So what do you do if you can’t stand your best friend’s fiendish child? And your own kid is in the firing line? Helen Raine speaks to a mother in this situation and gets first-hand and professional tips on how to handle it without damaging the friendship.

Maria* and Laura* are sipping coffee. They’ve been friends for years and it should be totally relaxed. But the air crackles with tension. Laura is watching Maria’s three-year-old son John* like a hawk as he plays at trains with her son Peter*. The boys happily push a wooden Thomas and Percy around the track together, telling each other fragments of narrative. Laura relaxes; they’re fine; the friends get down to some good gossiping.

Maria doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem. She mildly tells John not to hit people and then retreats to her coffee as if nothing had happened

Suddenly an argument erupts between the boys. They are both grabbing one train and shouting. Then before there’s even time to intervene, John grabs Peter by the throat and smacks him into the floor. Peter bursts into hysterical tears and Laura rescues her son and pulls him into her lap.

Anyone who has looked after kids knows that this is not an unusual scene for preschoolers; they fight and, every now and then, it can get out of hand. The problem for Laura is that something like this happens more than once every time she gets together with Maria and John. And worse still, Maria doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem. She mildly tells John not to hit people and then retreats to her coffee as if nothing had happened. Laura is fuming but tries to hide it. The tension is affecting their friendship to the point where she doesn’t want to hang out with her friend anymore.

Afterwards, Laura explains: “I feel that John’s behaviour is totally unacceptable, but his mum seems to think that as long as she admonishes him, it’s fine. But this means that it just keeps happening again and again. Seeing my child being hit makes me really angry and I try to temper this with a more considered adult response, but I’m tired of making excuses for her and her child. Plus my mum made me feel as if I was failing my child when she saw it happening.”

Stepping in to discipline John herself just seems to make the problem worse. “I’ve told him off several times; in fact, sometimes it’s out of my mouth before I’ve even thought about it. But I could tell that my friend didn’t like it. I made him sit on the sofa one time to think about what he had done, and there was such as bad atmosphere that I stopped it earlier than I normally would have. And I also feel that this isn’t my job. I shouldn’t have to tell him off; she should do it.”

The friends tend to skirt round the problem instead of addressing it directly. Laura says: “I am wary about bringing the problem up because much as I love her, Maria can be a bit overbearing sometimes and she’s already made her views on the matter clear. She says things like: ‘Well, I think that parents should let kids work it out themselves instead of stepping in all the time.’

“I agree up to a point, but not when her child has clearly and deliberately just hurt mine, or consistently invades his personal space aggressively. She just doesn’t seem to see it, or puts it down to horseplay. Her husband is aware that there is an issue with John’s behaviour, but she doesn’t let him discipline him either. She tells me that she thinks her husband is too hard on him. So instead of taking action, they just weakly say his name over and over again while he ignores them.

“I also feel that John is sneaky,” Laura continues. “Sometimes my child will end up looking like the aggressor when in fact he has just been provoked for half an hour with little jabs under the table or low-level teasing until he explodes. It means that I feel obliged to discipline him when in fact I don’t feel that he is totally to blame. And if my son puts a foot out of line, my friend is down on him like a ton of bricks, almost as a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that I have been disciplining her kid. It seems so unfair.”

Ironically, Maria often tells Laura stories about other children bullying John and how upset this makes her. “She even criticises the other mothers for their lack of action, but seems to have a complete blind spot for her own child’s behaviour.”

Laura’s feelings towards John have become increasingly negative. “It has got to the point that I am calling him Satan when I talk about him to my husband. I can barely stand the sight of him and an incident is inevitable every time we met. And I’m not proud of it, but when I did see another child hit him, I was secretly pleased. We have cut back on seeing them, which is obvious and awkward but I don’t know what else to do.”

Laura is far from alone. In fact, this situation is one of the greatest challenges of child rearing and one you don’t often anticipate until you become a parent. So what do you do if your best friend’s child is a fiend? When your kid is in the firing line, it’s impossible to just ignore bad behaviour, especially if it’s violent. Quite simply, we have to keep our kids safe and secure. But if the other parent can’t or won’t take appropriate action, what are the solutions other than cancelling play dates, making excuses not to attend birthday parties and ultimately calling time on a good friendship? A straw poll of mums suggests that these solutions have been tried and tested.

• Solution 1: be a dragon mum

If your friend is poor at dealing with episodes of bad behaviour, especially those that involve hitting, you may need to take over (with her permission) and make it clear to the other child that you won’t tolerate this behaviour. Of course, this route is fraught with difficulty. One poster on www.mumsnet.com (a website dedicated to helping mothers with difficult situations just like this) describes her experience of trying to do this.

She says: “I stepped in and took over parenting the other child for a while when he was nasty to my son, but it happened too often and I felt bad for taking over my friend’s authority and being bossy. But now he grabs my son’s face and snatches his toys just to throw them over the fence or he hits. It’s too much, to the point where my son is telling other people about his nasty experiences.”

So if you start, you need to be in it for the long haul... This route can also lead to a lot of resentment if you are the parent constantly having to do the boring old disciplining. And since people parent in different ways, which are very personal to them, your friend might not be able to accept your input, even if she initially agrees, and could sever the friendship.

However, another mumsnetter says: “Most secure mums can accept that their offspring will not behave perfectly all the time and it is acceptable for another adult to step in if there is the risk of hurt or damage.”

And if you get it right, the other child will be wary of a dragon mum, think twice before behaving badly in your presence and the problem will be solved (at least while you are there).

