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.

Oh I've loads

DD bitten by a dog

We hosted a playdate, three kids and their mother stayed for five hours. It was raining too, so we were indoors. Felt like I'd been in a blender once they left.

Went to collect a child to go to an outdoor festival in winter (live abroad, minus 20 in winter), he was at another kid's house. So we had to go to fetch him, then he only had super thin summer clothes on?!?! Told him to go and put snow pants on.

Etc etc

I've had kids ask for my wifi password etc

Unbelievable

... what's wrong with a WIFI password? They can't Whatsapp other pals to join them on Roblox/Fortnite without it 😁 (obviously I am not a crunchy mum).

The worst one, for the child, I ever had was a child with recently separated parents who came to ours for a play date after school. Mum said dad would collect her at 6.30. At 7pm I rang dad and he said he was in hospital having had minor surgery and mum knew this. Rang mum to be told "it's dad's weekend, ring him". We ended up with an impromptu sleepover and Dad's parents (who lived 4 hours away) collected her in the morning. Mum finally apologised about 6 weeks later after she told her sister what had happened and her sister lambasted her for putting her child, and us, in the middle of the squabble.

My worst was when I sent my child to what I thought was a friend down the street (we literally lived 800ft away from each other) and she emailed me and copied in our kids' teacher to say I'd sent my child to hers without a coat. Anyway, I took that bitch down. That's all you need to know.

Oh God, I was going to write about another playmate but this has reminded me

Met up at the park with my friend and her friend. We all had 3 children each, all similar ages

The other mum ( not my friend ) her DS would NOT stop talking to me about minecraft 🤣🤦‍♀️ I kept saying to him... I don't play it, DS LOVES minecraft. I even called my DS over but he wanted to play on the park 😅

Orrr it was absolutely terrible. At one point I managed to break away from the conversation and he actually asked me if I wanted to go onto another bench where it was quieter 🤦‍♀️🤣

The mum really really annoyed me there is no way I'd let my DS harrass someone like that

I wasn't even pretending to be interested either 🤦‍♀️😅 I said it nicely but did tell him I didn't like it, didn't understand it and didn't want to play It.... it was do bizarre

I told my friend to never invite me alongside a park outing with them again

I wasn’t sure if I should post this or not as it’s not very believable and I’m still amazed by it 16 years later.

I deliberately haven’t name changed from my latest user name to hopefully prove I’m genuine.

I was looking after my niece at my house, I had just moved 20 miles away to a small town and arranged a play date with my niece and a neighbour and her two boys. I was pleased as I was hoping to make new friends.

I took all 3 kids to the park and McDonald’s and they seemed to love it.

When my neighbour picked up her boys I told her what we’d done expecting her to be happy, she was seriously pissed off though.

I don’t remember the exact working but she made it clear she’d hoped they had done things she considered “more girlie” like playing with dolls, dressing up or playing house and similar.

My niece was 8 and the boys were 8 and almost 10, I don’t have children but I imagine they were a bit old for that kind of thing.

My neighbour was ranting that they were sensitive boys struggling with their identity and she’d hoped bring around a girl would have helped them see if they felt comfortable with a more “feminine side”.

I was a bit baffled and said I didn’t think it was fair to let kids think that they had to behave a certain way to prove they were girls or boys.

This is the truly unbelievable part - my neighbour said “I just don’t want their trouser snakes to get in the way if they feel they fit better as being girls in their brains”
She used the term “trouser snake” instead of penis to describe mail genitalia for her boys.

Similar behaviour went on for years, one of the biggest issues was when she was complaining the boys couldn’t wear make up or nail varnish for school, this is despite it not being allowed for any kids, including the ones who were female sex!

both boys identify as trans now, I have posted about it before. They have female names. One wears a skirt but the other dresses exactly the same in typically male clothing.

I have often wondered if my old neighbour has factitous disorder by proxy, It’s all very sad and I hope someone steps in who is braver than me to say something to help her realise the damage she is doing.

I had a few toddlers over with their mums once and they were. All over the house, mostly having a nice time until one mum and toddler went into my DS bedroom and for an unknown reason took a drawer out and threw the whole thing over the bannister and it came crashing down the stairs, contents and all, marking the wall in my brand new house, and breaking the drawer. The mother was unconcerned like it was normal.

Then another child (older) on another play date was in the garden and threw all the balls as high as he could, many landing in the gutter, wouldn’t be so bad if my then husband would climb a ladder but he wouldn’t.

Another mum from our baby group invited us for an afternoon play date. She and I each had a 2yo and a baby. I assumed we would supervise the 2yos playing, have a chat, and parent our own babies. She left me in the lounge with all 4 kids whilst she disappeared into the kitchen to make a fish pie from scratch for her family’s dinner.

