Background: About two years ago, we became friends with our next door neighbors (their fake names: Bob and Sue). The neighbors and my wife and I have children that are the same age. So we will get together and hang out regularly so the kids can play and parents can socialize. The wives are close friends. Myself and Bob hang out when the wives decide to get together. It's rare that he or I would ever initiate hanging out.One of the first times both families hung out, my son and the neighbor boy were getting a little rowdy and Bob made a comment to both boys about needing to calm down or they would get spanked. Since it was early on in the neighborly friendship, i didn't immediately flip out because I thought "surely, Bob is just being silly in trying to get the kids to calm down. There's no way he'd be seriously considering spanking my child, regardless of whether or not he spanks his own child." Anyway, over the last two years or so there have been two or three other times where he's made similar comments hinting at spanking his son and my son, but it's always been said in an ambiguous way so I'm never certain he's actually being serious.So my question is: how do I (and do I even need to) broach this subject with him in a way that doesn't come across as "if you ever spanked my children, I'd break your fucking neck."? Because if it's just a scare tactic trying to get the kids to behave, that's one thing. If he actually followed through though and spanked my kids, I'd lose it. Part of the reason I'm asking too is because both moms have discussed sleepovers and while I'm confident Bob wouldn't spank my child in my presence, I'd be less confident if my child was sleeping over and I wasn't there. Also, my wife is certain he would never actually do it, but she tends to be overly optimistic in her view of human beings. So she's of the opinion that it'd be ludicrous to even bring it up. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2H6dW5B
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