What's your worst playdate experience?

Not a play date story as such but having taken my grandchildren to to soft play establishments over recent years Im absolutely staggered at the lack of care from parents towards some very young children. The amount of parents who sit with their backs to the play equipment, on their phones (naturally) while small children no older than about 18 months are wandering from the baby play section into the older children's play area is astonishing. Too busy on tiktok to care what their precious ray of sunshine is doing. Same parents who would kick ip an almighty stink if their child was injured😬

That is actually pretty harsh of them. Surely any parent knows that 4 year-olds can say embarrassing thing sometimes! And that an adult's idea of what constitutes "lovely food" rarely lines up with that of a 4 year-old. I think they were quite unkind to be honest (assuming you apologised and told her that's not a polite thing to say).

DS was invited for a play date aged around 6. Mum seemed nice and she made it clear it was a “let’s hang out with the kids in the garden in a sunny afternoon” thing. When we arrived she opened the door topless and remained like that for the rest of the afternoon. When I went to the toilet it was so dirty I actually couldn’t use it. Very odd.

Not exactly a playdate as it was unplanned and we didn't even know the child!

Took DD who was around 4 at the time and infant DS to a farm park. She started playing with a little boy a couple of years older on one of the play structures, I got a brief wave from two women who appeared to be mum and grandma.
We moved on from that area....boy followed....went to the strawberry picking....boy followed....to another play park....boy followed.

At this point Mum and Grandma have disappeared so I said to him do you know where mummy is as we're going to have lunch now so DD can't play. Obviously used to this he says oh it's ok I'll wait for her, I said no you need to go find your mum. He just moved a few feet away to sit and watch us eat so I felt obligated to offer him some.

Head to the petting zoo with him still in tow, don't even know his name, adults still nowhere to be found.

This went on for the entire 3 hours we were there, no one ever came looking for him. Eventually it came time for us to leave so I went to a member of staff and said sorry but this child has followed us around all day, he isn't with us, we don't know where his parents are but we need to go home now so I suggest you make an announcement and if they don't appear to claim him you need to call the police.

Wait this mum was supposed to bring her twins for a playdate and instead left you with all five of her children when you had 4 of your own including a 3 month old?

And was late and expected you to feed them all?? I'm speechless!

My ex left me for someone else. I was distraught and not ready to tell people.

My son must have said his Dad had left at school as one of the loud Mums came over and asked if I was ok. She invited me for something to eat after school while the boys played.

I ended up breaking down and telling her everything.

She promptly set off the jungle drums and told all my business to everyone else, then stopped speaking to me because I was a single Mum and a benefits scrounger and all that. I did claim some help from tax credits but I was still working full time, paying the mortgage etc., so I was doing as much as I could myself.

The image of you going to a massive house where they have a Nanny, and having to drink from a bathroom tap, has absolutely floored me

ChrispieCake.
He was about 8, the sheets,blankets (no duvets back then) were just pulled of the beds and left in a huge pile on the landing.😄 I've just remembered he also pulled a curtain rail down with the curtains attached.

Softplay is usually ok for us, but one time last year at a 5th birthday party, some older kids (from a different group) were being very rough with the younger kids (dds friends)
One of older lads punched a young lad and another one from the same group started calling some of the girls fat and ugly. Another one kept kicking a ball really hard at any of the kids who tried to play in the ball pen bit.

The parents/guardians of the nasty boys were just sat together chatting, oblivious to the carnage the boys were causing. The boy who got punched was really upset and didn’t want to go back in, the mum obviously went over and had a word with the parents but they didn’t seem all that arsed or surprised.

In the end, a member of staff told the boys off & said they had to leave. Cue the effing and blinding from a couple of the parents🤯

Totally agree!

A nice friend of mine had a daughter who was inclined to hit or hurt other children for no obvious reason when she was about 4. As soon as the girl hurt someone, Sue (nc) would scoop her up and take her home. Daughter soon learned! She made the connection between hitting another child and being removed promptly from the ‘fun’ environment.

i admired Sue because she was very sociable and enjoyed these get-togethers very much. It would have been easy for her to just turn a blind eye (and many parents would have - I’ve seen a lot of that) and sit back with her coffee, but she was scrupulous. If only everyone had this rigorous attitude!

