to be frustrated when parents on playdates do nothing but play with the DC?

[Susiewho]

Or should I say dominate and interrupt their play?

I have a couple of friends who do this and it's annoying. Our DCs (around three/four years old) get together at each others' houses to play, but the other mums are all "Ooo, what shall we find to play with next? Play doh? Shall we make a den?" etc. They immediately get right on the floor playing.

Yes, when it's just you and your DC, cool. BUT when they're there to play with each other, can't we just let them get on play? I've noticed that one little girl in particular clams up a mum's in charge of the playing.

Also, please have a conversation with me, not just a few words punctuated with "Ooo, shall we have a look at this book, dear DC" type phrases?

Clearly I'm too dull to bother with and the prospect of building a Lego car with a three year old is more entertaining than chatting to me. Probably.

I wasn't being smug -I was getting back at the many posts that have been on here where:
You can't let a DC loose while you are in the kitchen, they have to be strapped in a highchair.
You can't let a 4 yr old go downstairs and watch TV while you are still in bed.
You can't have your 3 yr old in his bedroom while you are downstairs.

IMO rather than being irresponsible to do the above they get used to playing on their own and are perfectly OK.
They know the basic rules by 3 such as not drawing on walls, pulling books out of the bookcase etc and they just play.

exoticfruits I think they can be two different things...I often leave my DS to his own devices at home when I am cooking his tea/unloading the diswasher etc. I can't do this when we are in an unfamiliar place with other children around (DS is NT as far as I/Paed is aware, just off the scale in terms of sensitivity).

This is not the way I would choose to parent, but I am doing the best I can for the child I have. I feel really sad that I am probably being judged so harshly by other Mums.

I am not judging other people. I just got fed up way back at being called irresponsible when a DC is in a different room.
They are all different. If you invite a mother and a DC around to your house it seems very rude to me to ignore the mother, in favour of the DC. If you don't want to talk to the mother just have the DC.

I agree with exotic fruits its ok to leave children to play with their little friends by the age of 3 , and chat to mum we do not need to structure every single waking moment of a childs day they do not need 24 hour watching either , and following a child around MAKES THEM NERVOUS ime they think they are playing wrong ,

They are all different - exactly! So not ALL mums will be able to sit and chat, safe in the knowledge that their DC are being sociable and playing nicely.

I just find it difficult to imagine that the mums who are being slated are being intentionally rude. And it honestly wouldn't bother me if I invited someone round for a coffee and they wanted to be more hands-on with their DCs, as I assume they would have a good reason.

(but then again I'd love it if someone else sat and played lego with my DS while I sat and drank a coffee in peace)

I just think that there's a broad spectrum of "normal", and that people are very quick to assume that their children's good behaviour is all down to their actions when it's as likely to be a quirk of genetic fate. Chronological age isn't a great determiner either, given that you can have a child at 2.5 or 3 who has been talking a few months to a year share a birthday with one who has sophisticated sentences and developed understanding without either being exceptional.

My ds is 2 and very "easy to handle" - if I tell him to avoid something, he does; he never bolts, doesn't climb, tends not to appropriately cautious yet also will get involved with other children, amuses himself. I am incredibly lucky and really don't think it's because I had some magic parenting wand that anyone whose child behaves differently to mine was just too stupid to use. I am also keenly aware that my next child could be the polar opposite of my son. It's half-chance. Very few people are intentionally rude and we all do things differently. Live and let live and all of that..

I wouldn't object at all if a mother was concentrating on their DC because they need it-but I do think that you get a certain amount of -'aren't I a wonderful mother?'
It would depend on the reason. If I was going to someone's house I would know them well enough to know whether there is a reason to ignore me or whether it is completely unnecessary 'helicopter parenting'.

Yes, if you believe that it is entirely your achievement, which I don't. Your success as a parent is half-chance, governed as much by genetic quirks of fate and personality as it is by your actions.

I say this not as a parent but as someone working in the field of child development. Parenting proves the law of unintended consequences better than most other endeavours in life.. even the best practices and most sensible of people can raise holy terrors, and the worst, most miserable, abusive arsewipes can produce outstanding specimens of humanity. Luck has a lot to do with it... and pride (often) comes before a fall.

I agree that it is luck a lot of the time, but you do also have to work at it. If you won't let your 4yr DC go downstairs before you get up because you don't trust him, he will surely live down to your expectations.
It is hard work-it isn't easy.
There are DCs I wouldn't trust out of my sight. However, on this playdate in OP they were not out of sight, they were not destructive and they could have been left to get on with it.
In the days that I used to host toddler coffee mornings in my house they were all where they could be seen and they could all cope with being left to play alone-and there were all sorts there!!

You have to be persistent and it is boring. I can't remember how many times I stopped my 9month old from pulling books out of the bookcase (his favourite) but I won-he stopped in the end.

I have just come out of a phase of never letting ds out of my sight on playdates. In fact stopped seeing some friends for a while. And I remember clearly the first time i realised I needed to do more than drink tea in another room. He bit my friend's little girl. I found that by being near I could intervene quickly enough to prevent most of it. But you wouldn't have thanked me for knowing ds's habits and carrying on regardless. That said, I still did my best to drink tea, chat and eat cake. Luckily (touch wood) its generally business as usual now.

Oh and I well remember the work put into making sure we could leave the (cold and non functional) coals on our fire without nine month old dd1 getting black all over. Like the others have said, persistence pays, combined crucially with a child who is ready to learn. That bit is largely out of your control.

I don't know. To be honest, persistence at the boring stuff is just a fact of life, whether it's raising kids, paying bills, dragging yourself out of bed to go to work on a cold dark morning, or doing those bits and bobs around the house on a sunny weekend when you would rather head off to the park for the day.
It doesn't seem to me to be particularly something to congratulate yourself about.

The fact a child can play with minimal supervision is not a massive hallmark of parental success, even if it required a bit of work on the part of the parent. It's just one small aspect of what the whole child can do and different people prioritise different things and have different experiences. There are millions of mothers the whole world over who had one child they had to battle to get to sleep and another who would doze off even if there was a bomb going off in the background - why would it be any different with play/independence? My sister in law had to "persist" hugely with getting her child to say please and thank you and put things in the bin, I told my son to do it and he more or less did. She had no trouble with bedtimes or her child eating vegetables and I had to "persist" with these. It's just the way of life. I agree totally with the poster above that says that really, a lot depends on whether the child is ready to learn what you are pushing at any one point in time and that you have limited control over that.

What I really don't understand is why anyone thinks that the primary motivation for interacting with your child in a social situation is to "prove" how lovely/wonderful/skilled you are as a parent. I think mainly people are muddling along and doing what they think is the right thing at that point in time, for whatever reason. Sometimes they get that right, sometimes not.. but I sincerely doubt that unless they are very insecure that they are doing it to display.. well... anything. I read constantly on MN about these parents who are doing x or y or z to show off to other parents, but I have yet to meet someone I believe is doing this in real life.

Clearly I'm too dull to bother with and the prospect of building a Lego car with a three year old is more entertaining than chatting to me. Probably.

Fire them and find new friends :)

YANBU. Mums shouldn't come to your house then ignore you.

However my DS was one who needed a lot of supervision so I understand the backlash, but it doesn't sound like the OP's guests were in that situation.