What Now?
My wife and I try so hard to set a good example for our girls. The biggest compliment any parent can get from other people is "your children are so well behaved" or "your child is so caring" or "We just love your child, she is very nice". It's amazing how all of our efforts and hard work can be tossed aside like an AC/DC record at a disco party. Who would dare undermine our efforts to raise the world's perfect children....THEIR FRIENDS!
Yes, like Lex Luther is to Superman....your kids friends are constantly looking for ways to turn your sweet, lovable child into a super villain with the power to whine, pout and throw temper tantrums that shake the foundations to the ground.
Don't take this comment the wrong way, I like my kids' friends. If I didn't I would do everything in my power not to let them see each other. It's just they seem to get away with behavior that they shouldn't, and it's rubbing off on my kids, and it drives me fucking crazy. When I see their friends act like this I have to do everything in my power not to let them have it. It makes things really hard when my girls copy this behavior, because I don't hold it back for them and they get all my rage that is pent up.
The biggest problem I have with it is that my kids know better. They don't act like that until they spend some time with these friends, then they transform into their friends, right before my eyes.
The good news is the friends I speak of go to a different school, so in a month when my children restart their educational journey the time they spend with the "bad influence" will be limited. Of course, my problem increases by 100% when they encounter all those other kids at school. If only other parents were as perfect as us, in the fantasy land we live in anyway.
PEACE OUT DADS!
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Yes, this is one of the perrenial problems of parenthood. That is why we have the saying, "If so and so jumped off the bridge, would you do that, too?"
ReplyDeleteI think every kid has a friend that parents would want to put on train to nowhere and hoped the friend stayed there. I think an eternal question will always be Why do peers have such an influence on our children.
But, you seem to be handling it well, letting your girls know that you will only tolerate certain behavior. We can only do what we can do.
Your last line? Well, it's too funny and too true.