My DS (then 8) invited a friend from school to come over and play. His dad brought the boy and the boys brother. Well, he was just 1 year younger but still. 20 minutes into the playdate I could hear them coughing badly and I asked them if they were OK. No, they were sick. I felt their foreheads and they both had fever. Tried to call dad who didn't answer. So separated boys from my son and gave them some toys to play with
Opened windows and told my son to go into his room. He wasn't happy (understatement) but it was in the flu period and I really didn't want him to get sick. Never invited his friend to my home again- playdates were outside from there on.

I think the teacher thought she was unhinged. Why would parents e-mail a teacher over minor detail outside school hours.

Probably the wood paper is made from. Usually pine which is a common allergy. Would have to be very sensitive to it for it to affect you in that way. Or maybe the bleach used in the process. I used to live near a pulp and paper mill and we actually had a meeting place in case of chemical accident where the whole town had to meet. The smell when the wind changed was vile too.

It wasn’t my worst play date but probably was for the mother and child that came to my place one day.
My DS and her DS were about 5 or 6 and were swimming in our pool. The mother and I were just sitting by the pool watching them.

Friend does a massive poo in the pool and the mother was unable to get it out as she had cerebral palsy and physically couldn’t.

She was very embarrassed but it was not issue for me as being a pool owner with a lot of local and friends kids over all the time I had to remove poos quite a few times.
I did feel for her and tried to tell her it wasn’t an issue but she left soon after

I picked DS up from a play date with a school friend when he was 6 and they were playing Grand Theft Auto!
It belonged to the kid’s older brother.
The Mum seemed to think it was perfectly normal. This was 20 years ago …

You’ve had to remove poo more than once from your pool @crazybeelady ? I am amazed!

I really tried hard when DC were in primary school to make a big effort to have their friends round. I wanted our house to be a happy, open place that their friends enjoyed coming round to, and I wanted DC to enjoy being able to regularly have their friends over.
I had to deal with so much bad behaviour from other people's kids over the years that I slowly stopped inviting them.
By year 6, I was done.
I had brand new expensive toys broken. One kid would do things such as picking up DD's brand new Sylvanian caravan which cost £60 and snapping the door off on purpose which broke the hinges and he just stared at me blankly then walked off, Other kids would pick up DC's toys and deliberately smash or break them. Another kid would pick up toys and take them apart when they weren't designed to be taken apart thus breaking them in the process. I had kids absolutely trash DC's bedrooms, and I do mean trash as in they caused serious damage and destruction to the walls, carpets and bedroom furniture, damage which couldn't be repaired. I had a kid pick up a framed family photo in DS's bedroom and throw it across the room at the window. The glass in the frame smashed. I've had kids go into MY bedroom and trash it whilst I was downstairs cooking. I've had a kid who deliberately vandalised our garden slide the plastic platform you stand on at the top broke rendering it unusable. I've had newly applied wallpaper torn off my walls. I've had a friend of DS's go into younger DD's bedroom and rip heads off her dolls, tear up her drawings, throw her cuddly toys out of the window and rip up her new birthday present. My DM had bought a lovely china ornament for my DD and it was really sentimental to my DD who loved her granny to pieces - a kid picked it up, asked DD what it was, she said it's from my granny, and he threw it down hard on the wooden floor to deliberately smash it.
I've had felt tip scribbled over carpets and rugs. Curtains yanked off of hooks. I had a pile of birthday presents for my DS hidden in a cupboard ready to wrap up for his birthday the following week - a kid climbed up on to the chest of drawers, opened the cupboard up on the wall, found them, pulled them all down on to the floor and ripped open every single box and package - I had been in the garden at the time so didn't hear what was goingbon, I walked in horrified to see all DS's presents that had taken me weeks to shop for and had cost me a fortune, opened up and splayed all over the floor. Amongst all the presents there were 2 big boxes of expensive lego sets, each one with a theme, that had both been ripped open, every single separate bag of pieces, and all mixed up together in to 1 big dump of lego pieces on the floor, I remember thinking I will never know what pieces were meant to go with which set. Plus every other present ripped open, all the boxes torn up. I've had kids throwing rocks from the flowerbed in to the massivec10 foot newly bought luxury paddling pool which popped it.
And this is just the damage and destruction.
On top of that I've had behaviour meltdowns, screaming, tantrums, rudeness off the scale, like unbelievable rudeness, terrible manners, insults about my home, horrible behaviour multiple times over.
I live in a very middle class. All these kids, every one of them, come from professional respectable parents.
When I raised issues with parents I never got an apology.
The irony of all this is that my DC are well behaved and very respectful to our home and they really look after their things, they always treasured their toys when they were little, and they would get really upset and distressed by all this behaviour from friends.
Honestly, we went through years of different friends coming over and they were all the same.
I was done in the end.
Now in years 7 and 9 I never have their friends round anymore. I stopped in year 6, I was broken! And I'm really sad about it. Our house is just us 4 now and I'm really sorry it never has their friends round anymore.

Went to a party, DS1 had a massive autistic metldown because of the noise and I had to physically remove him while he tried to strangle me.

The mother later got horrifically drunk, rang me after 10 pm and told me my child was destined to be a serial killer.

