advice: other people's children?

[metaphortunate]

Internets, I come to you for advice.

In my previous incarnation as a much more attractive person who had no children, I didn't come into contact with a lot of kids. And when I did, in retrospect, I realize, I kind of interacted with them on their own level. I didn't do much dealing with them as an authority figure. I set boundaries more in the way that kids set boundaries with each other: rather than as parents do, with rules.

Now that I have kids, I have rules. No spitting in the house, spitting is only for outside. Use your inside voice inside, outside voice is for outside. You may only throw things if they are squishy. You can climb into the baby's crib but not stand in it because it is not stable enough. You can poke Mama gently but not hard. You must be gentle with the baby. If food lands on the floor, your meal is over. You must ask before picking up my phone. That sort of thing.

So that's easy enough to do with my child - relatively speaking, I mean. Mr. E and I decide what the rules are, and the Junebug decides whether he would rather follow them or take the consequences, and we decide what the consequences are and enforce them.

But then there are other people's kids. Other people's kids come over to our house or whatever, and now there are questions. Do they have to follow our rules? If they don't have to follow our rules, why does the Junebug have to? Especially if it's rules about not grabbing toys or hats from each other/taking turns/not hitting: I want to enforce good manners from my child, but I really do not want to teach him that I will enforce rules about respect on him but not on anyone else. If other kids have to follow our rules, do I enforce consequences if they choose not to? Their parents will have Opinions about that. If I had infinite time to discuss with the parents in advance, I'm sure we could come to reasonable agreements, because my friends are all reasonable people: but we don't, and consequences need to happen in real time for kids to take them onboard.

And how do I back up other parents' consequences? If a kid does something to me or my stuff that their parent has told them not to do, how do I reaffirm that it's bad and I don't like it without implying that their kid is bad or that their parenting is bad?

Internets, how do you deal with other people's kids, when you're not in an official position of authority over them? (Nannying is different, I expect.)

This question brought to you by the frequent interaction of:

Junebug: *grabs at someone on the bus, or at their phone*
Me: Stop. Do not grab at the people. They do not want to be grabbed.
Stranger: Oh, it's okay, it's fine.
Stranger: *wants to make me feel better about my ill-mannered child*
Junebug: *learns that Mama is making up rules for no reason*
Me: *is frustrated*

Comments

[phi]

I don't have kids of my own, but I do interact with other people's kids at church, both formally (as a sunday school teacher) and informally (as a grownup sitting in the choir stalls behind the row of children's choir members). I don't hesitate to enforce reasonable behavior in either context, although I guess the informal one is more relevant to your question. I'll ask kids to change seats if they're fighting with each other; if a stray child from the pews runs up on the altar or worse, starts banging on the piano or drums I'll lead them away (or pick them up if they're small enough and consent to being picked up); I'll provide crayons and paper for bored-but-trying-to-behave kids. Sometimes parents will get really embarrassed that someone else noticed and corrected their kid's bad behavior, which is kind of awkward, but not actually my problem; sometimes they'll thank me; only once has someone given me grief for it, but I pretty firmly believe that it's okay to treat children like any other human being and enforce boundaries for your own comfort and safety with them, especially if they are out in public and their parent isn't doing anything about their behavior.

[princessofgeeks]

Yes, this.