That’s definitely a generational thing.

We have some friends who have adopted the gentle parenting thing since having
kids and they are both horrors (one boy and one girl).

The parents are both “at a loss” about what to do about their kids’ behaviour but say that the grandparents have suggested giving them a smack when they misbehave (to which they were horrified).

The middle way seems to have always worked for us (so far) no smacking, keep calm but save the raised voice or shouts for serious situations for effect, natural consequences and loss of privileges for punishment when needed, not being afraid to separate children if fighting (very rare) or
to shove child away who is trying to hit me (only happened twice).

Also not being afraid to point out behaviour expectations in public:

eg “remember, there are other people on this coach who you should think about- so best keep the noise down, eh?” (prompted nodding approval from elderly passengers followed by complements on their behaviour at the end of
the journey from some of them)

We went to an absolutely beautiful house where the only toys on offer were a single doll and doll's buggy. There were four toddlers present.

You can imagine how that went down. Like a Saturday night on Union Street in Plymouth. The dolly and her buggy had to be confiscated and put upstairs. Thankfully it was the rather clueless nanny doing the playdate not the mum, so myself and the other mum invited improvised by doing some "junk modelling" with a roll of sellotape, some string and the contents of the recycling bin. Then we pretended to be ponies and did "pony races" with the kids climbing on us. Then we started a game of hide and seek but got freaked out when one of the kids hung off the very expensive looking curtains. I asked for a glass of water but there didn't seem to be any glasses except wine/champagne glasses which the nanny didn't look too confident about us using so I went to the loo and drank water from the tap (was thirsty after the "pony races"). Came back to find the kids jumping on the sofa and the nanny looking very worried so decided that it was a good time to say our thank yous and leave (we'd been there about an hour).

The other mum hot-tailed it out after me and we stopped to buy cake at the cake shop on the way home. We discussed going for coffee but agreed that what we really needed was to eat our cake alone in pyjamas lying on our respective sofas. We've had some playdates since which have been... interesting (for all sorts of reasons!). But that one sticks in my mind as the least enjoyable.

Another notable one was when we turned up to find that the playdate child had been taken out by the father because she was being a pain in the arse and so my child spent the entire time bouncing on the trampoline by himself in the garden while the mother and I had coffee. Tbh we quite enjoyed that one - we don't have a trampoline so it was a treat for my DC and peaceful for me. At the end of the playdate, the mother gave my DC a party-bag to apologise for her child not being there but said (to a 4yo!) words to the effect of "I'm sure you understand, Violet (not real name) wouldn't have added anything to the playdate, given her mood" 😆. It was just very odd.

I’m old so you can imagine - my MIL’s era was the late 50sand 60s. When mine were small, I remember her being very taken aback by the behaviour of visiting children. She advised me not to let them have the run of the house - and definitely not to let them go upstairs. I dismissed this advice as ridiculous , old-fashioned and over-fussy.

Looking back, she was SO right! The sheer wanton wreckage that I’d find upstairs - in all rooms, not just the children’s- was shocking. It went far beyond the sort of normal playing untidiness. I came to realise the hard way that there really are some children who set ou5 to be destructive- it’s how they have fun. God knows whether they did it at home,or whether there was some kind of psychological factor at play…jealousy of some king, a determination to assert their dominance- who knows?

Young mums…my MIL was right!😲

Multi Level Management

Where they start by trying to sell you over priced tat, and then try to convince you to sell it to your friends! 99% of people lose money. Things like Herbalife and Bodyshop at home

What’s MLM?

Bit different when my brother and I were kids in the 50s. He had a birthday party and one of the boys went upstairs and stripped all the beds. My dad put him in the garden, it was March and cold. His mother was furious with her son and banned him from other parties until he could behave himself. Our parents wouldn't tolerate bad mannered children back in the day.

Play date where the Mum tried to sell me a MLM. Very pushy.
Something to do with Aloe Vera. Forever Living? Can’t remember properly.
She practically took me hostage!