would you want to know if your DC behaved badly on a playdate?

[var123]

and would you take the other parent's word for it if she told you what your DC had done?

I'm the mother of a PITA. She has ADHD and asd and I have in the past had to fork out over 50 quid to repair damage she caused in someone else's house (the mother in that case also has neuro-non-typical kids and was wonderfully understanding and kind and tried to stop me replacing everything - we're best friends still years later). I always want to know and I generally believe the parent, though as she gets older there are a few kids who have clicked that she's in trouble a lot and thus try to pin blame on her - I still agree with the parents in question but deal with it differently with DD.

The 13yo being openly belligerent then suddenly remorseful does ring bells for me as a parent of a kid like this. My dd is 9 but can be immensely rude then devastated when it's pointed out to her.

What to do is hard. If you are happier for your kid not to have this boy as a friend I would just say he's not welcome to come to your home. If your DS finds him a problem but really likes him too (i know some other parents are baffled that their kid likes my dd but around her social clumsiness and thoughtless destruction she can also be incredibly fun and funny and is very caring if someone is able to help her socially "translate" situations (which most kids did when they were 5 but hardly any are still willing to now they are 9)) then I would allow him to come back but begin the visit with a brief rundown of the rules I.e. "if you are rude/aggressive I will immediately drive you home" and then stick to it.

I have the same high expectations as any parent, I just have to give more chances.

I know that you're not looking specifically for my sort of viewpoint OP, it was just that some of the bed kids on this thread sound so like my dd and it makes my heart so sore to think how many people are probably labelling her as bad and me as a crap mum based on her differences.

I would want to know. I would want it to be done with humour and without blame or reflections on my parenting, though. I would not want to be read a lecture.

I don't think this 13 year old has a special need though and he wasn't genuinely remorseful. Its just what he does I.e. push the boundaries, watches your reaction, pushes a bit more, smiles to himself and then pushes again. He knows I don't want to tellhim off so he kept going. Then he apologizes so that he can tell his mum he did if anything gets back to her. Ds says he is exactly the same with the teachers at school and that's when he's not quietly thumping the other kids.

I've known him for years and his mum who thinks he is perfect.

I think it is a good thing for the child to tell the other parent of their misbehaviour because it gives the child a chance to improve in the future. Once he/she has been spoken to by their parents, and shown the error of their ways, the child may well behave a lot better on the next visit and can continue to visit. I would take informing the parent as a positive move, showing that you haven't given up on the child and are giving him/her a chance to reform rather than just ending the friendship.

Obviously that just works with reasonable parents who are prepared to accept that their child is sometimes less than angelic - not the mother the OP is describing!

no he's had it as far as my family goes. DS was scared of him so it wasn't a healthy friendship anyway.

The boy was unbelievably rude to a teacher last week too and swore and cursed ds right in front of his form tutor. So I think the school have his card marked.

Absolutely I would want to know, so I can deal with the behaviour and discuss the consequences of it - ie, you behave badly somewhere else and you'll be told off at home/you won't be invited back/your friends will avoid you! I'm not of the opinion that my children can do no wrong. They are not malicious but can be silly/overexcited and boisterous as they are young boys, it happens. But bad behaviour won't be tolerated even if it doesn't happen in my house!

I wouldn't go out of my way to tell a parent their child was badly behaved at a play date - purely because if it really was that bad and they hadn't listened to a couple of warnings, I'd have phoned the mother and told her she needed to come and pick her child up or dropped them home early. I wouldn't put up with it for hours on end. 3 strikes, you go home.

I'm a bit gobsmacked at the poster who allowed one guest to injure another small guest repeatedly. If I was the mother of the smallest boy, I'd not be letting him over to play again. Why didn't you take him home?

I've rarely admired anyone more than the mother of my DS's schoolfriend, when she sent him home early from her house (her DH delivered him to our door) with the message that as her DC weren't allowed to bounce on their beds, guests were not allowed to either...

I apologised to her the next day at the school gate, and the friendship continued. DS was a very 'lively' child but I never had any more complaints - now he has his own Mini-DS and realises just how embarrassing it is..!!

I should have called his mum to take him home but at each point I thought I had finally got it under control. I've never seen a child so completely indifferent to what I asked. It was like he thought it was a game or something!
I just never got through to him until his mother appeared but by the time he started again over dinner I'd have called her then if she hadn't already been on her way.

The worst bit was handing the older boy back to his mum and having to explain what had happened. She was really nice about it but no child wants to be treated like that.

ES had a best friend for a while who could be a terror. He stole, was rude, had tantrums and would play god-awful mind games with ES. They've cooled off a lot recently and I'm thankful. He would come here, behave atrociously, get told off then run home and lie through his teeth to his Mum about why I'd told him off.

She was the stereotypical "he can do no wrong" parent and would have none of it. Ironically enough, ES' new best friend lives around the corner from us and the parents are wonderful; if ES is being a bellend, they won't hesitate to pick him up on it, if his mate is being a wally here, I can point it out without it affecting our friendship.

