Deliberate Damage to sofa-wwyd

[Dailywalk]

Over the weekend my dd (6) had a friend over. They had scissors out as they were doing some craft project. I noticed today the sofa has been damaged . It’s been snipped in a couple of places. Tiny cuts but still they are there.
My daughter didn’t know anything about the cuts and I believe her. She’s the kind of kid that would cry and guilt would make her confess if it was her.
I don’t want to confront anyone but I suspect the friend has done this deliberately when she’s been on her own in the room. I’m fully expecting backlash that they shouldn’t have been left alone with scissors but they often get on with craft projects or games when I’m in another room. Wwyd?

I’d just be glad it wasn’t one of the 6 year olds the got cut with the scissors. Good luck if you decide to bring that up with the other parent because I know what my response would be if it was my child. Even if you have to leave the room when they are doing craft projects I’d be taking the scissors with me. Probably be called a helicopter parent for this, but at 6 years old their brains are hardly developed enough to be trusted with scissors because they do stupid things like cut sofas or their hair at best, at worst who knows what they could do or what kind of accident they could have. I’d never be leaving my child in your care again if I was the other parent.

The only thing you can really do is make sure the other child is supervised if you want to have them over again.
I know you don’t think it’s likely that your dd was involved but it also seems unlikely that their friend would use the couple of minutes your dd left the room to start deliberately hacking at your furniture with scissors!
Does the friend usually display poor behaviour as that would obviously make it more likely?
Other options I would consider due to the position of the snips is do you have pets? Or is it possible anyone/thing passing could have caught on the material and torn it - moving furniture, a boot buckle etc?
It would be very odd behaviour of the friend if they have deliberately vandalised your sofa the second your dd left the room!

My advice? After the fact. NEVER leave 6-year-olds alone with scissors, and especially don't allow 6-year-olds to use scissors on upholstered surfaces. From my experience (and I learned that advice the hard way), not only is the damage always accidental, but NEITHER child may have even noticed it when it happened. To say it had to have been deliberate is a real stretch, since you say the snips were tiny.

Backlash from the child’s mother?
Well, yes of course she’ll be pissed off at you, you have no proof at all that it was down to her child and not yours.

6 is way too young to be left with such sharp scissors for stretches of time. Be grateful no one ended up in A&E and chalk it up to experience.

Your fault for not supervising six year olds with scissors.

Put it down to experience and watch them in future or dont give them materials that can cause damage if you need to get on with things.

Maybe put a small craft table outside if weather is good.

Also get rid of the notion your child can do no wrong so the other must be to blame.

Hey @Dailywalk

Sorry your sofa is ruined. It’s a hard pill to swallow; harder still when it’s your own fault. Hope you can get it fixed or find a way to minimise the damage.

Not here to judge, I think you are right to be annoyed with the whole situation, but I’m really interested in the false dichotomy of accidental/deliberate.

Anything could’ve happened. Childhood curiosity is mad craic, like. It might’ve been accidental while crafting. One little accidental nick might’ve turned into ‘ooh I wonder what happens when I do this’. It might have been as @5foot5 said and they went drunk on cutting enthusiasm and went on a spree.

So interesting!

I just find it interesting that you’ve jumped from accidental to ‘deliberate and malicious’. And no you’ve not said those words, but you imply that it’s a malicious damage that’s been done.

Call me naive but I think that’s the interesting thing here. Curiosity is awesome, until your sofa gets ruined

Next time the kid comes over, cut her hair off.

She’ll probably cry. Then you have to get right down to her eye level and growl in her face “that’s for the sofa, bitch”.

You’re doing her a favour really.

NBU To be annoyed but unfortunately it's on you that it happened. You left them alone.

😂

Haha op your post made me lol 😆

I can only assume your child is your PFB

I highly recommend you reflect on the responses here for a reality check 🍰

Sorry about your sofa

Ha! Couldn't have put it better 👏

Suck it up. I'm afraid you're right re backlash for leaving the kids alone with scissors. It's deserved. You know your own child best of course, in terms of whether they can be safely left like that (although if they then had an accidental injury, your lack of supervision would doubtless be criticised) - but you don't know about the other child. If I was their mum and you came to accuse my 6 y/o of vandalising your sofa, I'm pretty sure I'd have a go at you for leaving them at risk of injury.

Shes 6 😅😅😅😅😅😅

OP- this has become a long thread so apologies if this has already been said. If you were not there and did not see it, you really cannot say with any certainty that it was not your daughter. Yes you may know your daughter, but actually as parents we very rarely know with any certainty all their behaviours at all times and particularly within friendship dynamics. You need to accept that our children lie to us when there are consequences and actually at times and within certain situations they act differently to what we think 'we know'.

It is really an easy option to believe that difficult and disappointing behaviour from our children is not their fault/the fault of others but usually it is not black and white- lots of grey areas. Children 'act up', egg each other on, act out on personal jealousy when friendship groups change. To jump to the conclusion it is not your daughter with no actually proof makes you one of 'those parents' who can never accept that sometimes their children do bad things. They are not bad, just do stupid things and this is where you parent.

I always took the line that if I did not see it then I cannot get involved with blame etc but let's agree to accept each others feelings and move on at this age. DC had a huge need for justice to be carried out but I would not get dragged in as they were all as bad as each other. Yes I knew one friend would prod and push buttons but the rest of them would pile in and not cover themselves in glory.

You can claim on your home contents insurance if you have accidental damage cover.

Kids do stupid things. This is why you need to supervise them.

we had an instance of Ind of my DD friends purposefully staple into her own nail bed. She’d used the stapler, scissors (child scissors) and materials loads of time. I was in the room too - they can be so quick.

After she stopped screaming, we asked why she did it. Her reply was that she just wanted to see what would happen.

never leave kids unsupervised with potential sharp things.

what you can do about your sofa, love with it if it isn’t noticeable or call your home insurance

going forward, supervise accordingly. Even your own daughter

Obviously you do not know which child did the damage so you can’t blame the friend. What I am more curious about is why you think the child did it deliberately??

just as well they attacked the sofa and not each other.