Reply to No playdates because other siblings won't have a friend

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My daughter’s former best friend was an only and it was a nightmare to host her. We had an open yard policy where all the neighborhood kids were welcome to play in our yard and vice versa. My daughter’s friend would come over and demand that my younger son not be allowed to play on ours or our neighbors’ swingset equipment while she and my daughter were outside playing. The mom would also constantly invite my daughter, husband and me to do stuff with their family (go to pool, come over for dinner, etc.) and forget that we had a four year old son at home.  The mom was not pleased when our families weren’t as close and she would send nasty texts accusing us of liking our neighbors and other friends better. Well, yeah, of course we were closer with other families that had multiple, same aged kids and were inclusive of all my children.

It’s not rocket science. [/quote]

The bossiest kid I know is the youngest of 3 kids. Should I now assume all youngest children are this way? Or all families of 3 kids? You have experience with one bossy kid who happened to be an only child. But go ahead and generalize and teach your kids to do the same  :roll: . [/quote]

Children with siblings can also be annoying. They often don’t get invited back either.

It’s not as though any mom is thinking, “Who should we have over this weekend? Not Larla, she’s an only child.” It’s more one child begging, “Can Larla come over this weekend?” If the other child begs for Larla too, Mom will invite Larla. If the other child is indifferent or occupied, Mom may still invite Larla. But if the younger child says, “No! Larla’s mean to me!” Larla won’t get the invite, especially if Mom spent the last play date breaking up dealing with high maintenance kid. Mom will probably say, “What about Larlo instead?” And if both kids get excited about Larlo, Larlo gets the invite. [/quote]

Yes, of course - this is reasonable and applies no matter the kid. I am the poster you quoted, but the posters *I* was responding to overtly said they don’t want only children over for playdates because they are too [self centered, exclusionary, high maintenance, insert rude adjective]. [/quote]

I am the rocket science poster you were responding to. I didn’t say or generalize that I didn’t want only children over because of whatever reason. I was just sharing a story about one child who happened to be an only. I can share other examples of kids with siblings who were also not invited back, including one who kept going upstairs into my bedroom and looking through our drawers.

The real issue was the awkwardness created by the mom who wanted her daughter to always have my daughter’s (and our family’s) undivided attention. It was nothing personal against them but at the end of the day, it’s just easier for us to hang out with similar multi-kid families. And as other posters have pointed out, if a kid can’t get along in a bigger group or interact with siblings, then of course it doesn’t make sense to keep inviting them back if they are going to have to interact in a bigger group or with siblings.  The other posters who pointed out that the parents of onlys aren’t doing any favors are 100% correct. Sending my kid to your house doesn’t help me because now I’ve got one kid at home with no one to play with. And in the our situation where we had neighborhood friends, we didn’t have to do manufactured play dates- the kids just went outside to play.  It would have been fine if her only friend was cool with that and could join in the fun, but she was like her mom and wanted undivided attention.

If OP wants her kid to have one-on-one time, she should always host and insist it’s drop-off. Unless the mothers are friends, no one is going to want to sit around and watch two 7 year olds play, especially if they have other kids at home. I find hard to believe folks are bringing siblings to play dates at someone else’s house unless the OP failed to mention that she insisted that the parent stay to help supervise and the parent had no choice but to bring the other kid along for lack of childcare.[/quote]

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