s/o Do you punish your child by canceling playdates

[Anonymous]

The family of my daughter's best friend does this a lot. It's impacted us 2 or 3 times over the years, and honestly, it's a hassle on our end too, and I feel like our family is being punished as well! The mom will be like, "Can we reschedule for next weekend instead? Larla behaved horribly at the doctor's when she got her flu shot, and we've had to take away this afternoon's playdate as a consequence."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only if I think my kid is so out of sorts that the playdate won't go well. I don't want to set her up to fail socially.

For example I did pull the plug on a couple the first month of kindergarten. My kid was so exhausted from the school week that she was melting down on weekends too. She wasn't emotionally equipped to play with another kid at that time.

I wouldn't consider it a "punishment" in this case. Rather, you're setting healthy boundaries for your daughter's well-being.

[Anonymous]

No i do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The family of my daughter's best friend does this a lot. It's impacted us 2 or 3 times over the years, and honestly, it's a hassle on our end too, and I feel like our family is being punished as well! The mom will be like, "Can we reschedule for next weekend instead? Larla behaved horribly at the doctor's when she got her flu shot, and we've had to take away this afternoon's playdate as a consequence."

What? Their kid was scared of the flu shot and acted up and she gets *punished*? That's doubly awful.

And re the larger question, no we don't cancel playdates as punishment, but we do use an upcoming playdate to remind them to behave.

[Anonymous]

Planned play dates, no. But if a neighbor kid comes to our door asking to play with DS and he's been misbehaving, I have no problem saying to the neighbor kid that DS is grounded and can't play.

[Anonymous]

No unless it's a natural consequence. I.e., if you don't put pants on you're not going to be able to go to the playground to play with Larla because we wear pants outside.

[Anonymous]

I did. His behavior was awful and wouldn't have improved at someone else's house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How in the world does this punish the other child? What a weird take on it. Sounds like you just don't want to deal with teaching your kid consequences.

As explained in the OP: "canceling the playdate is going to disappoint someone else, not just my kid."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely not. It’s so unfair to the other kid. It’s also probably not going to improve my own kid’s behavior. Punishment generally isn’t particularly effective at controlling behavior.

Now, if I had concerns about my kid’s ability to act safely on the play date, that would be one thing, and I would be explicit with the other parent about that. But that’s a pretty extreme situation, I think.

All of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How in the world does this punish the other child? What a weird take on it. Sounds like you just don't want to deal with teaching your kid consequences.

Seriously? My child has been looking forward to playing with Tommy all day! It was on the calendar, and he picked out his favorite toys. He's so excited!

...then you call because Tommy misbehaved at home, so you're canceling. It's a cheap shot and really hurts my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents did this all the time. And over time, friends' parents would just stop making playdates with me because they knew it was too high a chance it would get cancelled. I wasn't even that "bad" of a kid--my parents would just punish for even the slightest infraction.

This. I was such a good kid and literally never allowed to do anything in high school. By sophomore year, people just stopped inviting me.