11 Year old knocked over shelf, Destroyed belongings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think when you have glass shelves, it’s just kind of risky, anyone could trip and fall and things would shatter and hurt people. Just doesn’t seem sensible. I feel bad for those boys for being blamed for an innocent childhood mistake. I bet they wish they’d never set foot in your house. I agree that your concern is mostly for your objects, not with the safety of the children or whether they might be feeling traumatized p. I’m sure that was very loud!

Did you miss the part where these kids are 11, not 3? Innocent childhood mistake.... children feeling traumatized by the loud noise.... ? These are middle schoolers who ran into an off-limits room and shattered an entire shelf full of valuables during a scuffle about a game controller. They were probably scared into silence because they were MORTIFIED at what they had done, I can only hope, not because the loud noise frightened their delicate childlike ears.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think when you have glass shelves, it’s just kind of risky, anyone could trip and fall and things would shatter and hurt people. Just doesn’t seem sensible. I feel bad for those boys for being blamed for an innocent childhood mistake. I bet they wish they’d never set foot in your house. I agree that your concern is mostly for your objects, not with the safety of the children or whether they might be feeling traumatized p. I’m sure that was very loud!

New poster here, not OP.

These kids are ELEVEN, not four or five. Eleven is middle school aged in many places. Old enough to know better and far too old for their precious little selves to be "traumatized" by the "loud" sound. "Innocent childhood mistake"? Try thoughtless tween disobedience. PP, do you have kids and if so-- how old? You sound like a parent of young kids, not a parent of kids this age. And OP already said she tried to check if they were hurt so yes, she did have a thought for the safety of these poor, traumatized innocents.

As for objects, when a kid destroys something irreplaceable of yours because the child was behaving like a brainless entitled little jerk, I hope you'll be as worried about that child's trauma as you are about these kids'.

[Anonymous]

This is nuts. OP should not have to lock doors in her house. We hardly have any doors in our house that even have locks.
Those kids should be at your house apologizing and helping to clean up. I can’t believe the parents are blaming OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let it go and don't invite the children over again. Explain to your son that the number of guests he has over at once needs to decline, and brainstorm with him how he would have handled the situation if he had broken items belonging to a host (i.e. use this as a learning experience).

You need to clean up the mess. Leaving it there is only going to inflame you further. Personally even if they had offered, I wouldn't let 11 year olds clean an area filled with shattered glass anyway.

This. I am very worried about how your son is responding to all of this. It sounds like he was trying to do the right thing but his guests were out of control and then you went out of control, too. He is 11. He must be very scared if you totally lost it. You may need to spend some time rebuilding his trust in you.

Use the suggestions above and also recognize that perhaps you should have been monitoring the children a little bit better. If they were in a room they weren't supposed to be in, and you didn't know, that is a pretty big sign that they needed to be more closely monitored.

I agree that it doesn't sound safe to have an 11 year old boy cleaning up broken shards and shattered glass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think when you have glass shelves, it’s just kind of risky, anyone could trip and fall and things would shatter and hurt people. Just doesn’t seem sensible. I feel bad for those boys for being blamed for an innocent childhood mistake. I bet they wish they’d never set foot in your house. I agree that your concern is mostly for your objects, not with the safety of the children or whether they might be feeling traumatized p. I’m sure that was very loud!

Let me guess, your kids are toddlers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let it go and don't invite the children over again. Explain to your son that the number of guests he has over at once needs to decline, and brainstorm with him how he would have handled the situation if he had broken items belonging to a host (i.e. use this as a learning experience).

You need to clean up the mess. Leaving it there is only going to inflame you further. Personally even if they had offered, I wouldn't let 11 year olds clean an area filled with shattered glass anyway.

This. I am very worried about how your son is responding to all of this. It sounds like he was trying to do the right thing but his guests were out of control and then you went out of control, too. He is 11. He must be very scared if you totally lost it. You may need to spend some time rebuilding his trust in you.