• Solution 2: address it obliquely

It’s embarrassing for the mother, particularly in a group, if her child is singled out as behaving inappropriately. However, if you address the issue indirectly, by saying something like: “Wow, the energy levels are going through the roof! Shall we go outside to play/do something a bit calmer/have a snack break,” everyone feels responsible for addressing the issue without anyone being offended.

• Solution 3: talk it out

Honesty is supposedly the best policy, but when it comes to parenting, it’s a seriously sensitive subject. Take some time to find the right words and then explain how difficult you are finding the situation and what action you would like your friend to take. The other mother is probably aware of how badly her child behaves but is struggling to find a way to deal with it. Talking it through will dispel the tension and perhaps allow you all to come up with a solution that works. It also gives you a chance to say: “Is it OK with you if I speak to Peter if he hits John?”

• Solution 4: empower your child

Experts agree that it’s important that you don’t treat your children like victims because they will start to feel like ones. Instead, talk to your child about what is happening and suggest coping strategies to them. They can try saying loudly: “No! Stop it! I don’t like that!” Practice it with them before you meet the other child.

This approach alerts the parents in the room to the fact that there’s a problem, especially if the taunting tends to be underhand. It often stops an aggressive child in their tracks. You can reinforce this by saying: “Peter has asked you not to do this; now I am telling you not to.”

It’s a very personal decision, but you can also tell your child to push them back if it’s getting physical. Yes, there’s a risk that this brings your child down to the lowest level, or exacerbates a circle of violence, but sometimes, standing up to a bully is enough to trigger a change in their behaviour.

• Solution 5: give yourself and your friend a break

Obviously this situation provokes strong feelings. No one wants to see their child getting hit. But when the boot is on the other foot, it’s also hard to watch your child behave in an aggressive way to other children, especially if this is just the last of a long line of bad behaviours during the day that sap your energy.

Some children are more challenging than others and the mother of the ‘victim’ child needs to understand that and try, if possible, to cut the other mother some slack. Often, the parents of the aggressors are mortified and worried about it, even if they appear not to be. They might have been blanked by other parents, or excluded from groups because of it. Again, talking about it can help, but as long as your child is still happy to meet up and you intervene if it gets to fisticuffs, you might need to just let some of the annoyance go to save a valuable friendship.

• Solution 6: meet at your house

When you’re on your own territory, it’s a lot easier to say: “You need to share the toys with Peter.” In your house, you can impose your rules, one of which will obviously be: “We don’t hit.”

If your guests don’t like it, they don’t need to come anymore. Being on your home turf will help to give you the confidence you need to deal with issues as they arise.

• Solution 7: meet outside

If a fight over toys is often the catalyst for aggression, try meeting outside in a park, where the kids can get space from each other and burn off some steam. A change of scene might make all the difference.

• Solution 7: only see your friend without the kids

As a last resort, you might need to keep the kids out of the equation. You can either take the plunge and explain that this is how the friendship is going to be (and risk it being a considerably shorter friendship as a consequence), or just engineer your meetings to avoid play dates. Doubtless your friend will notice at some point, but it might actually be a relief to them too not to have to deal with fighting offspring.

• The specialist’s view on disciplining a friend’s fiend

If you and your friend are happy to opt for solution one, where you step in to discipline either child if they are out of line, then Dr Michele Borba has some advice worth following. She is a parenting expert and the author of several books like No More Misbehavin’ and Don’t Give Me That Attitude!

It’s a very personal decision, but you can also tell your child to push back if it’s getting physical

She notes that parents are much more cautious about disciplining other people’s children than they were when she was young. Most of us probably remember being disciplined by whichever adult was nearest, but for a cocktail of complex reasons, we don’t feel as comfortable about doing that anymore. But that doesn’t mean that we need to ignore bad ­behaviour.

Borba says: “It’s never intruding when you’re protecting a child. You also don’t want to offend the kid’s parents, but when his behaviour is dangerous or harmful to another child, you can’t ignore it either.”

In her book The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries, she gives some tips on disciplining other people’s children.

Firstly, Borba says you should get on board with the other parent. She recommends asking them: “What would you like me to do if they act up when they’re with me? A brief chat will clue you into the parent’s discipline views and also make things easier just in case there is a problem.”

Then she suggests reviewing your ground rules with your own child and perhaps even posting these on the fridge. If things get out of hand, you can refer to these with your child and the guest, hopefully nipping any problems in the bud. Most importantly, Borba notes that you must not “change your basic house rules to accommodate an obnoxious guest”.

And then there are some key no-no’s with someone else’s child. Borba says: “Don’t spank another child. Ever. Don’t push or even touch the child except in the case of safety and don’t use time-out, take away the other kid’s personal possessions or ground a child from a future event.”

Some things are non-negotiable. Borba says that you must “make safety your core policy”. There is simply no place for aggression or cruelty (hitting, biting, fighting, slapping, or exclusion), dangerous behaviour or leaving your property. For severe infractions such as these, she recommends keeping cool, separating the children into different areas and calling the parent if other disciplinary approaches have failed, or just taking the other child home.

Lastly, Borba says: “Every kid (even yours) has a bad day now and then and deserves a second chance. But if the guest’s behaviour continues to be a problem at your home, despite your best efforts, it may be time to tell the child that he may not come over until his behaviour improves. Just be prepared to tell his parents the same.”

Armed with some solutions on diffusing tension and a list of discipline dos and don’ts, play dates should now be child’s play. So take a deep breath and invite the friend and her fiend over!

*Names have been changed to protect the persons’ identities.