We are excited to have Melissa from CloudMom guest posting. If ever there was a sensible mom, she is it! You can find her in all of the usual places: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Get to know her. You’ll be glad you did!
-Ellen and Erin
I’m Melissa from CloudMom and I’m thrilled to be guest posting about a topic that hits close to a lot of parents’ homes-–how to go about disciplining a child who isn’t yours. Enforcing rules and teaching manners to kids, especially if they aren’t your own, are sensitive areas for many families. Your first instinct when in the presence of a badly-behaved playmate might be to shoot off an angry text to their parents after sending the kid to timeout, but I promise you it doesn’t have to come to that. There are other ways to get your message across without offending your child’s friend or her parents. Here are some parenting strategies I’ve learned over the years for how you can enforce the rules and encourage positive discipline, guaranteeing a fun time for all!
1. Make Your Presence Known: Chances are you’ll be dealing with a mean child or a playmate with an attitude problem somewhere along the road and you’ll want to take immediate action. But in my experience, just letting the other child know that you’re keeping an eye on them can help stop aggressive behavior. If the situation does escalate, here are some more tips!
2. Be Gentle But Stern: Your first instinct when a kid is pushing your child around or refusing to share the toys might be to lash out, but this can scare them and put both the child and his parents on the defensive-–a lose-lose situation. Addressing the child calmly and sternly with a reasonable “Please don’t push people, it is dangerous and someone could get hurt” gives them a warning without the need to be overly aggressive.
3. Give Both Children an Alternative: Let’s say you have a rule against toys being thrown around the house. If your child’s friend is tossing a ball around and you’re not stepping in, this gives your child a completely mixed signal. Instead of ignoring the problem and having your child think that the rules apply only to them, offer both children an alternative. Let them know about the dangers and let them know they could instead roll the ball, choose a different, quieter game, or bring the ball outside for a safe game of catch. This gives your child and her friend safer options and saves your china cabinet from flying toys!
4. Separate the Children: If the situation does get worse, letting the children play in separate rooms for a while can help. Maybe the child is just having a bad day and needs some alone time to calm down. I’ve learned over the years that my children’s friends really just want to please and win my approval. Talking to them at eye level and treating them with respect after getting them alone lets them know they are being treated fairly. In that case, you’ll almost always get them to cooperate with you.
5. Let Their Parents Know: At the end of the play date, let their parents know about any issues you had involving their child and make sure they understand the rules of your house. That way, they’ll know if they need to discipline their child at home and the two of you can agree on any consequences in advance during any future get-togethers. Remember, all families have different ways of disciplining their children so it’s best to be clear when explaining your expectations and setting boundaries.
6. Focus on the positive: After their friend and her parents have left, have some one-on-one time to talk to your child and go over how the play date went. Let them know that you really appreciated the times she played fairly or shared her toys. This is a great way to enforce positive behavior in your child and can save you a lot of worrying next time she has a get-together with her friends!
I hope these tips will help you survive your child’s next play date! And for more on disciplining your children in general, check out my parenting site here!
Melissa Lawrence, co-founder of CloudMom, lives in New York City with her husband and 5 young children. With more than a few parenting tricks up her sleeve, Melissa posts how-to-videos and blogs for parents on a range of issues including baby, toddler, kids, fashion, travel, and well-being.
Follow Melissa’s latest activity by clicking the links below!
You can follow us on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Check out our books, “I Just Want to Be Alone” and “You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth.”
This is always such tricky business! Thanks for the how-to, Melissa!
Meredith recently posted..Coloring in the Calm
Honestly, so appreciate any and all help on this, because I agree with Meredith that this isn’t always a clearcut topic to have to deal with, but you made it doable to deal with head on. Thanks!
Janine Huldie recently posted..Tired of Hearing, “Actually I Can’t”!