Use the suggestions above and also recognize that perhaps you should have been monitoring the children a little bit better. If they were in a room they weren't supposed to be in, and you didn't know, that is a pretty big sign that they needed to be more closely monitored.

I agree that it doesn't sound safe to have an 11 year old boy cleaning up broken shards and shattered glass.

Again... age 11, not age 3.... "rebuild his trust in you" after you got mad when he failed to control his guests and his guests destroyed over a thousand dollars worth of stuff? Um, no. And you don't need to monitor what the exact location of a few 11 year olds in your house is because, again, they aren't 3. They are 11, and should be trusted to not go into the off limits room and destroy all of the items in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is nuts. OP should not have to lock doors in her house. We hardly have any doors in our house that even have locks.
Those kids should be at your house apologizing and helping to clean up. I can’t believe the parents are blaming OP.

Apple. Tree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let it go and don't invite the children over again. Explain to your son that the number of guests he has over at once needs to decline, and brainstorm with him how he would have handled the situation if he had broken items belonging to a host (i.e. use this as a learning experience).

You need to clean up the mess. Leaving it there is only going to inflame you further. Personally even if they had offered, I wouldn't let 11 year olds clean an area filled with shattered glass anyway.

This. I am very worried about how your son is responding to all of this. It sounds like he was trying to do the right thing but his guests were out of control and then you went out of control, too. He is 11. He must be very scared if you totally lost it. You may need to spend some time rebuilding his trust in you.

Use the suggestions above and also recognize that perhaps you should have been monitoring the children a little bit better. If they were in a room they weren't supposed to be in, and you didn't know, that is a pretty big sign that they needed to be more closely monitored.

I agree that it doesn't sound safe to have an 11 year old boy cleaning up broken shards and shattered glass.

The kids are 11. OP's son should be concerned with how he's going to rebuild mom's trust in him and his friends.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I'm not mad at my DS, he did nothing wrong. I'm mad at these twins and their entitled parents.I haven't cleaned up the mess because we were busy on saturday, visited family on sunday, and I had to work today. I'm also not using the parents, I just want their kids to apologize. I already know they were raised by wolves and won't pay for the damages, I gave up on that. Oh, and one Bird Survived. It's a hummingbird with a nest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So sad the generation we are raising. I would have expected you to beat my ass with a belt regardless of who I was. My parents would have made me clean it up and of course apologize. But then again I would have never done anything like that.

DP This is sad. Physical violence should never be an answer. Of course, the kids shouldn't have broken your things, op but, a beating is not going to change anything.

[Anonymous]

This is why you still semi-supervise at that age and shelving and anything tall and breakable gets bolted to the wall. Part of this is on you. It was in your house under your supervision. Yes, they should know better but so should you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm not mad at my DS, he did nothing wrong. I'm mad at these twins and their entitled parents.I haven't cleaned up the mess because we were busy on saturday, visited family on sunday, and I had to work today. I'm also not using the parents, I just want their kids to apologize. I already know they were raised by wolves and won't pay for the damages, I gave up on that. Oh, and one Bird Survived. It's a hummingbird with a nest.

You are just as entitled. You had them over to play with your kid so you didn't have to and ignored what they were doing and neglected to supervise them. You are equally to fault.

[Anonymous]

I would expect my 11 year old to behave better as a guest. I would offer to clean up and pay for 1/2 of the damages.

[Anonymous]

Nope not on OP. 11 year olds should not require constant supervision, or locks on doors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So sad the generation we are raising. I would have expected you to beat my ass with a belt regardless of who I was. My parents would have made me clean it up and of course apologize. But then again I would have never done anything like that.

DP This is sad. Physical violence should never be an answer. Of course, the kids shouldn't have broken your things, op but, a beating is not going to change anything.

How about 11 minutes of time out for each 11 year old? Or 11 minutes less time playing favorite video games?