My wife and I are atheists and our six year old daughter’s friends want her to go to church functions with them.

We moved to a new neighborhood last year and our little one has made a couple of really good friends. Awesome. I love that she has other kids her age that she can play with. It’s great. However, last night one of her friends invited her to go to a little carnival at their church with bounce houses and face painting and the like. I don’t want to deny my child fun with her friends but I also don’t want this to turn into “hey, come to church with us this Sunday.” Am I wrong for not wanting her to be apart of that? At this age she doesn’t understand the concept of God or religion. She just thinks church is a fun thing her friends get to do but she doesn’t.It’s a slippery slope because if I explain to her that her mom and I don’t believe in that sort of thing, and if she tells her friends that, I’m worried that her friends will tell their parents and our daughter will no longer be allowed to play with their kids.Does anybody else have any advice or experience in this area? How do I go about explaining this type of stuff in a way that a six year old can understand? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2LVUyhv

My childless in laws think my 10month old and 2 year old are manipulative and spoiled.

My husband has 3 older sisters in their 40s, all of them domineering and none of them have kids (by choice, 2 had abortions in their 30s). They all live in another state so they've only met my 10 month old twice and my 2 year old only a handful of times. My 10month is wary of strangers and screams bloody murder whenever one of them tries to hold him. My 2 year old has her occasional tantrums, but it doesn't happen very often and she snaps out of it after a good talking to. Anyway, they came to visit recently and declared that my children are manipulative and spoiled. They said that my 10 month old manipulates me and roll their eyes whenever I nurse him for comfort. They told me that that's exactly what he wants to do...you're letting him manipulate you. They witnessed one tantrum from my 2year old when she had been up for 13 hours with no nap and was extremely sleepy (we fought to keep her awake so she can greet her aunts when they flew in). They keep lecturing me every day (they are staying with us for two weeks) about how easily I give in to my children's demands and they keep saying that, "if they were my kids..." Should I just be more understanding of the fact that they don't have kids and they couldn't possibly understand what it's like to be a parent? How can I possibly explain to these people who has never had kids that you break through to a different kind of love when you become a parent, and that comforting them by nursing them is maternal instinct in action, and not an infant consciously manipulating his mother? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2LVp3V3

Introducing foster children to the family

Has anyone welcomed foster children into the family when you already had kids? Any tips on what I can do to help my own children and the foster children adjust? I have 6 kids of my own and 4 more would be joining us. This is a foster to adopt plan. These 4 children are my estranged sister’s children and she’s been missing. This isn’t the first time she has abandoned her children and will not be able to reclaim her rights as a parent. We’d like to keep them out of the system so we are welcoming them into my home. We’ve never met the kids. They’ve been in and out of foster care many times. For their entire lives they’ve bounced around between foster homes and living with their addict parents. They’re coming to us with some serious stories. I don’t know how to avoid making my kids feel left out and forgotten while providing attention to these 4. I don’t know how to make my nieces and nephew feel welcome without being overbearing. They are 11, 5, 4 and 8 months old. Help me!! I’m looking for any advice, ideas, tips I can get, but here’s some specific questions:1) should I arrange the bedroom situation so my kids will be sharing rooms with them? Or let the 2 of them share a room? Baby will be in the nursery with my newly turned 1 year old.2) Would taking a trip to Disneyland to welcome them to the family be too overwhelming or is that a good way to get them excited about us and get everyone bonding?3) when is a good time to introduce them to extended family? My husband and I both have large families and we are all close. Should we just wait until they’re settled because it would be too much?They’ll be here Friday! TIA via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2OCXZZc

Update: Waiting Sucks

So about every other month or so I’ve been posting updates about my son. The neuro-development team believes he has Prader-Willi Syndrome. We got the blood draw done and now we wait for news. They said 4-6 weeks, and it is now week 4. I jump every time my phone rings.Good news first:He’s doing well in physical therapy, and though we haven’t seen much improvement in his physical abilities or muscle tone his confidence is through the roof. He’s started exploring the rest of the house beyond the living room, follows my husband and I around, and fights with his sister constantly. His cognitive skills have also improved, and he has learned how to play peak a boo with us. He has also started eating little bits of finger foods at a time (Gerber puffs, little crumbs of what we are eating). He’s working with an occupational therapist right now to improve his skills with eating. Whereas before he couldn’t even eat mashed potatoes without choking, now peanut butter is his favorite treat. I’m so proud of him, he’s such a happy and giggly little boy and so tough too!! He puts up with everything these therapists throw at him and does it with a smile.Some bad news:He’s lost more weight, down to 15lbs even again. That’s worrisome and we are hoping that someone can provide us an explanation. A 14 month old shouldn’t be that small. He still looks pocket sized (I.e: the size of a 6-7 month old) and his sensory overload is getting worse. Also due to the circumstance surrounding our children, we have to rehome our puppy. The stress that I carry like a well-loved blanket at this point has definitely affected him. Now if it was just against me, I would make it work. I can handle a few attempted bites (nips really) and growls. However, he’s started growling at my children and actually full blown snarled/lunged at my son who did nothing but crawl by his kennel when he was following me around. I love animals, I love dogs, but I can no longer trust my puppy around my kids. Topping that, my puppy just isn’t getting what he needs anymore. He’s a very active dog/breed, he needs something better than we can give right now. When we got him we had no idea this was coming down the pipe for us and it kind of bowled us over. We are doing our absolute best to find the perfect home for him.So that’s where we are at. My hair is falling out and I forget to eat sometimes, but our little boy is improving and is happy. I’ll probably post another update when we get results back, but for now I’ll just try my hardest to focus on the positives of this situation (and hopefully get put on anti-anxiety meds soon). If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Feels good to get this off my chest somewhere. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Kl26G5

6 year old boys sexual play, what to do?

