What would you consider acceptable?

[bisous]

We just had a recent dinner engagement with a couple that my DH and I know from church and their two children. It was dramatic to say the least. I was just curious about which of the following behaviors you would find acceptable at your house...

1. 4.5 yo dumping out whole bins of toys and not playing with them.

2. 4.5 yo banging toys against furniture and breaking them (the toys thankfully and not the furniture!)

3. 1 yo unsupervised to the point that I caught her 3 times on the stairs in mid-fall but failed to catch her once resulting in a bloody lip (again, thankfully nothing more serious!!!)

4. 1 yo coloring with crayon on walls and appliances.

5. 3 yo and 4.5 yo wrestling

6. 4.5 yo biting and drawing blood through clothing

7. 4.5 implicating less verbal 3 yo for a behavior completely atypical.

8. While behaviors 1-7 are occurring, both parents are in the home chatting.

See my response below.

[mommy111]

Wow! Speechless.

[bisous]

I'll reply to my own post.

1. I don't actually have a problem with this. I would hope my 3 yo would learn not to do this or at the very least help pick up at the end but this isn't too out of the ordinary for me, although it was a bit of a pain to pick up.

2. I don't care too much about broken toys or knicked furniture--hey I know it happens sometimes. But I think 4.5 is a little old not to realize that some behaviors are destructive and I would hope my DS wouldn't do that out of respect. Still, no biggie.

3. This is huge for me. I cannot imagine leaving a 1 yo unsupervised on stairs for even one second. Especially one that has proven interest in them and has already fallen 3 times!!!! Do you know what a nervous wreck I was around this child, still I missed once and it could have been so much worse.

4. Kids don't always color on paper. I know how to use a magic eraser so the damage isn't terrible. But I'd be mortified if I left someone's home with crayon all over their walls.

5. The 3 yo instigated the wrestling is my DS. They were in signt of me and the other mother. I was cool with it initially but I'm trying to figure out limits for safety and prudence in wrestling. Any thoughts on this would be helpful.

6. This one is also huge for me. As you can, the night was somewhat chaotic. I was almost grateful that the bite was so obvious. My DS looked a little upset all evening and I kept thinking something wasn't quite right. It turns out that the 4.5 yo was terrorizing him behind our backs all night even though my DS kept saying he was fine. While I think it a bit out of age range for a 4.5 yo to bite, I blame myself more than anyone. It was my job to protect my DS (more even than the 1 yo visiting!) but I obviously had my priorities screwed up. This is the first time that my DS has had this kind of experience with another child. Parents beware!!!! Even if you feel you know a child from several weeks of meeting at the park, you don't know what is going on when watchful eyes are distracted.

7. This also bothered me. The 4.5 yo would come tattle on my 3 yo saying things like, "he locked himself in the bathroom". Oddly, in 9 months of living here, my DS has never figured out the locks--until that evening!!!

8. I just don't know what to do about the two parents being in the home!!! My DH and I talked after the couple left and agreed that there were definitely ways that we (my DH and I) could have done better. As I expressed in 6 we shouldn't have left our DS with that older child as long as we did (and they were one room away, in earshot and we were checking them at least every 10 minutes!!!!) The baby falling down the stairs is also extremely horrible. Luckily I don't think the parents are the types to sue but can you imagine! What's worse is that a fall from narrow stairs onto a hard floor could have been disastrous.

My lesson from all of this is one that I should already have known well. Trust your instincts about your kids and don't be afraid to offend. If I had it to do over again, I don't think I'll be leaving my DS with anyone for a really long time--at least until he's a littl emore comfortable talking about what is really happening to him. While he talks well, he is naive and doesn't understand when the older kid is manipulating him. I should have shut down the stair thing long, long ago. I woul politely say "I'm sorry but we'll have to go into a room with a door. I just don't feel comfortable having her anywhere near the stairs--you know how fast things can happen!"

At the end of the visit, my DH and I were pretty upset. Needless to say, we won't be having those friends over to our place anytime soon. While nice, it was way to stressful (and dangerous) for a repeat. I'm just wondering who wants to weigh in on their experience of what is, or isn't acceptable?

TIA

[o_mom]

>1. 4.5 yo dumping out whole bins of toys and not playing with
>them.

Normal here at 3.5 yo, not sure about other people's houses...I would discourage it while visiting.

>
>2. 4.5 yo banging toys against furniture and breaking them
>(the toys thankfully and not the furniture!)
>

Not acceptable.

>3. 1 yo unsupervised to the point that I caught her 3 times
>on the stairs in mid-fall but failed to catch her once
>resulting in a bloody lip (again, thankfully nothing more
>serious!!!)

