I feel I need to honour my obligations. If I have made plans with someone I will do my best to keep the plans. If my child is misbehaving I will try to find a suitable punishment that doesn’t interfere with the playdate. The only times I would consider using the playdate as punishment is if there was not another suitable punishment or if my child’s behaviour would likely ruin the playdate. I find socialization and exercise to be important, especially for children with behaviour issues. (Just like recess, never keep a kid in for recess because of behaviour.) I would prefer to keep the playdate, but take away screen time or allowance or add extra chores. Now, if the behaviour was occurring during the playdate then I would not have an issue with bringing the playdate to an end.
This is how my son felt about this kind of thing. My son used to get invited over to a neighbor boy’s house. The parents seemed to like my son just fine and were happy they were friends.
But every few visits, my son would come back home after about half an hour. I’d be surprised to see him. He’d tell me the dad had noticed his friend hadn’t done a chore or wasn’t being nice to his brother, and send my son home.
After a while, my son lost interest. He would rather play with his other friends.
The father actually took offense to my son not being interested any more. He tried to explain his parenting to me and I just said I wasn’t interested. That’s their business. If it works for them, fine. But it didn’t work for my son.
With younger kids, if I was involved in the planning, we did it on the day and only got in touch if our kids were up for it and things were good. So we tended to avoid all this. But I’ve always stressed to my kids that We don’t get to negatively impact other people. If we do, don’t expect them to want to be friends for long. So mine would likely be disciplined some other way over say, taking an invitation back that we’ve already extended.
I get in some situations it might be the only thing to do. But we’re big on honoring our commitments. Not because I feel I owe another family or their kid so much - but because we do as adults, so I start when they’re young.
ETA: I agree Doris - that was just mean. I get it’s not the same situation really - but that’s the closest thing I could relate to.
The only other thing I could think of is when we have plans as a family to go to the beach for example, and one of our kids is misbehaving. Sometimes I can’t stay home with that kid for him to miss out. It is a great lesson and we have done that if I can, and it’s very effective.
But if I couldn’t stay home - I’m not going to penalize the rest of them. That wouldn’t be fair on the rest of the kids. So - in that case, the kid comes along - but has to make up for it in some other way.
I guess I have never used play dates as either a reward or punishment. In fact I don’t really get what misbehaving in school would have to do with having a play date. I do think it is rude to cancel plans involving other people and wouldn’t do it unless my child would be completely incapable of behaving at the actual play date itself. Which I find difficult to imagine for a child older than say 3 or 4. We didn’t do play dates at that age.
I don’t see how cancelling a play date would be any less rude than not allowing your child to attend a sports function (the whole team is inconvenienced and might be forced to forfeit) or to skip a birthday party (if more than one kid had to skip the birthday child might be very hurt and no I don’t think that sort of disappointment is a ‘learning opportunity’ for the birthday child).
I find it hard to believe that by the time one has a school age child one doesn’t have a few more tools in the toolbox. If I had a child that really was unpredictable enough I needed to cancel regularly, I would be sure to mention this to the parents I was making plans with. I would also expect not to be invited for many play dates and while that might be sad for my child, I would certainly see that the other parent might prefer to schedule with someone more reliable.
My only obligation is communication. Tell them that what your child said was not approves by you. Have a conversation with parents and kids about my boundaries, expectations. When my daughter was a child and when my grandaughter was young mom’s nearly always called me to be sure I had given my permission. We all were comfortable with saying no.
Well, I think I made my point of view pretty clear in my post you’re piggybacking off of. A playdate is not a break for mom. It’s a way of helping children learn how to socialize. If a kid is misbehaving, they shouldn’t be going on a playdate anyway. That’s not fair to the other mother. And if my kid’s being awful, they didn’t get to have the privilege of having another kid come to the house.
I’m not obligated to the other parent. That’s just the way it is.
Now, if a parent asked me to babysit with one of her children so that she could go to the doctor, that was different. If they needed help and I’m watching their child because they need help, I would not cancel.
