question for parents

[KellyHabersham]

(although non-parents are definitely welcome to share advice or suggestions. )

To briefly describe the situation, my daughter is one of those kids who sometimes gets sassy/show-offy when she has friends around. I'm not sure Heather actively realizes she does this, but it doesn't always make for a fun experience when she has someone spend the night. I've also had to occasionally get after her about doing things like throwing stuff at my bedroom door, and not respecting privacy (long story short, I can't completely close my bedroom window blinds)

And while I realize that some of this may be just normal kid stuff, it's tough to explain to Heather why my mom and I don't always enjoy letting her have a friend spend the night. (unfortunately, Heather inherited some of her father's issues with self-control, which is something I'm trying to work with her on)

[RecoveringKinkoid]

My five year old has never done this to me (yet) but I broke a grown ass man (an extremely immature thirty year old friend) of doing it by embarrassing the living hell out of him in front of the person he was trying to "impress".

Children (and evidently grown ass thirty year old man-children) do this to show their friends how cool they are. Illustrate that they are not by demanding an apology of them in front of their little friends. Eventually, the kid (regardless of age) will get sick of looking like a whipped little bitch and stop doing whatever it is they think is going to make them look cool.

It works on kids. I used to try this shit on my parents for a very short time when I was little. I remember very well getting sick of looking like a whipped little bitch.

[Treasure]

"when in doubt, call her out".... no seriously, if she starts acting like that when a friend is over, look at the friend, and say, "Jenny, I'm sorry, I hate to do this, but it looks like Heather has forgotten how to behave like a civilized individual, do you want to call your mother and have her come pick you up, or would you prefer I take you home?"

Heather will storm off and pout, probably screaming that she hates you, and you only want to ruin her life, and slam the bedroom door - DONT let her know it bothers you....

keep "Jenny" out in the living room or kitchen with you for a couple of minutes - to let Heather calm down enough that Jenny won't get the brunt of her anger, and take that time to explain that you feel like Heather is attempting to "show off" for the friend - and that you will gladly explain to Jenny's mom what the problem is, etc etc....

You may find that Jenny confides in you that she thinks Heather is posturing as well and may even offer to talk to Heather - if after 5 mins the girls don't reappear (heather looking sheepish, and making muttering an apology) go stand outside Heather's bedroom door; listen for a moment to see if Jenny is actually having an affect on Heather, or if both girls are now badmouthing you - don't get caught up in what they're saying, just listen long enough to get a general feel for the conversation - you at this point have the option of "letting it go, the threat was enough" or... knocking on the door and following through, or, knocking on the door, and "forcing" the apology from Heather, and if she doesn't make it, then taking Jenny home...

Though I will caution, that you probably should, at least the first time, actually follow through with taking Jenny home, b/c Heather needs to know that you mean business, and aren't just making empty threats - she'll learn to manipulate you and you'll be stuck in a cycle of :showing off, threat of friend leaving, calming down, you backing down, and then she starts getting "bratty" again that evening

so next time she wants a friend to stay the night, lay out what kind of behavior is expected of both of them, and what behavior is not acceptable; inform her that if she behaves badly then the friend will be going home, and not staying the night....

then follow through...

then the 2nd time(or later, see how many times it takes you taking her friend home) a reminder of behaviors - and maybe they get a "warning" of the friend leaving, "heather do you want me to have to take Jenny home? then I suggest you (change behavior X)" etc etc - slowly relax things.

Also, you may choose to let her have Jenny stay Friday night, but then she (or they) get out of hand, you take Jenny home, and put Heather on "probation" if she can behave on Sat. and do whatever household chores she's assigned, then on Sunday afternoon Jenny can come over, but she's going home by 8pm

and get the other mom's to help you - let them know what's going on, that you're having trouble with Heather, and that you enjoy having their daughter over but that your's doesn't know how to handle herself when she has friends over - and don't be afraid to let Heather stay the night at friends houses' and let the mom's know that if she's unruly they are more than welcome to call you, and you'll come pick her up...

Don't let her have a friend stay over every weekend - start off once a month, then maybe 2x a month but not back to back, and then every other weekend but alternate friday nights and saturday nights ( week 1 - Friday night, week 2 - no guest, week 3-Saturday night; etc)


I was no angel, but i wasn't too bad a kid either - though i did have my moods; and this is more or less what my mom and many of my friends mom's pulled with us - it worked, cause we never wanted to have to pack up and go home.

Good Luck!

[ArcticChicken]

What everyone else has said seems like good advice.

I would also straight up tell Heather that the reason you don't like her having friends over is that she acts like a brat when they're there. If you're going to do the 'send friends home when Heather starts acting up' thing, I would let her know about this change in policy ahead of time, else it's likely to cause more anger than is necessary.

[KellyHabersham]

Just to get into what inspired this thread - Heather mentioned on Facebook last night about wanting to have one of her friends spend the night this week, and it did not work out very well the last time this friend stayed over. And while I hate to be the kind of parent who never lets their kid do anything, I'm not feeling this should happen because Heather (for now, anyway) seems to have a hard time following rules.

[Seshat]

Just posting this to second Treasure's advice. I don't have a thing to add.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

Man. I know that exactly. Guys have the same thing too-- wanting to impress their friends.
I had a bit of this going on when I was younger. I would act stupid, foolish, or annoying to impress someone, and realized eventually that it was only making me look stupid. Thankfully this was by mid-high school, but it had been going on since I was about six or seven. Realizing that people scoffed at me or that I looked stupid made me cut it out; also, questioning the very nature of 'cool' and 'awesome' helped a lot too.

I was a strange, introspective, intuitive child.
Anyway. For Heather, I'd point out the behavior, and ask her to question herself about the behavior-- why does she do "x", when clearly it's not productive in the least/harmful on some level/annoys the crap out of everyone; why does she feel she needs to impress her friends (if that's why she claims she's doing it); isn't there some other way to accomplish such things without pissing others off?
I am not a parent, but appealing to logic and self-exploration makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
I hope these tactics work on my as-of-yet undiscovered/unmade spawn. :\

[Bright_Star]

It's simple, really. Inform her that she will NOT be allowed to have friends over until her behavior changes. Either that or embarrass her in front of her friends. That will make her change her tune real quick.
When I was that age, I knew better than to even think about pulling that kind of stunt. My parents wouldn't have thought twice about putting me in my place.

[KellyHabersham]

1)
A couple of questions I do have though - could it be that Heather feeds off of this friend so that her behaviour goes down the tubes? Does she get like this with any of her other friends?

.

My answer to the first question would be "no" - this particular friend had been over briefly before, and I don't recall that there were any major issues. (Heather does/did have one friend whom I had concerns about her feeding off of, but they haven't been hanging out lately)

For the second question - sometimes she's gotten like this around other friends, but it's not been a regular thing.