Can You Be Friends W/ People but Not like Their Kids?

Not really. I have been friends with people and not liked their kids but over time I get a healthy dose of the part of their personality that makes their kids unlikable.

What I mean is I can't stand over indulged kids. Ya know, the look at me!! kids. So their parents may be likable enough until you are around them and find all they do is brag on their mediocre kids. Can't stand people like that so....

Just saying the friendships never last.

I was friends with a woman whose kids were slightly older with her last son and my oldest being around the same age. I had gotten to know her after working with her two older boys in scouts. I adored them! But her youngest was nothing like them; he was an absolute stinker. My son can also be a stinker, especially when he perceives someone as being hostile. I have no idea which of them initiated hostilities, but from day one they clashed. We tried several times to get them together, but I hovered too much (first child) and she didn't hover enough (last child). Eventually we gave up getting together with the kids, but about once a month we got together with another friend just to play games and eat junk food. That worked fine till we both moved. But it would have been nice if the kids could have mesh as well.

Well, it is certainly easier to be friends if you like or at least can tolerate their kids. If the kids are pleasant to be around, it opens up a lot more possibilities for getting together. If the kids are really hard to be around, you can try adult-only get togethers for a while.

Can you give more information on what happened? What do these kids do and how do the parents handle it?

Sometimes, yes. We are still friendly with but no longer close to a couple whose kids did not get along with ours and with whom it was hard to socialize outside of kid events. But there are other people who have NO relationship with my kids that I get along with fine. It kind of depends on the personalities involved. If you like them but not their kids, suggest adult events and a sitter (for both of you).

Of course you can. It works particularly well if our children don't get along and don't care to spend time together.

It's easy enough to say that you prefer having Girls Night Out or something similar. Children don't have to be involved or "liked" in order to be friends with another adult.

No, I can't. It always comes full circle, and I end up not liking the part of them, that makes their child the way they are. AND, I don't really like to force my son to play with kids he doesn't like. Sometimes, we just don't get with people. I wouldn't force my son to play with people he dreads, just so I can hangout a bit.

I would HATE if my husband tried to force me to hang out with one of his friends I couldn't stand. (I like his friends, thank goodness!) I'm not going to do that to my kid.

Good question, and one which I think has different answers depending in part on the ages of the kids involved. Here's what I mean: It's just logistically harder to socialize with adults whose kids don't get along with yours when all the kids are pretty young. Parents (both you and the other parents) are far likelier to have to have the kids along when visiting, or to bring the kids to each others' houses if whole families are getting together, and younger kids are expected by many if not most adults to "go play together" while the adults talk and so on. And when those younger kids have issues being together, the adults have to get involved at times.

But as kids get older, the issue of "the kids don't really get along" gets resolved just by the fact that the kids aren't always around -- they're off doing their own thing, or at an activity, etc. and are simply not along on all the outings with the other family. Or the kids are old enough to be left on their own while you go out for a coffee with the other mom, rather than a coffee time having to be a mandated play date for both moms' kids because the kids can't be left alone or the kids aren't in school, or camp, or class, or whatever.

So...as the parent of an older kid (well, 12 is older, to me), I think this is much less of an issue. The kids just are no longer expected to be thrown together and hang out so the adults can be together. Your kids are around 6-8 now -- when they hit upper elementary age this is possibly going to be less of an issue. If there is an adult you do really like seeing but that person's kid(s) are just not ones you like, you can see each other without the kids -- and doing so gets easier as the kids get older. I would not burn any bridges with friends whose kids I didn't like but would stay in touch and try to see them when the kids are in school or otherwise occupied. It does get easier with time.

I would not say that just because the kids are not likeable for whatever reason, the parents are in the end not worth keeping as adult friends. I can see how that can be the case at times, but it is not always true that whatever makes a kid unlikeable is a perfect mirror of something unlikeable in the parent, or is evidence of bad parenting. Some people, kids or adults, have grating personalities or are fundamentally so different from us that we don't care for them. (In fact, their own parents might not care for them at times.) I've known parents who made some different parenting decisions from my own, and whose kids I wasn't crazy about, but I was interested in the adults as adult friends, with aspects to their personalities -- aspects other than parenting -- that interested me. I would not want my own parenting to be the only reason another adult was or wasn't interested in friendship with me or the only yardstick by which I was judged.

Sure. Of course you can. I've had a few friendships like this, and my general solution is to get together with the people in a group, so it's not just their kids and mine. That sort of diffuses the (excessive) energy with the kids, and diffuses any awkwardness among the parents.

I've also found that most problem kids mellow out as they get older, but my son is about your kids' age, so that may not be happening for you.

I have a harder time, honestly, when my son makes friends with the (perfectly nice) child of an clingy, pushy, no-boundaries mom. But that's a topic for another post.

I think it depends on the friend. I don't care for one of my good friends son & my son doesn't care for him either. My friend knows her sons faults & doesn't make excuses for his behavior or get offended if a disagreement arises between the kids.

It's tough and you realistically can not expect to be best friends. But you can be aquantences, even going out for lunch or for drinks. Just keep stories about the kids really neutral. I have a friend who I have distanced myself from because her son (who is going to be 6) yells at, bosses, and taunts my son who is 5. I suspect that her son has Aspergers's Syndrome since he is in special education and exhibits all the signs but she has not told me so, instead she hovers over the children as they play. I have tried to be understanding because my son claims to like the boy but I know she is uncomfortable when I witness things and I am uncomfortable as well. I would just tread really lightly.