When you say 1 yo, exactly how old? DS2 has been fine on stairs since about 18 months - still considered 1 yo. I agree, though if she is falling then probably not OK.

>
>4. 1 yo coloring with crayon on walls and appliances.

Hide the crayons. :-) All writing instruments are under lock and key here and only come out with supervision.

>
>5. 3 yo and 4.5 yo wrestling
>

Typical, but needs supervision/redirection if it gets out of control.

>6. 4.5 yo biting and drawing blood through clothing
>

Not good.

>7. 4.5 implicating less verbal 3 yo for a behavior completely
>atypical.
>

Super normal for 4.5 yo. They think they know the 'rules' and don't understand when someone else doesn't follow their view of the world. They don't understand that there can be different rules for different people. Much better than the 3.5 year old version we have here which is to physically try to drag his brother away from whatever is deemed to be "against the rules"
ETA: With this one I think I misunderstood what you were saying after reading your reply - I still think it is somewhat normal. My sister's kids were here last week and we have the knob covers on a few doors. The first thing her DD said to DS1 was "Let me show you how to get those off" (4 months older than DS1). Older kids will show younger ones how to do things and not understand what they are telling them. Just because your son has never done that before, doesn't mean he didn't do it that time. The 4.5 yo may have left out that he taught it to him just a minute before, but I'd probably give him the benefit of the doubt that the 4.5 yo did't do it and blame your son. Lumped in with all the other behaviors it just adds to the overall atmosphere of non-supervision.

>8. While behaviors 1-7 are occurring, both parents are in the
>home chatting.
>

This is the biggest problem. These things all happen, but for there to be no attempt to redirect or correct the problem is not good. I will say, though, that it is very tempting to let the kids go wild to have some grown-up time every once in awhile.....

[lmwbasye]

Um...none of these. While I think kids are kids and are going to do what they can get away with, where's the parenting in this house?

It amazes me still when I hear people say that children this young are "bad kids" when most of the time, it's a lack of active parenting, IMO.

[KBecks]

1. 4.5 yo dumping out whole bins of toys and not playing with them.

2. 4.5 yo banging toys against furniture and breaking them (the toys thankfully and not the furniture!)

6. 4.5 yo biting and drawing blood through clothing

UNACCEPTABLE AT THAT AGE. My 2.5 year old dumps toys, but by 4.5 it's not appropriate. The others are unappropriate, period.


3. 1 yo unsupervised to the point that I caught her 3 times on the stairs in mid-fall but failed to catch her once resulting in a bloody lip (again, thankfully nothing more serious!!!)

DEPENDS. I like to let kids explore a little, so it depends on how high the baby was getting and if there was soft carpet at the bottom. One or two steps might be OK. My 8 month old is already a huge climber, but we don't have accessible stairs. The parents not paying attention is a problem though.

4. 1 yo coloring with crayon on walls and appliances.

NOPE. Although if its in their own house, I don't care so much.


5. 3 yo and 4.5 yo wrestling
7. 4.5 implicating less verbal 3 yo for a behavior completely atypical.

PROBABLY NORMAL KID BEHAVIOR. It depends on the intensity of the wrestling, and yes, a 4.5 year old would blame another kid, I think that's the right age to identify and start working on it, but I can still imagine that behavior continuing for a while.


8. While behaviors 1-7 are occurring, both parents are in the home chatting.

I HAVE MORE OF A PROBLEM WITH THE PARENTS THAN THE KIDS.

[pb&j]

Totally not excusing the bad behavior by your friends' kids, but... People have all kinds of different tolerance levels for their kids' behaviors, and parent very differently. If I have friends and their kids over at my house, I expect to be the one to have to enforce my own rules. If that means giving up chatting to go chase someone else's kid around, so be it. My house, my rules, my responsibility. If it gets to the point where all I'm doing is chasing the youngsters, I will call for reinforcements in the form of the child's parent. And then I'd seriously evaluate whether or not I ever wanted to invite them over again.


-Ry,
mom to Max the one year old
and my girl in heaven

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/37124.gif

[C99]

Acceptable or normal?

>1. 4.5 yo dumping out whole bins of toys and not playing with
>them.

Totally normal. This also wouldn't bother me too much - there are so many worse things that someone could do. It's annoying, but it's not unacceptable, IMO.

>2. 4.5 yo banging toys against furniture and breaking them
>(the toys thankfully and not the furniture!)

Unacceptable. I would have said something to the effect that we don't do that in our house, please don't do that - even if the parents did not.

