Daughter’s friend constantly hanging round ours with no invites ever reciprocated

[AliceR1]

My daughter’s friend who she always hung out with (11yo) from school has been knocking on our door pretty much every other day, unannounced, essentially inviting herself in, nearly always over lunch, stays 5+ hours at a time, sleepovers. I’ve been getting a bit frustrated with it because it’s often incorrect and recently turned her away from the door as we’re about to go out. Twice she’s been invited around theirs but twice got ‘sorry actually not convenient right now’ short notice message. Yesterday she found out that this girl has been having endless play dates with another girl from their class at each other’s houses. My daughter found out yesterday, was meant to be going round theirs today (last day of hols) but got cancelled and was absolutely devastated. Full on rejection feeling that resulted in a lot of anxiety and self-doubt - I did not need a counselling session till midnight last night. I am absolutely fuming, obviously feel like we’ve been taken the absolute mick out of in terms of childcare, often dropping what we were in the middle of. AIBU? How would you handle it from here?

Playdates*

It's about time this site had a bloody edit function.

Did you miss the part where this girl is having friends over, just not the OP's daughter?

Why should the OP expose her daughter to this user? That is what this girls parent(s) are doing, using the OP's daughter when it suits them but not reciprocating the invite.

Time to put a stop to this. Start widening your DD's circle of friends there OP.

Did you miss the part where this girl is having friends over, just not the OP's daughter?

Nobody is missing that.

Why should the OP expose her daughter to this user? That is what this girls parent(s) are doing, using the OP's daughter when it suits them but not reciprocating the invite.

Because none of that is the fault of two 11 year old girls! Why punish them because of the actions of the parents?

My younger sister had a friend like this. She was always around at weekends and evenings. Mum always fed her. She cooked extra for her as knew she would be over. My sister and girl had a big argument and fell out. Girl kept coming over even when my sister was out. Mum fed her. My sister told girl not to come to our house again. Three months later girl taken into care. Her home was full of hoarders stuff. Her Mum had depression and did not feed her. We always felt bad we had not known about her home life. Several years later she turned up out of the blue one day, when my sister was at university, with a baby to show my Mum.

At 11, surely it's "I'm going round to X's to hang out" not a playdate? Why is everything so micromanaged and labelled?

People are labelling it cause it's quicker to type playdate, I imagine.

But even at 11 it's not the child's choice whether their friends are allowed over or round for lunch - that's down to the parents. I often remember being limited to one friend over at a time for a whole number of reasons, and I also had friends who weren't allowed friends over at all for various reasons.

The decisions of the parents shouldn't mean the children aren't allowed to be friends though. Why would you punish two 11yo's because of a choice that's nothing to do with then?

Could it be that you feel a bit pushed out because her friend is over all the time and you have taken the holidays off to be with your DC?

Or do you sense that this other family look down on you - is the other child who is invited higher up some perceived social class / wealth ladder that this family aspire to?

Yes, absolutely.
I vaguely remember my Mum rolling her eyes a bit when we were never allowed into the other girl's house, but she certainly never said "right, I'm being abused for childcare and I'm not having it" She was also a working single mother while the other girl's mum didn't work but they were, I suppose, different times and people just didn't seem to overthink these things.

There were also times when I was asked to go and play in other girl on the next street's house. And I went. Maybe my friend on our street's mum then told everyone what a user I was. Dunno. There was another girl whose house I preferred playing in because she had lots of horsey stuff and they bought Birds Eye Dairy Cream Sponges and I'd have binned everyone else off to go there.

Like pps have said I'd be a slightly concerned that this little girl isn't very happy at home and possibly feels more comfortable and safe at your house.

Because it's not always the actions of the parents.

I speak from experience here.

When I was a lot younger and lived in the family home, new neighbours moved in across the road. They had kids that were the same age as I was and my long term friends that happened to be my next door neighbours. These new neighbours from across the road, when they wanted to play would first call on my next-door neighbours to find out if they wanted to play and only if they were busy/had a previous arrangement would they call on my door. I'd see them outside happily playing together. These were kids aged 9 - 13 at the time. I was never their first doorbell to ring. Always only when the NDN weren't able to go out and play.
I could see it was happening and I was being second best.
These kids had their favourite and I wasn't it. It wasn't strings being pulled by their parents, this was the kids.

Sad that you didn’t have the support and encouragement to join in.

Every time she comes to the door be perfectly polite, but either escort her home or just tell her your DD isn’t free to play, and it’s not a convenient time for her to come over.

It restores my faith in people when some can manage to look beneath the surface and question things presented as facts - as others have questioned the truth of the "endless playdates". My first thought was why would a child not want to be at home this often? I've seen this with children who would hang about inside school who did not want to go home - there were reasons for this. My wife had (still has) a friend X from primary school who was always at her house... because she had such a terrible home life. X has said many times how time at my wife's house saved her - I knew X too - she was a very sensitive girl - naturally very clever - she had 7 siblings, 2 with learning difficulties and a violent, alcoholic father and a mother who could not cope. I went round to her house once - it was bedlam - a total mess - arguing and shouting between the parents and with the other kids... at my wife's house you could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall and the crackle of wood in the fire, a sleeping cat and dog - it was an oasis of calm by comparison. Try and get to know and understand the girl.

Stop p

I meant

stop enabling this
Tell the mum that they need to schedule their playdates from now on
When the girl comes over uninvited? Send her home
If she wants to stay for a sleep over? Send her home
Keep doing that.

This is your own doing op. You need to acquire a bit of backbone here instead of blaming it all on her and her mum

Learn to say no.

This kid has a bad home life.

Is she good for DD? That’s the first question imho.

Sounds like a break is in order.

Yes - which is often inconvenient - meals/portions planned but I can hardy sit there looking at him watching us eat 😂

Can you not tell the child you are having lunch now so they need to go home ?

but you can tell him 20/30 mins before lunch “Barry and Brian you can have 10 more minutes playing but then it’ll be time for Barry to leave”.

donyou think they get fed ok at home?

It’s hard to know what’s going on - has your DD asked her why she can’t go to hers? Try just sending her, like what it happening to you, and see what happens.

Yes you can.

We are about to have our meal now, X. Time for you to go home.

Stand up. Open the door.

You are in control here.

I was that girl once. Always around in my friend's house. Things were normal there. No drunk fathers or squalor. Dinners were home made and everyone sat around a table. I felt very carefree and happy when I was there. My heart sank when I would hear "It's time for Shazzy to go now".

God was I grateful for that house back then. I am sure they were sick of me and must have wondered why I wasn't allowed bring friends home but they never mentioned it or questioned me. I was so grateful for that.

Yeah… wish I was the person I’m now at the start of the summer. I’m on the whole agreeable and try to help where I can but boy have I grown resentful. Lesson learnt.

I’d just keep giving the kid a return volley of “It’s not convenient” and see what eventuates.

The is an interesting thread. My first thought is whether it drives the OP’s daughter crackers to have a friend turn up every other day and stay on and on. She hasn’t had any break from her all summer.

I used to live next door to a friend who would do this. There weren’t any particular issues at home, it was just that my friend was the youngest in a large family and had never learnt how to amuse herself. The concept of needing time on your own never occurred to her. It got to the point where I’d go out to meet someone else and she would keep coming over to see if I was back (up to five times a day). Or she would turn up when I had someone else round.

It’s weird that this girl’s family don’t notice just how often their child goes round to the OP’s or how long she stays. Some of the suggestions are good but it’s nearly the start of term.

Yes, start doing this. And do it in the October half term (unless you are going on holiday, at which point it doesn’t become a problem).