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agonyaunt2019-12-03 12:27 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2019-12-03 12:27 pm
Entry tags:
Dear Care & Feeding: I'm judging my friend's parenting.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m a middle-aged woman who has very little experience with children. I don’t dislike children; it just never worked out for me to become a mother. Anyway, for the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to be supportive of a friend and her almost 5-year-old daughter, “Skylar.” The girl’s father is now out of the picture, and my friend is struggling to cope as a single mom. They previously went through a good deal of trauma with domestic violence issues, CPS involvement, and so on.
Skylar can be a really sweet child, but she is very demanding of constant attention. Also, she has unbelievable meltdowns if she doesn’t get her way. For example, the last time they were over for dinner, Skylar threw a complete fit when it was time for them to go home. I realize all kids have an occasional meltdown, but this didn’t seem normal. I don’t recall my nieces and nephews ever having full-on temper tantrums after the age of 3.
After the first few minutes, her crying seemed manipulative to me, even forced. For example, her cries would start to taper off as she wore out, but as soon as her mother looked over at her, she would immediately start up again as loud as she could. This went on for what seemed like forever, although it was probably more like 10 minutes. Finally I just grabbed Skylar’s shoes and told her that she was going home right now, whether she liked it or not. My friend literally dragged her out of the house kicking and screaming.
In retrospect, I think I did pretty much what my mom would have done in this situation, but my mom did a lot of things that I think would be frowned on now, like being mean and smacking us. I know that Skylar probably has some issues, although I also think that she is a bit spoiled and my friend is very passive with her behavior. (My friend’s response was to plead quietly for Skylar to stop crying and promising her things she could do when they got home.) But as I said at the beginning, I don’t have much experience with children, so I’m really clueless about the best approach here. I would greatly appreciate your advice and insight!
—Not How My Mom Would Have Done It
Dear NHMMWHDI,
What you’re experiencing is an extremely common phenomenon. People without kids look at the parenting of others with kids and HAVE SOME OPINIONS. I say that not to diminish it, but to let you know that such opinions are natural and normal and not necessarily evidence of a problem. In other words, just because you feel like your friend should be parenting differently doesn’t mean that your friend should be parenting differently.
I will also tell you that almost all 5-year-olds can absolutely use crying and emotional blackmail to get what they want. They cannot, however, be “manipulative,” because that word implies a conscious willingness to harm another for personal gain. This, of course, is not what they’re doing. They’re just trying to do what works. And they know that sometimes crying works, so they cry. I would be careful to avoid assigning nefarious motives to the behavior of preschoolers.
Just because you feel like your friend should be parenting differently doesn’t mean that your friend should be parenting differently.
This isn’t to say that your friend is the perfect parent and it’s all good. It’s more about how you can support her as a friend. Telling her how to parent is not it. She and her child have been through hell, it sounds like, and they don’t need judgmental adults adding to the weight of their experiences. Parenting is a long game, and a highly imperfect one, and I’m willing to bet that your friend is capable of raising a good child—of righting her own parenting wrongs and changing direction when necessary—even without your advice. I’m also willing to bet that her daughter is capable of becoming a perfectly fine person by overcoming her mom’s parenting mistakes. It’s what you did. It’s what we all do.
Support your friend. If you see her struggling with her daughter, take a step back. Feel free to ask her in a quiet, de-stressed moment if she needs help in tantrum situations and what kind. But try to avoid asserting your vision onto her family, as right and well-meaning as it may feel. Your pure, basic, and nonjudgmental love is more valuable to her right now than you know.
I’m a middle-aged woman who has very little experience with children. I don’t dislike children; it just never worked out for me to become a mother. Anyway, for the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to be supportive of a friend and her almost 5-year-old daughter, “Skylar.” The girl’s father is now out of the picture, and my friend is struggling to cope as a single mom. They previously went through a good deal of trauma with domestic violence issues, CPS involvement, and so on.
Skylar can be a really sweet child, but she is very demanding of constant attention. Also, she has unbelievable meltdowns if she doesn’t get her way. For example, the last time they were over for dinner, Skylar threw a complete fit when it was time for them to go home. I realize all kids have an occasional meltdown, but this didn’t seem normal. I don’t recall my nieces and nephews ever having full-on temper tantrums after the age of 3.
After the first few minutes, her crying seemed manipulative to me, even forced. For example, her cries would start to taper off as she wore out, but as soon as her mother looked over at her, she would immediately start up again as loud as she could. This went on for what seemed like forever, although it was probably more like 10 minutes. Finally I just grabbed Skylar’s shoes and told her that she was going home right now, whether she liked it or not. My friend literally dragged her out of the house kicking and screaming.
In retrospect, I think I did pretty much what my mom would have done in this situation, but my mom did a lot of things that I think would be frowned on now, like being mean and smacking us. I know that Skylar probably has some issues, although I also think that she is a bit spoiled and my friend is very passive with her behavior. (My friend’s response was to plead quietly for Skylar to stop crying and promising her things she could do when they got home.) But as I said at the beginning, I don’t have much experience with children, so I’m really clueless about the best approach here. I would greatly appreciate your advice and insight!
—Not How My Mom Would Have Done It
Dear NHMMWHDI,
What you’re experiencing is an extremely common phenomenon. People without kids look at the parenting of others with kids and HAVE SOME OPINIONS. I say that not to diminish it, but to let you know that such opinions are natural and normal and not necessarily evidence of a problem. In other words, just because you feel like your friend should be parenting differently doesn’t mean that your friend should be parenting differently.