>3. 1 yo unsupervised to the point that I caught her 3 times
>on the stairs in mid-fall but failed to catch her once
>resulting in a bloody lip (again, thankfully nothing more
>serious!!!)

Normal. I know that when DD was in the stairs exploring stage, it was exhausting to stand and watch her all the time. I appreciated when people had gates, etc. at their houses or pitched in to take over supervision duties while I went to the bathroom, etc. Similarly, when friends' children came over who were in this stage, I was happy to pitch in since we didn't always have gates on our stairs at the time. Second children, IMO, are much more likely to explore and chase after the older ones - and the older ones don't always understand that the younger ones aren't so good with the stairs yet.

>4. 1 yo coloring with crayon on walls and appliances.

My reaction to this is why was she unsupervised w/ crayons? I don't think this is acceptable, but I do think it's normal. Young ones don't have some inherent ability to know what crayons are for.

>5. 3 yo and 4.5 yo wrestling

Normal and acceptable.

>6. 4.5 yo biting and drawing blood through clothing

I could see this happening in the heat of the moment, especially if it happened during wrestling behavior, but I don't think it's acceptable.

>7. 4.5 implicating less verbal 3 yo for a behavior completely
>atypical.

Normal.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I agree with Caroline's replies.

I wanted to ask if you talked to these parents at all about these issues? Also, did they help to pick up before they left? In our group whoever is visiting always at least makes an offer to help pick up the toys at the end of the playdate or meal.

Beth

[egoldber]

Was this your house or their house or someone else's house? That would affect my respones to some of the points. :)

[BillK]

#5 - acceptable

the rest - unacceptable

[Lynnie]

wow. i am pretty laid back, but wow.

1. normal for my almost 3 year old (although I don't like it, and will not let him do anything else fun until he picks them up). not normal for my almost 5 year old.

2. not normal. and totally unacceptable if at someone else's house !!

3. we don't have stairs, but i don't think i'd leave a one year old unattended around them

4. never in anyone else's house, and i would try to make sure it wasn't done at my own house. i would take crayons away from 1 year old.

5. ok, wrestling is pretty big in our house. as long as all wanted to participate and it was not too rough, and on carpet, or whatever, i'd be ok with it, as long as above held true and parental supervision was there.

6. biting at 4.5 is not ok. sounds like wrestling got out of hand, so that would put an end to that.

7. forgot what you said, so not really sure.

8. OMG. if people brought their kids to my house and then sat there while they colored on my walls, broke our toys, cut their lips, and bit my child, i would have a problem with it. of course, i would probably have turned to the evil distractor, the dvd player. hmmm, which is what i did when a couple unexpectedly brought their 3 and 8 year olds to my evening holiday party (adults only kind of thing) who then went nuts and got my kids running around the house. but, have not had that couple back, since. come to think of it, they just sat there too, mingling with other guests. i had control of my kids until then. but i digress.

[DrSally]

Wow!! just, Wow.

[megs4413]

your friends were letting their kids do this at YOUR house??? I thought you meant you were at their house! good gracious....i would never have them over again.

what did they do in all these instances? just totally ignore and act like it was nothing? if my kid drew blood from some other kid i would be afraid of a lawsuit...it certainly would have gotten a response from me! tell me they did SOMETHING!

yikes

[roysmom]

I, too, thought you were at their house. I would be furious and these people would never come back to my house. My biggest pet peeve, and I mean I absolutely abhor it, is parents who don't watch their children. You know the ones, it is the parent who comes to the birthday party and practically dumps their child on some unsuspecting mom. That mom is usually me. I just can't help but try to watch out for other children. Meanwhile, the mom is chatting it up with some single woman or another dumping mother. It infuriates me!!!!

Okay, so the first time the 1 yo fell, I would have put up my gate, but that is my preference. If the 4.5 yo had bitten my DS, I would expect some sort of punishment for the the other child. That is much too old to be biting. My DS is 2 y 2 months, and we pretty much have him broken from biting. By 3, they should know better and should be severely punished for biting. Bringing blood is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. Furthermore, I can't believe that mother is not appalled by her 4.5 yo's behavior. What is wrong with people????

[bisous]

Yep, it was at my house... Sorry if I was unclear.

They did make the 4.5 yo apologize for biting. I was okay with that. I think I was mostly upset at myself and the other parents for not supervising well enough although I do think it unusual and meanspirited to bite so hard, you know?

[bisous]

Exactly, where is the parenting. I totally understand most of the things that went on the other night, while a little annoying were mere inconveniences and I'm glad that kids can be kids at our house. But clearly DANGEROUS things were going on that evening. I can speak for at least one parent (me) and say that I wish I had done a better job at policing the two older boys. But in my defense I was a little busy playing catch with the tumbling one year old!!

