How much would this upset you?

[emkana]

I had prepared an egg hunt for my three dcs yesterday, they are nine, seven and four. Three minutes in the seven year old started having a massive strop and thereby ruined the egg hunt. I was just so, so angry and disappointed, because it's a special thing I had planned and can't easily be repeated, but not sure if I'm overreacting to be so upset about it?

It was unfair because you said it at the height of her excitement. You should have thought of a rule before you started. Easy to overlook- but you will know for next year. Follow ChippinIn's advice.

I think you should have explained the rules to her beforehand.

Never mind. Don't dwell on it. You'll know for next year.

We let everyone go crazy finding as many as they could but then pooled the lot at the end and shared them out.

What's stopping you from repeating it? It could be done with non edible things or with eggs. And it could be a month from now or even tomorrow.

I can understand why you were upset about it and I don't think it's unfair to ask her to think of others. BUT from my experience the rules of the game have to be clearly laid out before the fun starts. My ds is incapable of listening to instructions once he has started something and is excited but if I talk to him beforehand about what's expected it seems to sink in more and he is more recpetive to gentle reminders during the fun.

Tis crap though when you go to the effort to do something special and it ends in tears.

Slightly, I thought about it but somehow it won't be the same now, they've already had the chocolate and Easter is over now.

At an Easter party I went to over the weekend there were 17 kids aged from 2-15. The host hid masses of eggs, choc coins and bunnies and the kids were told that when they had found one they had to put it in a big bowl and they would all get a fair share at the end of the hunt. I thought it would never work and the older kids would get bored eat all the eggs as they went along

But it worked really well and everyone seemed to get a buzz about finding the eggs, helping the little ones and bringing them to the bowl. As there were so many eggs etc everyone got loads at the end in a bag and everyone was happy.

We did similar to campocaro when I was younger. We would all look for the eggs (Dsis, DDad and me) and then put them in the middle and share them out at the end. It worked really well as I still had the satisfaction of finding more than my sister, ha ha ha!

And it meant my mum got some as well as she was the one to hide them.

Must be an age thing!

My 9, 7 and 4 year old ds's were ok on their own treasure hunt, but had also done a treasure hunt for dh. ds2 had a strop and refused to join in/help 'because ds 1 was being so bossy about organising it.

Am youngest in my family, so i don't understand the pressures on middle child (overshadowed by oldest, always having to give way to youngest)

I put it down to experience with ds2, if they do something similar another time, I might try and help a bit more as ds1 is V bossy.

could you do them a clues treasure hunt for the wedding day? That way, you can plan to share out the clues fairly (harder clues for 9 yr old, picture clues for 4 year old) and the treasure could be any nice things you were planning to eat for pudding? Depends if you can reason with your 7 year old beforehand that you wanted the hunt to be fun and fair for everyone...