Most of parenting isn’t too hard to figure out, but we have a bit of a parenting crisis that I’m just not sure what path to take and need your help, hivemind.We have a happy, fun 6 year old rising 2nd grader (young for his grade but turns 7 soon), let’s call him H. Happy, smart, fun loving kid no issues there. He was in a summer camp last week which happens to also take place at the school he goes to, so he knows many of the kids. Two of his classmates, let’s say Joe and Mike (obviously not their real names) were in his camp.His grandma (my mom) helps us and picks him up from camp for a couple hours most days until we get off work. So grandma calls us in a bit of a tizzy and reported that H told her that Joe and Mike were with him in the club house on the playground and they had all exposed themselves and invited him to. And it gets worse, he also said that they were playing the “penis in butt” game (I kid you not) and that they were going to watch him and invite him to participate “in five weeks.” So yikes. Grandma having a fit of course. We are closer to the parents of Joe, so we call his mom and before we even get midway through the story she is like, “not again!” Apparently, Joe and Mike have been caught exposing to one another before by their parents. Our friend, Joe’s mom, obviously flustered and upset and says she will do more to keep Joe and Mike apart and is so sorry our son got pulled in. Mike’s mom, who we also know and like, just don’t know as well, calls us and is also very distraught and apologetic. She has Mike in therapy and reading between the lines a bit thinks he might have been taken advantage of in the past, hence his behavior. Both Joe and Mike are not problem kids by the way, and H likes them just fine but doesn’t consider them to be his closest friends.So now… what to do? Grandma thinks we should report this to the principal of the school, or even law enforcement, which would no doubt create a bit of a circus and certainly wouldn’t be good for Joe and Mike, nor would it be good for H other than it would likely most definitely prevent it from happening again by resulting in the removal of the kids from school (suspension? Expulsion? I have no idea).My spouse, however, is on the other extreme and thinks we should simply warn their incoming teacher (they are all in the same class, it’s a small school one class per grade) that these three kids need to be kept apart, and perhaps banned from the treehouse and watched more closely (and hinting at the reason without giving the exact specifics).I’m sort of in between. I mean this sounds like a serious deal, these kids are 6 and 7 years old and they are playing at penis in butt? I need to protect my kid and maybe try to get those other kids out of there would be the most effective way. On the other hand, they are kind of innocent/young and I do feel bad for the other parents and they are taking the steps they should with their kids (therapy, etc) and willing to at least alert the teacher.To further complicate, this is kind of a second question, our son told his babysitter about the incident too and she came to us worried, and of course our son could likely tell other people unless we tell him not to, but I don’t want to tell him not to because reporting this kind of thing to a responsible adult is exactly what he SHOULD be doing and I don’t want him to think it’s wrong.Finally we talked to H about keeping his privates private (we had of course told him this before but obviously it didn’t work) and told him not to play with Joe and Mike and he understands that what they did was wrong, but I worry he could easily be pressured into it again because he doesn’t seem to take it too seriously (which is both good and bad).So yeah, like wow, what should I do? What should we tell the school or other authorities? What should we tell H? What should we tell the parents of Joe and Mike? This is a hard oneShorter: Two of our (6 year old) son’s classmates were fornicating on a playground and invited our son to watch/participate, how seriously do we treat this and what consequences do we demand for the kids involved AND how do we avoid this happening again and hurting our kid? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2MdKLAm

UPDATE -Different sort of parenting post-

My biological father have talked numerous time so far and tomorrow he and his wife are coming over for lunch!!I am feel incredibly anxious and yet so excited!This is a story 27 years in the making. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2NZSfHN

My (40F) daughter (16F) snuck into my liquor cabinet and hooked up with her GF. How do i deal with this?

My daughter is bisexual. She is allowed to have girlfriends/boyfriends, and there are no double standards when it comes to my rules on dating. All I expect is for her to be honest and open with me, especially when it comes to her same-sex relationships.Two nights ago, she invited her ‘friend’ Fran over for dinner/sleepover at my house. We all ate together, & I went to bed very early (8pm).I always check the security camera footage in the morning, and I saw my daughter and Fran SNEAK into my liquor cabinet, they got a bit tipsy. Then they started to hook up in MY living room. I stopped the security footage because I couldn’t bear to watch.I had a talk with them in the morning (they were mortified) and made them clean up the mess they made of my kitchen.I told my daughter we would chat more later when I have a day off from work, which is tomorrow. How do I approach this? How do I set more clear boundaries for her? How do I go about this? I want her to know that whenever she feels ready for sex, that’s fine (I’ve given her lgbtq+/Hetero sex Ed) but the underage drinking is a big no! And I don’t want to think of her having sex in my house. I also have other children, who are 9 & 10. My daughter is not setting a good example for them, thank God they didn’t go into the living room to walk in on their older sister.Tldr: my daughter invited her ‘friend’ over. After I fell asleep they got tipsy and hooked up in the living room, which was on security footage. How do I deal with the situation? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2LJ6u7c