Disciplining other people's children/other people disciplining your child

Parentberries
1

Would you let other people discipline your child? Or, vice versa, would you discipline other people’s children?

I grew up in a very small [name]Mayberry[/name]-esque town in the '80s and '90s, and the general consensus was “At your house, they’re your kids”. The other parents had the exact same authority over us as our own parents, and you usually feared getting in trouble at other people’s houses more than your own because you knew that your parents would know what had happened, and would be waiting for you with their own punishment.

My husband grew up in a larger city, and only a certain couple of people were allowed to discipline him more than a “[name]Don[/name]'t do that.”

We haven’t had much of an issue with this yet, as [name]Brynn[/name] isn’t exactly old enough to be hanging out at other people’s houses, and we haven’t really used babysitters. But this question came up recently in a group of friends, and I realized that it’s probably something that we should start thinking about.

But because we grew up in such different manners, and times have changed quite a bit since we were kids, we aren’t sure how to approach it. What are your thoughts?

2

I would feel very uncomfortable with this, either way, unless it involved people very close to me who I could trust their parenting style to be similar to my own. We have a ways to go before he’s visiting other people’s homes without me or that we’d have other kids over here, but if he was at the neighbor kid’s house or something and they didn’t like how he was acting, I’d prefer they just call me to come pick him up than take matters into their own hands.

3

I agree with this.

Also, if it were a situation where I couldn’t just pick up the child (like if I’m at work and there’s a babysitter, or something), I would pick someone who is comfortable disciplining in exactly the way I would. I would leave detailed instructions on how to handle different situations. Not only do I not want anyone touching my child, I do not want to confuse my (young) child with different forms of discipline. Consistency is really important.

As far as me disciplining other people’s children, I’m really not comfortable with it. Not even family. If I couldn’t get the child to change behavior without discipline, I’d call the parent.

4

No one disciplines my kid apart from me and my husband without our permission, I won’t allow it. I made my family aware of our discipling methods the first time they wanted to babysit her when she reached an age appropriate enough to be disciplined. If they don’t follow these methods, I don’t allow her to be alone with them.

We have adapted to a gentle style of disciplining - No shouting, certainly no spanking, no intimidation. She gets two warnings. If she doesn’t stop, she gets something she loves taken away for 24 hours. If she still doesn’t stop, she goes on the “thinking chair” for 4 minutes to think about what she done. It works fabulously for us, but I appreciate the fact that it wouldn’t work for every child.

Luckily most of our families respect our wishes and [name]Amelie[/name] gets consistent discipline regardless of who is watching her, which I think can’t be undervalued. On the rare occasion they feel they can’t handle the situation, they are instructed to call me and I will deal with it myself.

Unfortunately, we can’t trust my husbands sister alone with her. On more than one occasion she has raised her hand to my daughter (she spanks her own kids) and shouts at her and I just simply won’t have it, so she isn’t allowed to sleepover there any more.

As for other peoples kids, such as my nephews and nieces, I go along with what their parents have directed me to do. My [name]SiL[/name] is the exception here though because neither me nor my DH will spank her kids (even though she told us to) so they rarely come to play at our house.

In regards to playdates with kids/families we don’t know too well, I absolutely would not discipline the child and I wouldn’t want my kid to be disciplined either. I’d call the parent if I couldn’t get the kid under control.

With close family, they know how we do things and are consistent and that is the sole reason I have no problem with both sets of grandparents, my sister and brother and my OH’s brother disciplining her.

If some random parent at the park or whatever shouted at my child or something, I’d probably lose it. In those types of situations its not appropriate at all, but with close family, who follow your methods, I think its okay.

5

I don’t have children, but I was a babysitter for a long time. Parents usually would tell me how they discipline their children. Most just had me put them in timeout for a few minutes or send them to their room. Also, if they were acting all crazy and not listening, as soon as I said, “I’m going to tell your mom/parents if you don’t stop right now” the kid would stop in their tracks. I’m sure that wouldn’t work in every situation, but it worked for me.

If you ever hire a babysitter or nanny, I think you should be very clear about how you want them to discipline your child. It made it so much easier for me when parents had discipline rules/guidelines already set up that I could just follow.

6

I would be comfortable leaving my close family/friends to discipline my children. Because if my child was misbehaving in an environment without me, they need to be told they can’t get away with it when I’m not there (There are going to be times where I’m not with my child and have to ask someone I trust to look after them). I don’t believe in smacking children and neither do my family, so when disciplining they would first tell them what they did wrong and if they continued to do it I would expect them to raise their voice (not shout) at them and put them on the naughty step/take away an item until they’ve apologized etc.
Plus, I wouldn’t leave my child with people I didn’t trust, and therefore they would always be with someone who could discipline them. And when a child has misbehaved at a friends house without me there, I wouldn’t expect them not to tell them off because they would never learn otherwise. As long as I was aware of the situation I wouldn’t mind.

