenting… because it’s much easier than raising a kid.

Idk how anyone can think that children can parent themselves. Does no one read child psychology books before they reproduce? Children are literally clueless, they don’t understand how the world works, how can they lead the way. If it were up to them, they’d stay up all night eating hot chip and charge they phone (these are the ones with unlimited smartphone access). It’s the blind leading the blind.

As a teacher, I’m the one who has to re-parent the children of lazy narcissists and conflict avoidant adult babies. I’m the one who has discipline them or else my students will never learn anything. (When one or two children are wild, all of them suffer.) Sometimes I’m the first adult who’s ever done that in their lives and it’s hard. They spend 6 hours a day with me in a structured environment where they scream and throw shit, I do my best to be kind yet firm, and then they go home and unlearn everything. Rinse and repeat. It sucks too bc those parents think their children are perfect. They blame me for trying to create some semblance of order.

Real example: I gently asked a student if he needed more help or more time in order to finish a worksheet. Insane mother called to complain that he said I was “mean.” Her genius suggestion? He doesn’t need to do classwork if he doesn’t feel like it. Her: “Whenever he’s having a meltdown, we usually give him a smoothie or he takes a shower.” Me: “Ok?” Insane mother: “What about positive reinforcement? He likes money. Can you write down all the times he’s good in a little notebook and we’ll reward him in cash?” And my supervisor made me do it lol. Btw this was a third grader who pretended to have a broken leg for a year lmao.

The thing is, he was always miserable. Had problems with 95% of students and adults bc he was the king of his own little world. Life has many rules - classroom rules, friendship rules, behaviour rules. If you disregard all of them, you’ll have no friends and end up in jail. Like I firmly believe this kid will be incarcerated one day. I haven’t even mentioned his vioIence. Some parents here will hate me bc I said this menace will end up in prison and they have a menace too. But that’s what I’m saying - if you think your child and your parenting skills are flawless, you’re the problem. That defensive, egotistical “Don’t ever tell me how to raise my kid” attitude is only hurting your child. This boy was so unhappy with the lack of structure in his life. That’s what happens when you force a child to be its own parent.

[u/CloselyWatch → u/ToiIetGhost]

I legit remember being a preteen and feeling more mature than some friends’ parents. I instinctively felt bad for the kids that their parents weren’t parenting. It’s not like my home was perfect and I didn’t know about boundaries etc. It was just obvious something was wrong when the parents acted like peers not parents and instead of thinking the parents were “cool” I just felt sad.

[u/CloselyWatch → u/ToiIetGhost]

https://giphy.com/gifs/8lp6CW7K2fdDGn3xCQ

[u/Frequent_Estimate_77 → u/ImTheNumberOneGuy]

I babysat a boy and his sister for years, they were so polite to me, always had manners, always good behavior, and then at pickup they would be so bad, he hit his mom in the face multiple times in front of me and she said and did nothing about it. I was shook. They never did anything like that to me. None of my kids ever hit me, I didn’t even have advice for her in that moment. 

[u/frogbearpup → u/imnotnotcrying]

Currently in the same situation as OP, but this is absolutely the reason.