Play dates & destructive behaviour

[emerald7]

Hey Parents,

One of my daughters friends (7yrs) comes around often and the 1st few times she destroyed a toy. I accepted it but it's now a regular thing. Drawing on it, cutting barbies hair, water damage. I told her the behaviour was not acceptable and it's not okay to ruin things.

Obviously my girl is upset. I haven't said anything about it to her mum yet. I would like her to replace some of these toys as they are expensive and I look after her child often as a favour while she works.

How would you approach this?

Thanks

Stop having her over and tell the mum why. Tell her you've warned her daughter several times but she's damaged £xxx amount of goods in your home and so she's no longer welcome.

The mum is extremely unlikely to replace these toys. Really, if you were determined to keep having this child over after you knew she destroyed other people’s belongings, you should have been supervising their play closely/made them play at the table.

For me, I’d refuse to babysit a child as soon as I was aware they were likely to destroy things as I can’t afford to replace them and can’t be one on one for a child the whole time. So I would have done so at the beginning rather than wait for her to destroy more stuff.

I would definitely talk to the mum, that behaviour is not on and if the mum doesn't know about it she ought to, even if you don't want the child over again.
Just be honest, explain what's happening and how you feel about it and how you are going to deal with it moving forward.
To be honest I think I would have spoken to the mum straight away- I wouldn't expect her to pay for them now as it could have been nipped in the bud after the first time but now there is a collection of things to pay for- seems a bit unfair.