Advice about friendship

[michelle4293]

Hi all,

I've got a dilemma I need some help with -

I've got a good friend who has a little boy the same age as mine, who I met about a year ago through a slimming group. We got on really well and became quite close - we were also "gym" buddies!

However, when we decided to get our boys together, things have gone a bit wrong. I usually get on really well with kids but I've taken an instant dislike to her son - and I more I see him the worse I feel. I feel really bad about my dislike for him - I don't really understand why I feel so strongly - but its not just him, it his behaviour, and I don't want my little boy around a child that behave so badly (and spoilt) as him.

I've tried to get our friendship back to what it was before, but my friend only seems to want to get together with the boys - we don't go to the gym anymore, and we rarely do anything together anymore. I don't want to lose the friendship but I really don't want our kids mixing!

You'll probaly think I'm awful, but I don't know what to do!!! It's not as if I can tell her that I don't like her son!

Please help!!

M

[Siobhan]

Michelle, I know exactly what you mean. My daughter best mate's behaviour is really bad.. the names she calls her mother and the way she acts it appaling.. yet her mother rewards her (for example, she got a DS of Santa, the child is 5 years old). My daughter now thinks if she is the same with me, that I will reward her too. I like the girl's mother (she owns the creche my kids go to) but I don't want my daughter to be around this girl much (I have no choice, they are in the same class)

Like you, I don't know what to do either. I like the mother, we get on well but I can't have my daughter behaving that way..

[michelle4293]

Thank god! I was starting to think i was an awful person!! The problem is, I can't address the problem with my friend because other than upsetting her, it would be like questioning her parenting skills - and I know I'd be horrified if someone did the same to me!!

I've been mulling this over for a couple of months and I'm no nearer to solving it - and I'm sure my friend is starting to get offended that I keep avoiding seeing her with her son!

M

[Jojo]

I had the same problem - my friends little boy even bit my son, leaving a huge mark and bruise on Ci's arm. Unfortunately, for the sake of my son, because this friend would only get together with the children, and not without, I ended up cutting ties with her. Ci was starting to be afraid of playing with other children, thinking that they would hit/bite him like this other lad did and I couldn't put him through thinking that all children were like that.

The other downside I discovered with this, was the sudden rumour mongering that resulted from it - my "friend" decided to spin a lot of yarns around the town I live in, saying that it was my lad that had been the bad party etc and I ended up having a lot of parents no longer talking to me, which I felt was ridiculous. However, now he has started school, these same parents have realised that it wasn't Ci that did the things that he supposedly had. (You wouldn't have thought we were the ages we are!)

I'm not sure what to suggest I'm afraid guys, but thats my story. I've realised that my true friends are the ones that stuck by me with all of this happening, and whilst I don't have that many, I would rather have "real" friends, than ones that treat me the way they did.

I agree its very difficult - I would feel the same Michelle, if someone questioned the way I was raising my sons, I would be horrified aswell.

Sorry I haven't really been much help

[Trinity]

I think that you are better not to expose your children to influences that you feel are unsuitable. End of. If your friend cannot see you without the children being present that is sad, but your kids come first.