[name]One[/name] thing that really does grind my gears though is seeing a parent not discipling a badly behaved child where your children are playing. For example this happened at my nieces first birthday party. My cousins little boy was misbehaving, pushing other children, throwing things and saying mean things to people and this was making other parents angry. BUT my cousin didn’t tell him off, she bribed him to be good and gave him chocolate. This obviously didn’t work as he continued to misbehave.
I think this was a sore subject to bring up because no one wanted to comment on parenting when the child’s parents were in the room, but technicall

7

You said what I was trying to say much more eloquently! I feel the same. I want her to know that there are consequences when she misbehaves regardless of who is looking after her. This is why I trust my family to discipline her and not call me to come and do it, unless its absolutely necessary.

8

I certainly wouldn’t scream at or hit someone else’s child, but I would “punish” them if they didn’t respond to repeated corrections.

I work with kids and if they misbehave they get sent to the end of the line, or are not allowed to play a game, or are separated from their friends, or don’t receive prizes/treats, or are sent to the next authority above me for a talking to (which also separates them from activities/friends), etc.

In all my 15 years I’ve never had a parent complain. I have had kids get upset (whether it be angry, sad or a mixture of both), but I’ve never felt that a situation got out of my control. If we called a parent every time a kid got a bit rowdy or rude and didn’t immediately respond to correction we’d never get anything done.

I find that for the worst behaved kids usually a serious, quiet, discussion away from the other kids where you explain that their behavior is not acceptable and clearly define the consequences and expectations will make them shape up and respect their teacher.

With the worst of the worst (I’ve had maybe 2 or 3 in 15 years)–those who don’t make eye contact or are very aggressive, those with clear emotional baggage and belligerent attitudes–they usually don’t stick around very long because that sort of attitude really isn’t conducive to having friends or having fun. My hat is off to teachers who have to deal with those kids day in and day out. They are generally very sad kids.

I work with kids from about 7 to 11, so some of these things change with very small kids who aren’t able to understand consequences and expectations in a clear way or with teenagers who don’t give a flying crap.

9

Quite simply when children visit your house it is up to you to tell them the house rules. For example, no jumping on beds or furniture, no hands on the wall, don’t crawl into the dog’s kennel, be careful with the toys, share the food and toys happily.

I had a feral kid at my house once who walked over my travertine coffee table jumped off at the end climbed onto his mother who was sitting on the lounge and then proceeded to walk along the back of the lounge. I was gobsmacked as my children not for a minute would contemplate such behaviour, so I said nothing. However, it prepared me for the future and I vowed not to be so demure with other people’s kids from then on and so I believe you need to be outspoken with them and not put up with destructive behaviour.

Once a man brought his two angelic girls to my place and introduced them as ‘SEARCH and DESTROY’ I laughed but he wasn’t wrong and I vowed never to have those children in my home again.

So speak up and protect your home. Naturally this would be done in a polite, disciplined but firm manner and definitely no man handling or hitting unless there was an extreme emergency like one kid trying to push another over the balcony.

10

I don’t have children yet but I do babysit my fiance’s younger siblings (ranging from 14-3). The older two (14 & 12) don’t need much discipline and when they do its a simple “go to your room for a bit until you’ve calmed down and we can reason with you.”
The next set (9 & 7) need more discipline. They get time out if they’re being rude and if they seem to not be able to control their bodies/energy (climbing banisters, running up and down stairs, etc.) after being told they can go outside and use up the energy they’re given a physical punishment. This usually comes in the form of push ups or burpies and once or twice running a few laps around the house. Physical punishments also come when time out or taking things away don’t work.
The girls (5 & 3) need the most. They like to ignore you so time outs are enforced by having to sit next to one of us so we can make sure she doesn’t act up. After time out we remind her what got her in time out. If the behavior persists she will get things taken away. If she still chooses to misbehave we do one of two things: if it’s rude behaviorthen she has to sit on her bed until their parents get home. If she’s being physical with someone else she will be spanked once on the butt. Not hard enough to leave a mark but hard enough to prove that she really is in trouble.
The youngest gives us extra problems because she’ll spend the first 10-15 min their parents are gone beating her head against the door screaming that she wants them to come home. So that ends in one of us trying to calm her down while the other watches the other kids.

I personally would let family members who are okay with disciplining the same way I do discipline my children. And I would discipline a child left in my care the same way I discipline my child as long as I had their parents consent. If my discipline didn’t work I would call and have the child picked up, no if’s and’s or but’s.
Sorry for the book but I figured I’d share the strategies for each set of children since they are a little different.

11

I do agree with telling children visiting your home what you expect of them, but I wouldn’t feel right punishing someone else’s children. I don’t know them and I feel like the reasons a child is doing certain things matters. For instance, mustard has always made me very sick to my stomach. My stepmom made macaroni and cheese with mustard mixed in. Since I expected it to be yellow anyway I didn’t realize that was in there until I tasted it and when I tried to explain to her that if I kept eating it I’d throw up (probably not very eloquently, being a child) I got in trouble for being difficult. I’m sure to her it just seemed like I was being picky or bratty when really I was just trying to avoid getting sick.

12

Not a parent, but with all the kids I’ve babysat if they were badly misbehaving I put them in time out for the amount of minutes that they are years old (5min for a 5y/o ect.) and then had them apologize to the person they wronged. I would not let a child misbehave without atleast talking to them about it. Children should not be allowed to get away with misbehaving even if the parents are not around. I will not spank someone else’s child though unless they have told me to do so, but most parents should not have an issue with kids being put in time out.

