Can I ask them to pay? play date dilemma, need advice!

[Amislytherin]

My daughter attends a sensory group (she has ADHD and sensory issues once a week). out of this group have come some lovely friendships between the mums, one in particular. We sometimes meet for a play out with the group and yesterday was one of these days and we met at my house. Her son was very hyped up with my daughter and they were playing nicely if a little on the boisterous side (which I more than understand as both have significant sensory needs)
Anyway, I’d asked them both several times to stop running around so fast, and then directly asked her son to stop gently while holding quite a heavy sensory ball that he always carries. I was worried he’d hurt himself or bang into my 1.5 year old who was toddling around. My friend was trying to catch up on work emails at the time so was aware but distracted. .
next thing I know, there is a bang and a smash and we run upstairs to see that the window has been cracked by the ball being thrown at it. It’s a huge crack and will 100% need replaced as looks like it can shatter at any time.
cue hysterics from all kids, me trying to calm everyone down and mainly just checking no one was hurt which luckily they weren’t. My friend left shortly afterwards saying she was sorry, this often happens in their home so she knows how annoying it is and she can send me the number of their glazier.
sure enough she sent me
the number last night with a “sorry about today, here is X number they are really
good. See you at the group next week, remember it’s dress up day xx”
I guess I was hoping / assuming she’d offer to pay but she hasn’t. I’m now in awkward position as my default is to just leave it and avoid confrontation but I really really can’t afford a glazier cost of what I’m estimating to be around £200-250 as it’s a slightly awkward shaped double glazed window.
Is it reasonable to ask Her to pay for it? Go halves? or do I just suck it up and stick it on my credit card and accept it’s part of play dates? We don’t have any other play dates so I don’t really know what’s the norm for breakages in someone else’s house ☹️thank you in advance

I would text back "Thanks for the glazier recommendation. Our home insurance excess is £300, are you ok to chip in half of that?"

As much as I wholly agree she should have offered, saying the ball causes the damage in her house, doesn’t mean she’s saying her son did it. She’s simply saying the same has happened to her.

in addition the son saying sorry also doesn’t mean he did it, plenty of kids will say sorry during something like this, but it doesn’t mean they are saying they did it. More sorry it happened,

there is a potential the woman thinks the ops daughter did it and is denying it, and so it’s a bit cf to ask her to pay.

I strongly suspect the woman is going to say but my son didn’t do it. Your daughter did and I’m shocked at you asking me to pay when she took his ball and threw it, then lied. The woman can obviously communicate with her son, so will have tried to understand what happened.

It sounds like the boy threw the ball. He was the one holding it the whole time.

Even if they both threw it, it was an accident waiting to happen. The visiting mother had a decision to let her son carry a heavy ball around, knowing he gets over excited and knowing he can cause a lot of damage with it.

It's different to accidentally dropping a wine glass or the other examples (that said, if I dropped someone's expensive wine glass while visiting I would replace it!).

The mother created the situation where an accident was likely to occur and is washing her hands of it.

It's especially bad form given she appears to have more spare money than OP.

Please don't dread going to the group. I know it will feel awkward with this CF (if she shows up, I also suspect she won't), but you have done absolutely nothing wrong here and have nothing to be embarrassed about. Offering half was generous and unnecessary, and she was very rude to not offer half as a minimum at the time. If she does ghost you, TBH I would be quietly dropping it into conversation with the rest of the group so the others are warned if she shows up somewhere else. If she shows I would be bringing it up, although I appreciate you may not feel confident enough for this. If you don't feel able or she doesn't show, I think a follow up message laying out that given the facts her son apologised (ie admitted culpability) and she admitted similar has happened at home, really you feel she should be paying in its entirety, but you valued her friendship which is why you'd offered to go halves would be fair. I would also include my sadness and disappointment in her refusal to engage and take responsibility and the resulting loss of a friendship.

In terms of new friendships OP, can you look at doing more or different activities/sports etc with your DC? Even better if you can also volunteer at them too. My DC1 has ASD and ADHD, and I find ND kids are magnetically drawn towards each other. Your DC will quickly, albeit also unintentionally, find out who the other ND DCs are for you. Finding a good 'friends' match (either for DC, DPs, or the whole family) is a numbers game much like dating. If you are ND too, I find the same magnetism is often true between parents also... hence the recommendation to volunteer 🙂

This is not the same situation at all.

A comparable adult situation would be if an adult brought a bowling ball to your house, carried it around the whole time then somehow it ended up breaking your window. Then they said 'oh yes, I've broken loads of windows at home with this ball - here's a glazier's number' I think at this point you'd think that whilst you support them holding the bowling ball if they need to, perhaps they shouldn't bring a bowling ball to your house if they can't keep control of it (and be glad it didn't connect with the 1.5 year old's head).

Bringing an extremely heavy object that can cause damage sufficient to break a window into your home is not the same as dropping something.

She’s bang out of order ignoring you, I think 50-50 is fair!

Hopefully she will reply soon !

@Amislytherin, any updates? Is the playgroup today? I said previously that I don't think she'd show, but if she did I hope you plucked up the courage to ask why she's not responded to your message and if she intends to pay.

Sounds like a madam, keep us updated op

In this situation, given that your CF ‘friend’ didn’t offer to pay or even contribute, I would have paid to get the window fixed and immediately ditched the friendship altogether. I couldn’t continue being friends with someone who could behave so selfishly.

Did she reply or did you see her at the group?

You shouldn't feel awkward OP. I can understand why you do feel a bit uncomfortable but she should feel more uncomfortable. If she were in the right she'd have no problem replying to tell you so. She knows she's in the wrong.

she's had windows broken in her own room because of that ball and should have supervised her son very closely while in your home with it.

don't be friends with her.

Any update @Amislytherin ?

Here for an update too 😄

She definitely should have paid. I think you’ve been far too reasonable offering to go 50/50! She’s a CF. I hope you didn’t avoid the group OP.

Hope you’re ok @Amislytherin

@Amislytherin, we definitely need an update. What happened?! 👀

Update is CF friend hasn't mentioned it and so neither has OP