While waiting at the doctor's office I read an article in Family Circle magazine about the fact that society has "changed" regarding parents disciplining (or "correcting") other people's children. Apparently it is not politically correct to discipline someone else's children.
What do you think about this? Or, what do you do when you have another child at your house or on an outing with you?
When I lived in Kansas we had many children on our street. At any given time there were kids and parents outside. And these parents became my friends and my kids played with their kids. None of us ever really talked about it up front, but if a child needed disciplined, we took it upon ourselves to do so if the parent of the child was not in the near vicinity or aware of the situation. Most of the time the discipline was because of safety issues. And we never touched each other's children (i.e. spanked).
Even though we don't have a lot of kids to our house now (not many in the neighborhood), when one of my kids has a friend over I expect that child to abide by my house rules. If I expect my kids to follow my rules, why not their friends? My son had a friend over a while back who said "crap" on a very regular basis. I don't allow my kids to say this, so I corrected this boy. I was nice: I simply told him I do not allow that word to be used in my house (unless you are an adult, which I did not tell him). He told me, "My mom let's me say that." I told him that was fine if he's with his mom, but he was at my house and he was not to say that word. He apologized and did not say that word (at least not within ear-shot) the rest of the day. See, no major problems.
And when my kids are at their friend's house, I expect them to follow the rules at that friend's house. And I expect them to use their manners and respect the parents. Is that so much to ask?
What are your thoughts/experiences with this?