For a regular playdate, I always told the parent that if things went south in the playdate, I’d be bringing her child home early, or calling the mom to come pick the child up, whichever one we had picked. And I’d tell the mom to do the same if my kid was going to her house. That included if my kid or her kid started inappropriate behavior, by they way.
I also told the child the house rules in front of the mom the first time. I’d say in front of the mom that if the child couldn’t go by the rules, he’d have to go home. I made things really clear.
What Margie mentions below, her son’s friend’s father busting his son for small infractions in the middle of the playdate like not having done a chore? That’s just mean. He could have required his son to do the chore earlier in the day. That’s not a play date “going south”. That’s just being authoritarian and looking for an excuse to lord over his son.
It’s not the obligation to the other parent. It’s that some parents are just mean and too hard on their kids. Let’s say I have to pick up a friend’s child from school and my child is looking forward to the playdate but is acting out. I will pick up the child as previously promised, feed them a snack, let them play then talk to my kiddos afterwards saying that I wasn’t going to go back on my
previously stated plans (the pick up & playdate) but now that we’re home I will explain to them that I did not like their behavior “before” the playdate so now that the playdate is over they will have to skip one of their favorite activities (cartoons) for a couple of hours. Just so they see the consequence. I have
never had anyone cancel a playdate as a consequence but I have had them tell me about it & that their child was going to miss a later activity. I believe in
giving kids the chance to correct their behavior “I’m tell you right now stop doing that or we will leave the park”. They always correct their behavior. I have had to say it twice but again…the behavior is corrected. Give kids a chance & they can surprise you. Especially as they get older. You’ve taught them well & modeled good behavior. They can surprise you. Again, it’s not about “my level of obligation to other families & their kids”. It’s about being fair and making sure my expectations of their behavior is clear. I’ve had several times my youngest has said “oh I didn’t know that’s what you meant” or “I didn’t understand that’s what you wanted me to do”. The take away is “Am I clear in my directions and expectations?”. I make sure to give directives directly to the kids not just “in passing as I’m walking away from them going upstairs” or as I’m walking outside to put things in the van", etc.
It’s posts like this which put a bad taste in my mouth. Piggyback questions are nonsensical and not original.
Jill T: I can understand why it’s easy to interpret what I wrote as you did; namely, that the ‘taking away’ of playtimes would be the only tool in the toolbox. Of course, that’s not the case. There was, however, a rough year of school where he was distracting others in class- a LOT- and so it was more the reverse-- if he wanted to stay and play after school, he needed to have a good report from the teacher. That did mean no spontaneous playdates, which are how many happen in our neighborhood. It was something he had to earn, that time.
It’s nice that some parents have well-behaved kids by school age. That’s every parent’s dream. That said, it’s just not the reality for some families. Some kids have social delays and trouble reading social cues. That causes conflict when they are around more mature kids and (I say this without complacency) stuff happens which is rather unfortunate. When you get a handful of this same kind of kid in one classroom (as was the case during our last two years in public school) the kids sort of feed off each other. So, when my son got into trouble, it was usually being disruptive with the same group of a few friends, and it was getting into mischief, doing things they weren’t supposed to do. Most kids had already moved past that phase in kindergarten and first grade; later bloomers do it later. He’s grown past some of it, but at the time, not having playtime after school was the most effective way to impress upon him that his cooperation in class was to his own benefit. It gave him something to want to work toward.
Jane: of course it’s embarrassing to have situations where we don’t ‘measure up’ to the behavior of the more mature kids. It’s not a treat to be the parent who gets that ‘we need to talk’ look from the teacher. Even though my son wasn’t hurtful or malicious to other people, his silliness and mischief meant more work for the teacher, and as he has some delays, he already needs some more direction as it is. Homeschooling has helped a lot in him being able to make more choices and be more self-directed, so this results in some more mature behavior developing. But no, the threat of missing out on playtimes wasn’t the only way I had to curb misbehavior.
Julie S, I think you got it. It’s not a punishment in as much as it is an instructive consequence…for some kids, they need a very literal connection between cause and effect.
Interesting responses, though. Always interesting here!