How do you handle friends who have very different parenting styles than you?
We recently returned from a 3 day trip with our best friends and I’m feeling very conflicted on how to maneuver forward. Myself and my husband have two kids who are 5 and 5 months. The other couple, our best friends have a daughter who is also 5. The kids go to kindergarten together and we live 3 minutes apart in the same neighborhood. We’ve been super close for 8 years now. We always knew we had differences but they’re becoming more obvious as the kids age and even more so during this extended trip together. We’ve done camping years past but I think it’s different because it’s more open space. Basically they are very free, no rules or structure, no discipline, their daughter eats whenever, goes to bed whenever she wants to, basically does whatever she wants. We have a schedule and rules for our son to follow. On this trip their daughter was destroying things of my sons that made him really upset, she wouldn’t go to bed until mom laid with her at 930pm leaving us zero adult time which was the most frustrating part. And of course my son wouldn’t go to bed either and kept saying well I want to be with her, which I get it. Their daughter would come down at like 8pm and start eating cookies and they wouldn’t say a word and then my son would ask and I’m like uh no… it kind of became really awkward and I felt myself feeling mad and like I’m not even sure I want to go on a trip with them again. My son has since been acting up and basically copying her behavior for a few days after the trip. We see them every day at school pickup and I’m just really in my feelings about it. Should this be a conversation we have with them or just don’t go on trips with them anymore?
We spent like $1200 on this trip and it ended up being not very enjoyable because of the way their daughter was behaving.