Quote Originally Posted by mimitabby
I have a cousin who deeply believed that she should never say no to her kids.
Well, those two girls were absolute monsters until they got to school
and their teachers trained them. The younger one was so bad that they had to take everything out of her room except a mattress because she would throw things to break them when she was mad.

For a while, it was NOT pleasant to be in that house. the sound of my cousin trying to reason
with a screaming kicking 5 year old was more than I could take.
Oh yes. My only nephew is the same age as my son, and stayed at home with his mother until school age. Which could have been just fine in the right setting, but they truly believed in treating him like an adult, reasoning with him no matter what, never raising their voices, plus they had hardly any contact with other children. Poor kid turned into Spoilt Devil Child and Lenin rolled into one. When my talkative, ultra-sociable, well-meaning son had to "be nice" to him at a birthday party it was almost more than he could take. And I freely admitted to him after they had left that yes, THAT was a very hard child to get along with, and yes, he behaved very badly.

Devil Child (sorry, the name stuck) has now turned nine, and is gradually entering the world of normal human people.