Dilema - friend terminally ill

Pollycat

AlisonHarrison wrote: »

I haven't, up till now, said anything to her. Primarily because she will undoubtedly say something to the kids which will mean that they wont come to me when she needs a break.
I was going to keep it that way, which is what PMlindyloo and happyandcontented suggest, and if anything is said, tell her that I had agonised over whether or not to tell her as I felt she had enough to deal with. However, I am concerned that many people seem to think I should say something.

You asked for advice about the dilemma 'should I mention it to my friend?'
It's very rare that anyone gets responses that are 100% in agreement and it's no surprise to me that it's the case here.

You should do what feels best to you and for your friend.

But - and this is just imho - you (and your friend and the kids' grandparents) are doing them no favours by allowing them to run riot.

ViolaLass

If you know that you didn't set sufficiently strong boundaries with them last time, why not try fixing that first? If it works, you won't need to tell your friend at all.

Savvy_Sue

I'm remembering back to taking other people's children out - usually with mine - and finding that some of them had no clue how to behave.

So we always started the day with The Rules. These started with 'if you lose us, STAY WHERE YOU ARE and we will come and find you.' 'If you think you have been waiting for a long time and we haven't come and found you, these are the people you can approach for help' - and we'd point out what uniform staff were wearing at an attraction, or police in uniform, or 'another mummy with children'.

Now obviously at 9 and 12 children shouldn't be getting lost, but it is still worth setting out 'the rules', and it is then worth saying what will happen if they can't stick to them. "We are going to the library. If you cannot talk quietly in the library, we will have to leave. If you can choose new books quietly we will come home through the park and buy ice cream."

Also I think it's worth making clear that they'll both miss out, even if one of them is 'good', because it can help if they work together / remind each other.