Adult friendships ruined by parenting and child behavior

[Anonymous]

I have a strong group of friends that I’ve known for about a decade. We all had babies together and bonded while having our second and third children. Since we are such good friends, we often get along with our friends’ friends and this friend circle just grew over the years.

Recently my friend’s child hurt my child. It was not an accident and that is what I found troubling. Instead of correcting her child for hurting my child, my friend became very defensive and started attacking my parenting style. The whole scene was so bizarre. The worst was that the mom seemed not to even believe that her child would be capable of doing the act. I feel more upset at my friend’s handling of the situation than the act itself, which was already pretty bad. I prefer not to post details to be anonymous.

Do you think our friendship can survive?

I care much more about the other friendships and less about this single friendship.

Has anyone been in a similar situation where there are strong adult friendships that get ruined by kids?

Problem is the kids brought us together. We hang out with the entire family. These are family friends so it is unlikely I can just hang out with adults and maintain adult friendship only.

[Anonymous]

I would try talking with her one on one. You don't say how old the kids are or what the injury is. If her 2 yr old threw something and it hit your child in the face, let it go. If her 8 yr old purposefully pushed your 2 yr old off the rungs of a jungle gym that's a different story.

[Anonymous]

This happens to all of us, OP. At some point, parenting differences, or flawed personalities brought to light by parenting mistakes, makes us rethink friendships.

You can still be courteous in group gatherings, but you don't need to see each other individually.

[Anonymous]

She got very defensive because she felt very defensive, knew her DC had behaved badly. A bad reaction to a bad event is not a reason to drop the friendship. No one is perfect.

[Anonymous]

Happened to me. More than once. Stand by your child.

Fade out from the friendships if you have to -- to prevent your child from being hurt again.

Try to get together with the other moms and kids if possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would try talking with her one on one. You don't say how old the kids are or what the injury is. If her 2 yr old threw something and it hit your child in the face, let it go. If her 8 yr old purposefully pushed your 2 yr old off the rungs of a jungle gym that's a different story.

The ages are more the latter. Her child is older and my child is younger. Her oldest child hurt my youngest child and your example is not so far off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This happens to all of us, OP. At some point, parenting differences, or flawed personalities brought to light by parenting mistakes, makes us rethink friendships.

You can still be courteous in group gatherings, but you don't need to see each other individually.

This is a good idea.

Would you still invite friend to group gatherings? It will be very obvious if we don’t invite their family.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t drop the whole friend crew, but if the group is as big as you say, you can probably avoid most direct 1-1 interactions (eg not sit next to each other etc).

Unless you really valued this particular friendship (sounds like you don’t) I would not bother with a 1-1 heart to heart. She sounds dug in.

[Anonymous]

She probably knows her child has problems with aggression, but doesn't want to talk about it with you. Which means you're not real friends (which you know), which means you have no obligation to spend time with her if you find this to be a dealbreaker. But if it's going to cause some kind of rift in your friendship circle, then probably easier to just talk it through and say that you can't let her son push your toddler or whatever.

I also see a lot of projecting in what you wrote. Just because you didn't see her reacting the way you thought she should doesn't mean she's not aware of and addressing discipline issues with her child, and it doesn't mean she doesn't think he is "capable" of doing it.

[Anonymous]

Yes you still invite their family if they’re part of the group - unless you want to cause drama.

Not to excuse whatever happened, but many 8-9 year olds
are still working on impulse control. So unless it was really egregious or caused permanent injury, I would just play nice/ polite with them to keep the peace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes you still invite their family if they’re part of the group - unless you want to cause drama.

Not to excuse whatever happened, but many 8-9 year olds
are still working on impulse control. So unless it was really egregious or caused permanent injury, I would just play nice/ polite with them to keep the peace.

Right. I actually did end a close friendship over parenting/child behavioral issues, but it was because I knew that my child and the other child just could not be in the same room together based on repeated interactions. If this was just a one-time incident, it's hard to see why OP is reacting so strongly. What I suspect is that she never really liked "this mom," and this incident just brought it to a head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes you still invite their family if they’re part of the group - unless you want to cause drama.

Not to excuse whatever happened, but many 8-9 year olds
are still working on impulse control. So unless it was really egregious or caused permanent injury, I would just play nice/ polite with them to keep the peace.

Right. I actually did end a close friendship over parenting/child behavioral issues, but it was because I knew that my child and the other child just could not be in the same room together based on repeated interactions. If this was just a one-time incident, it's hard to see why OP is reacting so strongly. What I suspect is that she never really liked "this mom," and this incident just brought it to a head.

No, I love this mom. I consider her to be one of my closest friends. I think I’m still very upset about the whole incident.

As much as I love the mom, I love my child more. And this was not a first offense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She probably knows her child has problems with aggression, but doesn't want to talk about it with you. Which means you're not real friends (which you know), which means you have no obligation to spend time with her if you find this to be a dealbreaker. But if it's going to cause some kind of rift in your friendship circle, then probably easier to just talk it through and say that you can't let her son push your toddler or whatever.

I also see a lot of projecting in what you wrote. Just because you didn't see her reacting the way you thought she should doesn't mean she's not aware of and addressing discipline issues with her child, and it doesn't mean she doesn't think he is "capable" of doing it.

This is the thing. She has shared very personal traumatic things about her past and family. We are very close friends.

My friend said she has never heard of her child doing an act like this so she doesn’t believe child did it.

DH said to me that they know the child but she was probably reacted poorly in the moment. I was so fumed when we got home. I’m still upset. I obviously care about friendship or else I wouldn’t be this upset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She probably knows her child has problems with aggression, but doesn't want to talk about it with you. Which means you're not real friends (which you know), which means you have no obligation to spend time with her if you find this to be a dealbreaker. But if it's going to cause some kind of rift in your friendship circle, then probably easier to just talk it through and say that you can't let her son push your toddler or whatever.

I also see a lot of projecting in what you wrote. Just because you didn't see her reacting the way you thought she should doesn't mean she's not aware of and addressing discipline issues with her child, and it doesn't mean she doesn't think he is "capable" of doing it.

This is the thing. She has shared very personal traumatic things about her past and family. We are very close friends.

My friend said she has never heard of her child doing an act like this so she doesn’t believe child did it.

DH said to me that they know the child but she was probably reacted poorly in the moment. I was so fumed when we got home. I’m still upset. I obviously care about friendship or else I wouldn’t be this upset.

I mean, if you claim she's such a close friend, then you talk it out. It's hard to tell if you're over-reacting or not to the incident. If you need to set up ground rules about how her child interacts with your child, do that. But it sounds like this is more about her reaction, than what actually happened to her child? When I ended a friendship over child behavior it was pretty much mutual, in that we knew the kids could not be together, and that our friendship really wasn't feasible on that basis. It sounds like something different is going on in your case.

[Anonymous]

Your young toddler or preschooler will need to be directly supervised by you or your husband anytime her oldest child is present.

How do your older children feel about playing with this child?