Disaster Playdate

[HoneyFlowers]

I'm being careful what I write so not identified. We haven't had playdates at home since before Covid. Today we decided to have a parent and child around for playdate after school. It was a disaster, after they went I was in tears and so upset. Other child just had no manners, wouldn't stay still to eat a snack, rubbed it in everything in the house, food over toys and caused lots of mess to clear up. Started bashing expensive things in the house almost causing hundreds of pounds of damage. Parent sat watching and didn't say anything, I just got more and more stressed and firmly said no, but child carried on. It was so stressful and was so pleased when they left! Is this normal behaviour for playdates? Are my expectations too high for manners in other kids and their parents?!

Not normal and ridiculous of the parent to allow it. Don't invite back and refuse any invite to theirs. I'd distance myself and not inflict the bad behaviour on either myself or my child again.

School today????

Sorry it didn't happen today, I meant on Friday.

There's no way I could tolerate that playdate in my house again. Just so upset, I want my child to have friends around, but I can't cope with behaviour like that. And it's so difficult to know how to tell off when their own parent is there.

How old? At school age I wouldn’t expect the parent to stay and then it’s easier to enforce some rules.

School age kids. Mum has no intention of going, she was being nosey about my house.

FFS why do people not mention the ages off children. 5? 10? 15?

I would appreciate some advice on what makes a playdate work well so it doesn't transcend into disaster. How to get other kids to follow your house rules etc. I want my child to have playdates and to keep my stress levels down.

Would help wouldn't it?

It depends what your house rules are. My mum was very precious and as a result I rarely asked friends round when I was a child, which is really quite sad.
It would be fine to have a rule of eating at table only. Set snack up so they sit down and wash hands afterwards. Then put experience items/ornaments away. Beyond age 4/5 I wouldn't expect to follow the kids around the house whilst they play. If it sounds like things are being bashed you go and check on them and ask them to be more gentle. I think that's all you should be enforcing. Playdates should be fun! In saying that my daughters' friends are very polite/well-behaved as they've bonded with similar minded children.

*expensive, not experience

Do you feel able to talk to the child's parent about some house rules first?

Oh school age?

My dd is 18 and at school. She wouldn't rub her snack into artefacts.

Some kids wreck your house, some don't. DS(7) has friends I will only take for park playdates because I can't watch them crashing around the house, wiping snot on the sofa, launching stuff down the stairs, shoveling salmon and peas into their mouths with their fingers, or throwing the Nintendo when they can't do something on Minecraft. I am genuinely fond of these kids, but outdoors only.

I do play dates with kids who have trashed my house before while the parent has sat and watched it , I now only allow them round when it's nice outside and I kick them out into the garden.

It really annoys me when parents just sit and watch your house being trashed and don't even apologise or try to stop it. The other option is not to let them round and meet up in the park or local soft play.

Confine playdates to the garden if you don't have somewhere in the house suitable. Assume the other parent is going to be passive and shit and plan accordingly!

I have a pre-schooler who knows better than tnis: appallingly behaviour

I wonder what their house looks like?!!

wait a few more weeks and then have garden play dates. Hide anything they can dig with

Rubbing snacks into things and bashing your stuff sounds like a young child/toddler but you mention school? What age?

If they're quite young i would make sure valuables are out of reach and have them sit at a table for a snack. If they are mistreating something 'oh woops let me just take that, that's not for playing with' or say to the other parent 'oh could you ask them not to play with that'

I had a little boy around once, he was so well behaved at school, his mum was lovely but he was a little menace with me! I didn’t dare tell his mum how badly behaved he was, but I’ve never had him back. I think it’s just trial and error you kind of work out who to invite and who to stay clear of.

Depends on the age. If they are very little, id have said " lets go to the park and let off some steam as i can see stuff getting broken in here soon if we dont"

I think with some kids you have to set out boundaries carefully at the start of the play date. It's actually harder with the parent there as we assume they'll stop their child wrecking our house but I've now hosted two playdates where the parent has done nothing about it.

You have to remember that lots of kids are brought up nowadays allowed to wander round while eating so it's not that they're ‘behaving badly’ by their own standards. And wandering round eating inevitably means greasy sticky fingers being put on stuff.

A favourite line of mine is ‘I’m rubbish at cleaning so the rule in this house is that we only eat at the table’. It then sounds less like you’re judging the fact the parent allows their child to wander while eating and more about you not having the time/skills to clean food from the rest of the house.

I’ve also decided to close the doors to some rooms to minimise the trail of destruction.