I will also tell you that almost all 5-year-olds can absolutely use crying and emotional blackmail to get what they want. They cannot, however, be “manipulative,” because that word implies a conscious willingness to harm another for personal gain. This, of course, is not what they’re doing. They’re just trying to do what works. And they know that sometimes crying works, so they cry. I would be careful to avoid assigning nefarious motives to the behavior of preschoolers.
Just because you feel like your friend should be parenting differently doesn’t mean that your friend should be parenting differently.
This isn’t to say that your friend is the perfect parent and it’s all good. It’s more about how you can support her as a friend. Telling her how to parent is not it. She and her child have been through hell, it sounds like, and they don’t need judgmental adults adding to the weight of their experiences. Parenting is a long game, and a highly imperfect one, and I’m willing to bet that your friend is capable of raising a good child—of righting her own parenting wrongs and changing direction when necessary—even without your advice. I’m also willing to bet that her daughter is capable of becoming a perfectly fine person by overcoming her mom’s parenting mistakes. It’s what you did. It’s what we all do.
Support your friend. If you see her struggling with her daughter, take a step back. Feel free to ask her in a quiet, de-stressed moment if she needs help in tantrum situations and what kind. But try to avoid asserting your vision onto her family, as right and well-meaning as it may feel. Your pure, basic, and nonjudgmental love is more valuable to her right now than you know.
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Although she didn't mention that, otherwise the advice was pretty good as far as it went - to back off and support her friend and also that she's wrong to consider this is an example of failed parenting and should not offer any unexperienced advice on that basis...
BUT the implication that her statements were true generally of all parents and children, that parents will always eventually do fine and kids will recover and so you should without exception trust in that and stand back and offer support is... not correct in the event that the bad parenting you see is abuse, and sometimes it is.
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Skylar's mom sounds like she doesn't really know how to do (or feel capable of doing) healthy boundary-setting and validating Skylar's emotions while remaining in charge of what's going on, and that's something she could use support with... from other parents, her therapist, Skylar's therapist (I sure hope she has one!), and other people with direct first-hand or professional understanding of the situation. Non-parent friends like the LW would be best off following C&F's advice and asking how they can help.
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Hear, hear.
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They cannot, however, be “manipulative,” because that word implies a conscious willingness to harm another for personal gain.
The point is NOT "to harm another". The point is to CONTROL another, which is not the same thing (although harm can occur in the process). The part of the letter which spotlights this is "as soon as her mother looked over at her, she would immediately start up again as loud as she could." Yep, that is definitely manipulative; the kid knows exactly what to do to get her way, and every time her mother looks at her she exercises that process. That's manipulation.
Having said that, I agree this isn't what my parents would have done either, although being whaled upon with a belt isn't the best choice. (It's better than the buggy whip my grandmother used on my father, I suppose.) I agree, both mother and daughter need to be working with a good therapist.
A friend of mine has a grown daughter whom I regard as spoiled rotten, and I have to bite my tongue (not always successfully) when she pulls stunts (like demanding her parents buy her and her girlfriend a house). I don't think she started out with tantrums, but I wouldn't be surprised. I wish something drastic had been done with her as a child, but she's not MY child, so I have to butt out.
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Maybe it's a distinction without a difference whether it's manipulation or emotional blackmail. But I kind of doubt that Skyler came up with this behavior as a deliberately villainous tactic all on her five-year-old lonesome, not least because she has a family history of domestic abuse. For example, she might be emulating the domestic abuser's tantrums. At any rate, I think LW should probably cut the kid and her mom some slack, and maybe offer to help them get to and from therapy, if possible.
I know people who have described how their parents corrected materialistic or demanding behavior on their part, and generally it seems to me that the gentler methods worked better in the long run.
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Calling it "manipulation" implies that the child is thinking "Hm, how can I get what I want when I know my mother doesn't want me to have it? I know, I'll pitch a fit!" and then following through with that plan. But in kids that age, and especially traumatized kids, that kind of conscious processing isn't happening.
It's possible that she was overstimulated, and making eye contact with her mother was sufficient stimulus to trigger another round of crying. It's possible that looking at her mother set off a wave of fear that her mother would harm and/or abandon her like her father did. It's possible that she wanted to go home but also thinking of going home was upsetting because their home has changed in major ways. It's possible that her mother saying "Please stop crying, honey, when we get home I'll let you watch My Little Pony and have a lollipop" scared her because it implies that Skylar, a traumatized five-year-old, is in charge of what happens, and so she kept crying harder in an attempt to get her mother to be in charge like a parent should. It's possible that she was just plain exhausted. (Tired kids can be SO LOUD.) What's not possible is that she deliberately triggered loud crying in herself in order to... uh... in order to what? Get her mother's attention? That's not it, because the attention is seemingly what led to more crying. Stay at the LW's house? She's old enough to know she wasn't going to get to do that no matter how hard she cried. You say "to get her way" but at no point did Skylar get her way.
A child melted down because something went haywire in her head. Casting her as a manipulator implies she's wicked and we shouldn't sympathize with her. That is a very cruel approach to take to a kid who has, as C&F says, been through hell. Please cut her (and other melty kids) some slack.
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