Dear Amy: My wife and I frequently baby-sit a pair of very young children who are quite delightful, well-mannered and fun—until their parents arrive to pick them up. They suddenly switch into brat mode.
I'm sure this is common, even with my own kids, but these parents (who are good friends) often want to sit and visit before leaving for the night.
We don't mind the extra time spent with them. However, they let their children run roughshod with our belongings, picking up small items, putting them in their mouths, and sometimes throwing them.
With the parents away, we kindly enforce appropriate boundaries with their children, and the children mind.
How do we tell the parents that we enjoy their company but not the disrespect they are showing for our belongings?
—Baby-sitters
Dear Baby-sitters: As the daytime caregiver to these young children, you should offer to help these parents make the transition from baby-sitting to home.
Take off your "friend" cap for a minute and ask the parents if you could have a short conference where you review how the kids are doing and what they are doing during the day. This is an opportunity to go over their diets, schedule, nap habits and behavior.
Tell your friends that the kids are doing very well and seem to understand and respect the basic rules of the house, i.e. "we don't touch things that aren't toys, we say 'please' and 'thank you,' we use our 'indoor voices' inside, and we only run when we're playing outside."
Tell the parents that you'd like them to help you by enforcing the house rules when they come for pick up—or by tolerating it if you do so in their presence.
These parents also must realize that at the end of the day, it's time for their children to go home. Hanging out and chatting is OK once in a while, but such an open-ended visiting time is hard on young children, who like to know what's going to happen next and tend to go a little haywire when presented with distracted and lingering parents at the end of a long day.
Dear Amy: I'm responding to the letter from "Heartsick Mom." Her daughter was planning to move in with an older man who was something of a mystery to the family.
My daughter is also a young professional in her 20s who owns her own condo and is financially secure. She met a man (eight years her senior) with whom she developed a fast-track relationship. He wined and dined her, bought her flowers, etc. He had a high-profile job that required him to travel during the week and commute to his home in another state on weekends.
When things started to not make a lot of sense, my motherly instincts kicked in. I was able to find enough information via the Internet and then through a private investigator to discover that this man led a double life.
Not only was he married, but he was the father of three young children.
It was a terribly hard choice as parents to hire a private investigator because of the fear of losing the trust of our only daughter, plus the guilt of prying into her private life.
As it turned out, our daughter took the information we obtained, confronted this man, and has moved on in every way of her life. Our daughter has never doubted our actions—and we don't intend to intrude again.
—Tough Love
Dear Tough: I agree that this is a very tough call for parents to make, but it sounds as if you made this choice carefully and respectfully—providing the information to your daughter and then letting her decide what to do with it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/columnists/advice/chi-ask-amy-dickinson-1116nov16,0,5811029.column
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