Reply to VENT - parents w/o SN kids

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They don't approve for their child or for your child? It kind of makes a difference if they are complaining about you or just mentioning their own preference for parenting.[/quote]

There's a difference between stating your own preferences *for your own kids* and making broad proclamations about how you are "supposed" to parent. OP is talking about the latter.

With parent friends, you have two broad approaches to parenting differences (whether they involve SN kids or not). There's (1) limiting your circle of family friends to people who parent like you, and (2) learning to be tolerant and open-minded about how other people parent.

You can also combine these in moderation. For instance, there are some parenting approaches I just don't want to be around. I wouldn't befriend a family that spanked, for instance, or a family with a a very "children should be seen and no heard" approach. But beyond that, I try to take the approach that families are different, have different needs, and need to figure out what works for them. I don't assume that what works for us will work for others, and I don't give unsolicited parenting advice or present myself as a parenting expert even if the subject is something that works well in our family. That might just mean we got lucky that the way we chose to handle it worked for our kid, or that the conventional wisdom on that issue happened to suit our child's temperament. There are other areas in which we have struggled even trying different approaches, and where our kid was miserable with the conventional approach. Every family is different.[/quote]

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