13

I grew up with hippies who never “disciplined” their kids. They thought that telling them no would somehow traumatize their fragile egos and potential creativity. Yet it was a very tight knit community of sorts, so kids were always at my house or vice versa. My mom was the lone parent who would sit a kid down and explain to them sternly why hitting was wrong, etc. I actually remember one of my mom’s friends storming out of a birthday party of mine after my mom yelled at her son for punching a little girl and making her fall into the pool. Sometimes it’s necessary to at least talk to someone else’s child if the parent refuses to do anything about their child’s bad behavior. I would trust my close friends to discipline [name]Rowan[/name], but not total strangers of course.

14

I have a vivid memory of riding in a car with one of my friend’s mothers, I was about 6 and my friend and I had just gotten [name]Lisa[/name] [name]Frank[/name] sticker books and I stuck a sticker on the car window. Her mom flipped out on me and put me in time out when we got to the house, even at 6 I remember thinking she went a little overboard. I didn’t do it maliciously, my mom just drove a piece of junk car and I was used to being able to put stickers all over it. Haha.

15

When I was about 11 my dad had a good friend [name]Tim[/name]. He acted a lot like my dad but one thing that was different in his house was punishments. He never yelled, never backed his daughters into a corner. At my house punishments began with yelling and being cornered so you can’t move (think drill sargent) and only after the fact was normal reasoning/logic applied.
However when his oldest daughter and I forgot to put up our toys before we went to bed I remember waking up the next morning and going to get breakfast and he told us we could eat once the toys were cleaned up. That’s one thing I’ll always remember about him even though I don’t see him any more, that calm and collected voice. I wish I could seem that calm when I have my own children.

16

Coming from a large family my brother and I were used to getting different perimeters at different houses. My nanna and aunt expect us to sit and watch movies quitely all day which my younger brother always rebel against (he was way too busy for most people.) I don’t ever really remember getting in trouble at friends homes or at any of my relatives; but I think that’s just because I recognised boundaries and was respectful. I would expect my own kids to adhere to the rules of the house they were visiting, unless of course it was something that could be dangerous. My Dad hated swearing and disrespecting animals or house rules when I was little, he was never afraid to tell teenagers off for swearing around in the local supermarket. He would also would react badly if kids climbed on the furniture, drag chairs across our wood floors (on purpose), hit our dog etc. My Mum has never let my cousins get away with things that myself, brother and Dad adhere to as a house rule. But as I said I don’t think other people should need to discipline your children if you set clear perimeters early, however, I respect that people you trust should have the authority to - if need be. Especially if the parent is present and too lazy to deal (which drives me nuts) or when they are in the relatives car.

You also have to consider how you respond to people who make comments about your child’s behaviour or tell them of in a store. My little cousin [name]Ezekiel[/name] was standing on the scales at the local pharmacy a few weeks ago, when one of the pharmacist (completely unprovoked) announced, “You are a little smart a**, aren’t you?” Baffled my cousin asked her what she’d said and told her it wasn’t apprioprate as he hadn’t even done anything. So wrong!

17

I think the definition of “discipline” matters a lot here. For example, I can’t imagine getting too upset if someone told my child to “please use your inside voice” or to “wait your turn” or to “be gentle.” Verbal correction (NOT yelling or scolding, just corrective commentary) doesn’t strike me as stepping over the line. Also, I feel like teachers and babysitters and all kinds of other adults who might be temporarily in charge are going to need to correct/redirect kids verbally, so I would want my child to respect that sort of thing. I also don’t think I’d mind if the same type of adult used minor penalties for repeated misbehavior (like losing turn in a game or having to sit next to an adult in a chair for a few minutes before rejoining play). I suppose I’m also thinking that I wouldn’t leave my child with an adult I didn’t trust to be reasonable. I would absolutely not be comfortable with anyone shouting at or spanking my child, because those aren’t things I would do myself. If something serious happened, I would want to be contacted and I would want them to have my child sit somewhere safe and supervised until I got there to deal with it myself.

18

Not a parent, but I’ve worked with kids between 7 and 10 for a few years. Usually punishments involve being sent to the back of the line or being made to wait if they’re trying to be first or pushing in line. Only once have I seriously told a kid off, and that was for lying to me repeatedly (and I caught her out). She got a telling off in front of all the others. No shouting, just a stern ‘I’m disappointed in you, never lie to me again’ and I think the fact it was in front of her friends made more of an impact than it would have if I’d just taken her to one side. Needless to say, she didn’t lie to me again.

19

Yes, this.

20

Totally agree with this. I feel the same way about people placing their ‘ideals’ on others children. Consistency is key. And respecting individual parenting styles even if they differ from your own.

I still feel scarred from childhood when a babysitter spanked me for climbing over the back of a sofa. My parents never hit me so it completely took me by surprise and left a bad taste in my mouth to this day.
I think communicating clearly before leaving the child with anyone is a great way to avoid mishaps. - And future anxiety for the child.