What's your worst playdate experience?

[PumpkinSly]

Aibu to ask what your worst playdate stories are (if you can still call it a play date at 9). DS has been to his friends this afternoon and has come home covered in what I can only assume is dog shit. The friend has two dogs and DS has come home with shit all over his shoes, trousers, t-shirt, and even in his hair. It doesn't even smell like normal dog shit. It is very cheesy in smell and it's all over him. He reeked. He said he spent time playing in the garden, but who lets kids play in a dog shit covered garden?! FFS! He's washed, we've cleaned the interior of the car, and his clothes are in the washing machine, so no long term damage. But I am sorely tempted to message the mother and tell her the state DS has come home in. DH thinks it's not worth it, and maybe he is right, so please, tell me your playdate nightmares to distract me.

😱

That's gross and I would be messaging and asking why he is covered in shit and he wouldn't be going there again

I have nothing to compete with that

Called by a stranger to pick oldest DD up from her friends house 5am one Sunday morning.

They'd been raided by the police for money laundering.

That’s grim! Was DS not bothered about playing in it?

A 9 year old knows better than to roll around in dog shit.

'Hi! Thanks for letting Bob come to play today. Just to let you know, he seems to have come home covered in dog poo? Bob seems to think it was when he was in the garden. Just thought I'd let you know so you can check Philip. You know what kids are like? Thanks again'

When our eldest was at primary a friend from her class came to our house straight from school. Mum was due to collect Her at 7.30.
By 8.00 when Mum hadn’t collected her she said
“ oh she’s probably gone in town with vodka in her bag!
By 10 we hadn’t managed to contact her Mum. Didn’t want her to just stay over without any bedtime stuff or permission.
Whilst we were deciding what to do my DH realised he knew her dad from a sport they both played
( unusual surname)
Mum and dad weren’t together and dad didn’t sound surprised at all. Came to pick her up when we rang him. He was so apologetic.
Your poor son OP that’s grim!

Went to a kids party (I thin it was a 3rd) where the birthday girl “had an accident” (#2) on the floor and another kid walked through it and spread it halfway down the hallway. Grim

I went to a baby play date and learned halfway through the mother was horrifically racist.
Let her know I did not agree with what she was saying and left.
Awful, she was a police officer too.

Took my toddler to a play date. Another mum was there as well and we all sat on the stairs while the children played in the small hallway of the house.

We went to an absolutely beautiful house where the only toys on offer were a single doll and doll's buggy. There were four toddlers present.

You can imagine how that went down. Like a Saturday night on Union Street in Plymouth. The dolly and her buggy had to be confiscated and put upstairs. Thankfully it was the rather clueless nanny doing the playdate not the mum, so myself and the other mum invited improvised by doing some "junk modelling" with a roll of sellotape, some string and the contents of the recycling bin. Then we pretended to be ponies and did "pony races" with the kids climbing on us. Then we started a game of hide and seek but got freaked out when one of the kids hung off the very expensive looking curtains. I asked for a glass of water but there didn't seem to be any glasses except wine/champagne glasses which the nanny didn't look too confident about us using so I went to the loo and drank water from the tap (was thirsty after the "pony races"). Came back to find the kids jumping on the sofa and the nanny looking very worried so decided that it was a good time to say our thank yous and leave (we'd been there about an hour).

The other mum hot-tailed it out after me and we stopped to buy cake at the cake shop on the way home. We discussed going for coffee but agreed that what we really needed was to eat our cake alone in pyjamas lying on our respective sofas. We've had some playdates since which have been... interesting (for all sorts of reasons!). But that one sticks in my mind as the least enjoyable.

Another notable one was when we turned up to find that the playdate child had been taken out by the father because she was being a pain in the arse and so my child spent the entire time bouncing on the trampoline by himself in the garden while the mother and I had coffee. Tbh we quite enjoyed that one - we don't have a trampoline so it was a treat for my DC and peaceful for me. At the end of the playdate, the mother gave my DC a party-bag to apologise for her child not being there but said (to a 4yo!) words to the effect of "I'm sure you understand, Violet (not real name) wouldn't have added anything to the playdate, given her mood" 😆. It was just very odd.

Soft play. Always.

We took a 5yo friend to the playground, she jumped off the 2 ft climbing frame...broke her leg 😬

I walked into an MLM pitch for a thermomix about 10 years ago. A random mum i met invited me and dd round and then spent 2 hours talking about and using her thermomix before saying it's only £1000! The poor toddlers were left to it.