Yes, I can be friends with people whose children aren't exactly my favorite.... but not if the problem is poor parenting. That is to say, I have a hard time being friends with adults whose kids are acting out due to absent/poor parenting skills. So, if kids were being mean and rude (not a one-off, but the 'norm' for the kid), I am not sure I'd be up for hanging out with the parent. There's just no reason for letting that behavior continue-- it doesn't help the child and doesn't help the kids around their kid. (I should say, too, that if it's a parent who is really struggling, I am far more open to continue the relationship than if it is a parent who just doesn't care, which is a whole other story. We all have challenges in our parenting from time to time. Some parents want to do better, and some just don't really care-- even when another kid gets hurt. )

Sometimes, just getting together for drinks as a couple or going out for a girl's night is far better than a playdate, IMO.

As for kids my son doesn't get along with-- so long as they aren't being mean and rude, I don't have a problem with that. Our own children have their own proclivities, and I know my son is no exception. Kids get upset with each other for some very minor reasons, like "I don't like Harvey because he didn't want to play Legos with me".... those sorts of complaints I more or less dismiss. I want my son to learn to tolerate differences in people, and so long as there's not physical or verbal hurting/demeaning going on. I don't have to fix it. My son is six and I don't feel that I need to be present and coaching how they play at this point. Only if there's something really upsetting going on will I step in, otherwise, it's just another of life's lessons-- people don't do exactly what you want them to and they aren't obligated to, either.

So-- not playing in a reasonably harmonious way? Get separate sitters for your families and go have dinner together or something fun. It all depends on how much you want to invest in the relationship-- chances are, if you aren't willing to spend money on a sitter for time with the friend, the relationship may not be as compelling or worthwhile as you had previously thought.

When we first married, we had friends who had kids. One child was older and one was the same age as our son. Some days they could play together and other days they couldn't. What we discovered is that they were too much alike and that they got on each other's nerves. They would scream at each other with a shrill sound. So we learned that we would have to have breaks in between them playing together.

We still remained friends and have a good time. I often wonder what happened to the family as we moved on when hubby got orders to a new location.

So it is doable. But I is up to you how badly you want to be friends with this couple.

the other S.

oh hells yeah.
sometimes you have to pick the venue carefully (somewhere you can both bring the kids but the kids aren't smooshed together) or just do adult things together.
khairete
S.

It is extremely difficult. We had some very good friends, but their Twin Daughters were down right mean. Everyone calls them the "Evil Twins".. Even kids that are their "friends" are afraid of being on their bad sides.

The parents were so kind, funny etc. But their daughters would say and do such hateful things. We were (neighbors) even able to prove it many times, but the parents seem to just not understand, They finally moved far enough away to be close, but their daughters in a different elementary school.

We saw them maybe 2 or 3 times a year.. and that was enough to remind us, how awful the girls were.

One of our close neighbors was best friends with the twins mom, I asked her, "are the girls different with your children?" She said "no they are just as bad." I asked her, "have you spoken with the M and R about it".. she said "oh yes, I tell them all of the time, but they just smile."

This neighbor said she just kept as close an eye on these girls as possible and would speak up in front of all of them when she saw or heard the girls being mean or trying to get other kids to do dangerous things.

It became more and more clear to most of us, these parents, were not as nice as we thought they were.. Passive aggressive, extremely competitive and secret bullies. They are such a good looking family, very talented intelligent, but man they like some sort of gang/clan.

They taught their children well.

It can be done but you have to take the innititive. You need to invite the parents to adult things, like out to et at restaurants that don't have kids on that night. Out to a club. Out dancing. Places the kids can't go.

Have your kids go to grandma's or cousin's for babysitting so joint babysitting won't be any issue.

You have to develop a relationship with the parents on their own. Then you can enjoy their company without the kiddo's.

If you can't get out of the occasional group activity then make sure the kids are never out of sight. If they want to watch a movie lay a huge blanket on the living room floor and toss the couch pillows onto the floor. Hand out the popcorn and put in the movie. If they act up correct the situation right then. This way they are in constant supervision and never out of sight or hearing. You can observe the group dynamics and see what is going wrong and better address their situation. It could be they are just at different stages and aren't getting along because they want different things now.

Of course I can! I can't say that I enjoy being around my sister's kids, but I still love my sister and enjoy her company. I have several friends whose kids I don't like, or my kids don't like their kids. I tend to only do girls' night out activities with the moms so I can avoid the kids altogether.

I don't particularly like all the parents of my children's friends, but that doesn't keep me from letting the kids play together.

I guess if the friends' kids were being mean to my kids or otherwise unsafe, I would step in. If mentioning it to the parents doesn't work, I talk directly to the offending kid(s). If it persists, just avoid family play dates and save the socializing for the grown-ups only. I agree with the previous posters. If your friends are bad parents and are contributing to their children's bad behavior, then I would see them in a different light and probably lose respect for them.

I don't know that I would need to be told why a certain kid doesn't like my kid. Sometimes kids just don't click. My kids don't get along with my nephew on my husband's side of the family. He is a very gregarious and active boy, and my kids are quite the opposite. My nephew is a very good kid though. I would never tell my SIL that my kids don't like her son is they think he is too pushy and hyper. Some kids love that kind of personality.

I think you are doing just fine by telling your kids to stay away from your friends' kids. Things might C. all by themselves in time.