Back when I was growing up in a tight knit community in Queens, New York, we kids took it for granted that any adult we knew might feel free to discipline us for bad behavior. Today, parents aren’t quite so sure. We wonder if we have a right to discipline someone else’s child, even if that child is getting away with something that we would never in a million years allow our own children to do. We often ignore the bad behavior in someone else’s child, leaving our own kids bewildered.
I think there may be two big reasons that there is a change in the sort of collaborative parenting that went on when I was growing up. Often, we don’t know the children and families in our neighborhood, even when our own children are friends with them. Not only do we not understand where the bad behavior might be coming from (a repeat offender versus a child having a bad day), but we don’t know the parents and how they might react to us giving out discipline. The other reason, is that there is more of a sense of it being nobody’s business but the parents as to what a kid does or doesn’t do.
Here is the general rule that I follow. If I am actively baby sitting someone else’s children, I will make sure to ask what they would like me to do when bad behavior occurs: give a time out, remove a privilege, call the parents?
If a child has wandered over into my care (such as neighborhood friends visiting), I generally apply the same rules that I have for my own kids (pick up when you are done playing, no shoes in the house, wear a helmet when on a bike or scooter, wash hands before your snack, etc.) If a child doesn’t want to follow the rule, then they must go play elsewhere, not get a snack, etc. In the case of dangerous behavior, such as running into the street or hitting, I will step in to stop the dangerous behavior, explain to the child what is acceptable and then talk to the parents.
How do you handle this situation?
You can read more blog posts by Mary Ann Romans here!
Related Articles:
How Breastfeeding Makes Mothering Easier