We had a lot of kids that would use our pool over summer.

My DS did it once when we had a party on Australia Day when it was about 35 plus degrees. It was extremely hot and humid. There were probably about 20 kids and adults swimming in the pool when this happened. Huge brown cloud of poo.
Everyone got out while I cleaned it and the parents with young kids ventured back in but the ones who didn’t have any were too disgusted to get back in.
We still laugh about it

I wouldn’t be messaging the mum but I would be giving my 9 year old a telling off for rolling around in poo - I mean I get it going on his shoes or something but to carry on playing and getting it into hair and everywhere…

I was asked by a mum to watch her three children whilst she got back from a funeral. Said it would be about half an hour, she couldn’t quite get back to school in time. Same ages as my younger ones roughly. Her six year old to this point seemed ok, it was only half an hour….

Leaving school (I only live opposite over the field!) he ignored me and ran into a muddy puddle, left shoes in it, ran back through in his socks. I eventually ended up walking him across the field with his hood over a buggy handle to hold him, literally unresponsive to safety warnings or directions.
when home he climbed on the furniture, literally circuits on top of bookcases and tables, ignoring lamps etc.
Tried him outside on the trampoline and he just repeatedly hurt his 4 and 5 yr old sisters and my 5 yr old. Tried to get him to play with my six year old son, he broke things.
Rang mum, I’m a teacher and mother of five but it was way outside anything I’d ever seen in terms of behaviour.
She’d lied to me. The funeral was hours away and didn’t start until after school!!!
I ended up with him sat on a sofa and shouted at, not allowed to move for the next few hours just so he stopped injuring the others, breaking things etc. Totally dropped nice play date to prison warden to get through it.
It really was behaviour. The boys are 15 and he’s settled in school years ago, totally NT and doing fine. I honestly think he was young, new to school and had no boundaries ever set at home from what I later saw.
I have got on with the child in the long run.. but not mum! I should’ve picked up the teacher’s expression when I collected them

My DC have severe learning disabilities and can be really destructive. We can only have playdates round similar families' houses due to needs of all our kids (and safety). Even our kids don't behave like that very often!! If they do, they have very stressed parents running around after them trying to recify the situation. You're a saint - I think I'd cry if a child came round to my house and deliberately smashed up sentimental items.

My most memorable for the wrong reasons play date was when my DS was 3 and I was 9 months pregnant with DD. He was so full of energy I couldn’t keep up and I thought inviting a nursery friend (also 3) round for a couple of hours and me having a coffee with the Mum would be quite nice.

It is worth noting here that our nursery had a set-up where kids were brought to the door for collection and I never went inside so I had never met the child or the parent before; I had arranged it by asking them to pass my number on to the parent and texting.

Anyway, they turn up earlier than expected and mother just drops child off (again, a 3 year old who had never met us before). I invited her in for a drink and she said “sorry I have to get to work”. She said she’d be back at 4pm to pick him up…this is 7 hours later!!! Alarm bells start ringing that this was childcare not a playdate but I was so shocked I couldn’t get words out!

Whole thing was a nightmare…this child was so loud, charging around, shouting, screaming, throwing things, purposely breaking DS’s toys, making him cry, hitting, throwing kinetic sand all over the floor, drawing on walls. I think we lasted 2.5 hours (I don’t know how, given that I was 9 months pregnant!) and I called the Mum to collect him as I couldn’t cope. She was not happy that I had the nerve to call her at work. She sent someone else round to collect her child and they never came again!

My ex left me for someone else. I was distraught and not ready to tell people.

My son must have said his Dad had left at school as one of the loud Mums came over and asked if I was ok. She invited me for something to eat after school while the boys played.

I ended up breaking down and telling her everything.

She promptly set off the jungle drums and told all my business to everyone else, then stopped speaking to me because I was a single Mum and a benefits scrounger and all that. I did claim some help from tax credits but I was still working full time, paying the mortgage etc., so I was doing as much as I could myself.

Friends son came to play, he was quite yellow on arrival. Friend left to do some shopping leaving me to look after yellow son and mine. Yellow son sat in corner sucking his thumb. Mum returned and took him home. Father said I had given him something bad to eat. I hadn't given them anything. By 7 p.m. yellow son blue lighted to hospital and liver growth discovered. Adult now but very strange parents.

Not my experience as a parent (no kids) but as a child. When I was about 6 I went to a friend's house. She locked us both in their bathroom and covered absolutely every surface in toothpaste, shampoo, soap, shaving foam. Completely trashed their bathroom and smeared it all over herself. Then she went downstairs crying and blamed it all on me. Her parents were furious with me and I was scared. Luckily, my parents believed me when I told them on the way home (the girl had form for this stuff).

Another time, aged around 10, a girl had a birthday party supervised by her au pair. She ushered everyone up out of her skylight on to the roof to show us something, then locked it behind us. We were up there for about three hours. Some of the others were hysterical with fear.