My brothers and I often meet at my mother's home with our children for family dinner. After each of these evenings, my husband and I come home stressed and extremely frustrated. Why? My brother and his wife REFUSE to discipline their four young children. They are loud, whining, and rambunctious and we are always worried for the safety of our daughter. Until our daughter was born and her saftey wasn't a concern, we would just grit our teeth and say nothing, but now we feel it is our responsibility to step in occasionally.
Today my brother asked me to stop correcting his kids in his presence, that it was his job and that if there was a problem I should go to him. I was furious. I understand that it can be offensive when someone else corrects your kids in front of him, but what other choice do I have? In addition he made the same request of my mother. He doesn't want her to discipline his kids IN HER OWN HOUSE. I feel this is a serious lack of respect not only to her but to the rest of us as well.
How can I deal with this? My family is important to me and I am not willing to stay away from my mother just to avoid this situation. I should mention that I think it is my brother's wife that is behind the problem. She feels threatened by the slightest correction (i.e. "they must think I'm a terrible mother") and I think she asked him to bring it up. I don't think it is fair for the rest of my family to be miserable just because they are unwilling to try a little harder to guide their children.
While I don't necessarily think it is your place to discipline your brother's kids, your mother should have every right to since all this is taking place in her house. She needs to lay down the law - in MY HOUSE, these are the rules while you are here. Then your brother wouldn't be able to say anything about it. He doesn't like it, stay home. There were always "house rules" growing up when we were visiting family (grandparents, etc) and we were expected to abide by them. If we didn't, we would be called on it. But your mom needs to make her expectations clear to your brother and his wife and their kids up front. When friends come visit with their kids, I expect them to act like people, not heathens. NO jumping on my furniture, running in the house, or throwing things. The builder of this house thought it was nice to put glass panels in the hall looking down the staircase. Yeah, nice. Now I'm terrified that my daughter (or someone else) is going to run headlong right into the darn things - so no running in the house. I spent good money on my furniture (even if it is old) and my daughter's toys and I don't want them destroyed, so no jumping on things or throwing (not to mention the fact that someone could get hurt). Those are the rules my daughter is expected to abide by on a daily basis. If those things are allowed at their home, that's nice, but I don't allow it in my home. If it happens and the parents don't stop the behavior, I do. MY HOUSE, MY RULES. Yeah, kids will be kids, but that doesn't mean that they have the right to be disrespectful to others and their things. I don't care how loud they want to be and if their parents want to listen the whining, that is their business. I ignore that. But when kids are rambunctious to the point where you worry about the safety of others in the room, something needs to be said. Good luck!