So I don't blame the children for being that way. I blame the parents. If they know you're going to back them up regardless of their bad behaviour, there's no incentive for them to be good. If they know they'll be rollicked for it, they try and behave.

Interesting thread: my oldest is 3.5 and only really has one playdate friend as yet, so I have limited experience of all this.

Just out of interest, how bad would it be to record the horrible behaviour? You know, as proof if the other parent refuses to believe you? Part of me thinks it would be eminently logical but a larger part thinks that my NUTJOB alarm would be going off if someone said to me 'Your DS was very rude; watch this recording which confirms my words'.......

but at each point I thought I had finally got it under control.

He decided you were bluffing.

Of course I would want to know. The same as I would want to know if my child misbehaved at Pre-school/a relatives etc.

I would want to talk to add about her behaviour and reinforce what our expectations are, as well as imposing sanctions if appropriate.

I would take the adults word for what happened unless I had reason to disbelieve it.

Depends on what had happened and how bad it was. I also have a child with SNs who could be lively and therefore likely to be the one breaking things but he was very well behaved. Always the first to stop when asked etc. He just isn't fully in control of his flailing limbs!

I have always told him off when behaving badly and would expect others too. However I did notice a small selection of children from the wishy washy parents noted DS couldn't get away with things they were begged to stop but never did could and would tell tales.

One day I found a confidence and started speaking up to these children. Not nastily in the slightest but a "well your doing it so why can't DS" most denied they were involved at all so I'd say "I was watching what happened" "I can see what's happening and can tell DS off myself if I need to" and "well DS is just copying what your doing at your house."
A few friendships fell by the wayside because the parents didn't like their children not being able to behave how they liked at mine and me intervening if they didn't. (Usually jumping/climbing on furniture and 1 child sticking stickers to everything around the house).

Interestingly the worst offender of "oh I'm sure DD didn't mean that, didn't do it etc" became my best friend. We counterbalanced each other out amazingly in the end with me learning to pick my battles and her learning not everyone finds her children delightful or 'little monkies' over every thing they did.
We are very open about parenting, choices, our children and can pull each other's children up and talk to them openly now about everything.

She even celebrated the other week when my ds answered the phone and I was in shower and he had a short conversation with her (DS doesnt do conversation!)

plumpinguppartridge - filming it would be a definite no-no. I think even reasonable, sane, laid back parents would be disturbed to find I'd made a recording of their child as evidence.
Apart from anything else, they would justifiably ask why I was passively recording when I should be actively trying to deal with things.

Well, if the little sod darling has resisted all previous attempts to be dealt with then you might as well give up and capture the evidence!

Don't worry, I'm not going to start recording bad behaviour in my house probably

I'm a bit mean in that I'd probably invite the other parent to come in and sit down as "your son has something he needs to speak with you about". And then I'd put the child on the spot about their behaviour and watch them try to explain it to their parent in front of me. They dig their heels in, but the parent can tell from their reaction that the behaviour has been bad.

i would always want to be told if my children had misbehaved, but i would always expect the parents of my friend's children to appropriately tell off my children too, rather than watch the bad behaviour and do nothing at the time

when i drop my children off i always say something along the lines of "please feel free to tell them off" just so that parents know it is ok.

however, my oldest is only 4 so her capacity to remember is different, they need more instant conflict resolution/telling off.

i've actually noticed that a lot of parents think the worst of their children (or at least, that's what they say aloud) rather than assuming their children are innocent.
eg, if DD's friend's mum and I are in one room and our 4 year olds are in another and one starts crying, we will both go in and assume our own child is at fault. eg if my DD is crying, my friend will assume her DD hit mine, and I will normally downplay that by saying "oh, my DD's tired, im sure it's nothing" or assume my DD is crying because she's not been able to share etc.
i often feel bad about this, it's like some sort of politeness competition to downplay your own child's innocence and exaggerate their culpability.

can't wait till my DD is 13!

I would want to be told, and would always ask if things had gone OK.

If a kid is out of control at your house, and they don't immediately do as you say, then I'd be getting the parents to take them home. Ultimately it is your only real sanction in the situation.

waffling - that might be because your friend's DD has "form" for hitting others, rather than her automatically thinking the worst.

My 2 DSs are very different - DS1 was nearly always the "victim" (from watching from the sidelines at playgroups etc.) and very rarely the protagonist, although he did once fight back when he was being treated very badly by the son of my friend, who also had another boy over to play - scared both of them silly (but didn't hurt them).
DS2 on the other hand is entirely too fond of lashing out, mostly so far at DS1, but I can see he could be problematic with other children later - so in your scenario, I would also assume that my DS2 had had something to do with it (but not DS1).

I probably wouldn't tell the mum or dad, I just wouldn't have the children back especially if the kids weren't keen on them either. I'd only tell about the bad behaviour if asked by the parents to explain why I couldn't have them over on a playdate next half-term etc.

sianilaa if you mean my post about a guest injuring a younger boy, it does say in the post that I sent him home and he has never been allowed in our house ever again. And he kept trying for months