In defense of the other parents, the two children were quite the handful. I can imagine that that would be extremely tiring and challenging day in and day out, but still!

[bisous]

I wanted to clarify about the one year old on the stairs. She was one year almost exactly and she was not physically capable of doing stairs by herself. She would fall going up and especially going down. She would try to walk down them but her legs weren't even long enough to reach from one stair to the other. The entire evening I would run up behind her if she even approached the stairs. If I had a gate, I would have used it but unfortunately we moved here when my DS was 3 and hence didn't really need one.

I appreciate your opinions about the other behaviors as well. I think I should be clear that it is entirely possible that my 3 yo was wrestling the older (but smaller and lighter) boy and I can see him biting to stop my DS.

Like I said, I think that in retrospect I should have been more insistent about the parent watching the one year old on the stairs so that I could more fully occupy myself with watching the two older boys.

I put most of the blame on myself.

[bisous]

The parents did offer to help pick up. They were incredibly apologetic about letting the 1 yo fall down the stairs and for the 4.5 yo biting. I think that they are really good people that aren't trying to be negligent but that they seriously can't handle their children. It is interesting but its almost like they can't talk to me and focus on the kids at the same time. I was watching while the one year old looked at the fridge with the crayon and in full view of her mother colored all over it. I gently intervened but I guess I was waiting for the mother to do that.

As much as I am appalled by the lack of supervision, I want to reiterate that I can't control anyone else's behavior except my own. I should have done more. I couldn't have done MUCH more though and that is the problem. That is probably why we won't be meeting back here at my home. I like the family, maybe we'll go to the zoo together or something that is a little more involved with the kids.

[bisous]

It was my house. I'm pretty laid back about most things but some were patently dangerous and that's where I draw the line, you know?

[jenjenfirenjen]

Just curious how you would "severely punish" a child for biting?

[maestramommy]

I'm not sure from your post, but if someone else's 4.5 yo came to my house:

1) Yeah, could be par for the course, although I would have all the kids clean up when it was over.

2) Um, no, that is not acceptable.

3)Again, not acceptable. Probably speak to the parents if I had a stairway and they didn't. I mean, it might not occur to them, but a 1yo is probably not able to go down stairs by themselves (mine wasn't).

4) No, but again, the parents need to be watching. a 1yo doesn't know any better

5) Fine, as long as neither one is feeling overwhelmed.

6) Are you kidding me?!

7) tough one, if I'm not watching when it happened.

8) Are you kidding me?!

I don't understand. I'm assuming the 4.5 and 1 yo belonged to your friends. Why would they sit chatting and not supervise? I just don't get it.

[C99]

>I wanted to clarify about the one year old on the stairs.
>She was one year almost exactly and she was not physically
>capable of doing stairs by herself. She would fall going up
>and especially going down. She would try to walk down them
>but her legs weren't even long enough to reach from one stair
>to the other. The entire evening I would run up behind her if
>she even approached the stairs. If I had a gate, I would have
>used it but unfortunately we moved here when my DS was 3 and
>hence didn't really need one.

I understand, but it doesn't change my opinion/answer. My DD tried to walk up/down them much earlier than my DS did. She didn't know that she was physically incapable of walking up/down the stairs; she just wanted to do what her big brother was doing.

[roysmom]

Haha, I guess that did sound kind of bad. My severe punishing is a spanking. It is ususually 1-2 licks, but never hard enough to leave even a red print. I think it mostly gets DS's attention. Our forms of punishment are time-out, standing in the corner, and no tv in the car. Yes, we have a DVD player and it is a big deal to get to watch it in the mornings on the way to daycare. Just wanted to stress, I do not believe in any form of abuse...my spankings are probably not even as hard as I got when I was a kid. Lord knows, I deserved a whole lot more of them than I got.

[AngelaS]

My opinion is that many parents are clueless and care more about talking to other grownups than watching their children.

I had a friend's 2yo color all over my dd's doll stroller a couple weeks ago. Instead of apologizing or offering to replace the stroller, she said, "Oh, that's why we don't give her markers." I didn't GIVE her the marker, she was rootin' thru my stuff (again, the mom wasn't watching) and found one. I'm the one who caught her, not her mother! Aaargh! I feel your pain.

[KBecks]

Like I said, I think that in retrospect I should have been more insistent about the parent watching the one year old on the stairs so that I could more fully occupy myself with watching the two older boys.

I put most of the blame on myself.

------------

Well, live and learn! Don't beat yourself up, at least you will be much more prepared for the future. I think parents learn as much by experimentation as kids do!