If you're hosting the play date, you should tidy up afterwards?

[tellsme]

I have a friend who somehow manages to get me to tidy up after most play dates. When I host, I tidy and when she hosts I also tidy!

Somethings amiss. What do you all do?

You lost me at play date

It really doesn't need to Gerbilsoup
Try it!

Even as teenagers now, I expect their friends to help tidy up a bit.

When they were younger, I always got the kids to have a quick tidy before going home. Just stuff like picking up lego, returning cups/plates to the kitchen, any dress up stuff into the box.

Now, it's more of picking up food wrappers, putting clothes away (dd likes to swap clothes with friends).

The worst stage was when the girls used to make 'potions' and 'perfume' in the bathroom…..

When dh supervises play dates he doesn't ask for help tidying. I came home to this once….

@MrsJonesAndMe

I'm not talking about emptying the dishwasher *@Lowkeevslucille* Just toys back in a box etc with adult directing - not that hard!

not sure what the relevance with emptying the dishwasher is,

but it's considered quite rude here to expect guests to tidy up.

I’m amazed at how many people allow kids to wreck stuff on play dates (their own and others houses).

wheresmymillionaire
that's not playing, that's just throwing things around for the sake of it.

I would never have children doing this back in my house. My kids are no angels and the house can be covered in toys whilst they are onto something, but it's part of a game, not being mean for the sake of it.

15:04wheresmymillionaire hope you didn't tidy that up!

Under 3 isn’t too young to “help” tidy things awayb

I guess it depends what she's asking you to do. Putting toys back in the toy box is fine (and polite) if she's handing you the vacuum cleaner then that's a bit cheeky...

Can you not passive aggressively ask her kids to tidy. 'It's tidy up time, Alfie, can you pop the jigsaw pieces back in the box?'
Worse comes to the worst maybe her kids will do some tidying.

Over three, kids tidy. Around 18 months to 3, kids help tidy. If you and the kids are tidying maybe she'll get the hint.

It would never occur to me to tidy up at someone else's house! I just would not think of it. Now I'm wondering how many people's backs I may have got up over the years! You friend is probably just a bit oblivious (like me, I'm realising!)

I don't see a problem with asking her to help, in a friendly and casual way. I mean, sure, you can just stop offering to help at hers, so at least you're not doing everything yourself, but there's nothing so strange about indicating that now is the time for tidying.

If the kids are old enough to at least help a bit, I'd try saying something like, "Okay, Child A and Child B, it's almost time for Child B to go home, now, so let's tidy up!" Or ask her, "Oh, Mary, can you toss the LEGO into that bucket while I gather up these crayons?"

If she still fails to help, she's just being rude, and I'd never offer to help tidy at hers again!

Words were said. Mainly to dh for letting it happen in the first place.

I have a Friedman’s who’s quite strict on her (very tidy) house being tidy before people leave. Her house is lovely and big. She’s quite restrictive also on what kids use, nothing to make much mess. No craft, paint or going in and out the black door.

When she comes here, rather cluttered, it’s like she thinks more mess won’t make any difference and she doesn’t contribute. It winds me up as although I don’t have a show home, I also don’t have mud and paint trailer everywhere and upended toy boxes! The kids also seem to treat it as an opportunity to let loose.

There’s a difference between craft and muddy play and then clearing up the mess as opposed to chucking stuff around and dragging pillows and duvets into a muddy garden.

I would always help with the former whether it was my house or not. I would offer if it were not my house and just make a go of getting stuff in the right place or washing up the paint pots or whatever. Definitely - part of the mess is my kids.

I wouldn’t let playtime get so out of control that the place was really chaotic.

I think it’s always polite to offer to help. But, I hate when people help at mine as they put everything in the wrong place; so friends that come over often know not to offer

Pick up your kids/ leave 10 minutes early. Say you've got to go. But this won't be an issue right now anyway!

Ask her to help you tidy when you host if you are that bothered.

I try to tidy up after my DS on playdates and our friends are usually fairly good about helping to tidy up somewhat when they come to ours. That said, I never ask and I'd never get chippy about a guest not helping to tidy.

You also have to be realistic with expectations. One of our friends has four under 5s (including 2 year old twins and a young baby). House is usually fairly trashed after they visit and they never help tidy. But she's doing well tbh to bundle all of them (kicking and screaming!) out the door at the end of the playdate and not forget one of them. And we absolutely adore seeing them, they're lots of fun. So we don't mind.

kids or both parents