One kid who I can’t even remember now (I’ve blocked it out) who came for a loooonnnggg 2 hours after school and basically didn’t want to do anything with my son. He just kept coming to me and asking me to play with him, or asking dumb questions or asking for food and drinks (they'd already got snacks and drinks and I was busy preparing tea and he just wanted to be in everything I was doing).

He wasn’t interested in anything my son was doing or playing, or the tv, or the garden, he just basically needed constant attention - only from me.

He never got invited back.

DD has a friend who isn't allowed to play in the house (she goes to his or they go out to the park etc) because he came a couple of times and had to be prevented from taking all the stuff in storage out of the basement/kidnapping the cat/breaking things. He has ASD but I suspect mum doesn't want to say no to anything. He told DD he's allergic to paper.
DS has SEN and when he was younger he struggled with friends of DD coming over. He's Ok now (partly because he and DD can take themselves off to their rooms if they need to) but it's a handy excuse.

Play date where the Mum tried to sell me a MLM. Very pushy.
Something to do with Aloe Vera. Forever Living? Can’t remember properly.
She practically took me hostage!

Some of these are absolutely awful!
Luckily, I never had to deal with anything too bad. Probably the worst was when a little girl who went to school with DD came over. She was SO keen (the little girl) and would literally beg me daily on the school run to let her come over. DD was always pretty quiet on the matter, but I stupidly didn't pay much attention to that.
The eventual play date was...intense. The little girl just didn't stop. She talked constantly at me and DD who couldn't get a word in, wanted to hug me all the time, didn't have any concept of personal space and wanted constant entertainment. It was absolutely exhausting. DD ended up crying in the bathroom! She was a very sweet little girl, nothing nasty, but it was just so much.
We didn't arrange any more dates. I felt bad, but DD just couldn't stand it. She would speak to the little girl at school, but that was the limit.

I don't know if this counts cos i was (almost) an adult when it happened. I had ben invited to a pool party of a school friend, she was very odd girl but i kept giving her the benefit of the doubt. not long after arriving at the party, having a drink and a swim, without my knowledge she went into my bag and using my phone called my mother and told her i was blind drunk and could she came at get me, my Mum walked into the garden and could tell just by looking at me that i was completely sober (I had had half a bottle of light beer) so left. Later on the hostess pushed me into the pool with my clothes on, yelled at me for petting her dog. I got stuck in the bathroom and had to climb out the window. I haven't seen nor contacted or been contacted by that girl since.

This wins!

We’re not at the phase of playdates with people we don’t really know yet. Mostly friends with their same age kids but I’m dreading it after some of these stories.

At 6 my DS had a playdate in which the little friend bit me on the hand. It wasn't a hard bite; just enough to scrape my hand. The father of the child stood by and did nothing, even as he was being kicked. He wasn't invited back.

Oh I had a Forever Living mum come to my house for a playdate once and she left me aloe floor cleaner to try out. She said she wanted my feedback on it, but she obviously wanted me to buy it. I kept it for a couple of weeks before returning it to her with a polite no thanks. It was a big £5 litre bottle, but from memory she was selling them for £30 a pop!

Some dogs roll around in shit and get laughed at for being very stupid dogs. It's disgusting that his friend's garden is covered in dog shit but a 9 yo child should know better than to roll around in a shit covered garden. You can't help it if you step in it but to get it in your hair is another level.

At about age four, DS1 was invited to a playdate with a set of boy/girl twins the same age. I didn't know the family well, but liked the mum so thought it'd be nice to get the DC together. DS and the boy twin hit it off and played beautifully together. Unfortunately, girl twin got very jealous about this. Firstly she threw sand in DS's face, which might or mightn't have been an accident and could've been nasty but luckily DS wasn't too bothered. Then a bit later she shoved DS into the garden shed and locked him in! He was only stuck in there for a couple of minutes, but I decided enough was enough at that stage and we went home. That friendship never did progress.

Worst playdate was dd's friend who pulled every piece of clothing off all hangers and out of drawers. She also emptied every single box she could find e.g. game boxes and boxes of stuff, in the middle of the bedroom floor. When her mum came upstairs she just smiled and said that, it was nice they were having a good time?!!! I said there was a big mess and could they both help put some back? They suddenly had to leave! Never invited them back again!