The kid is a spoiled brat and his mother is a jerk. That would be the last time I would ever socialize with them. You should have excused yourself by saying, "Excuse me, but I need to clean up the damage your brat did to my wall."

Not at 4. My 5 year old drew on a wall once or twice at home around 2-3. Now knows to wash hands after dinner etc. My toddler is 2 and is much more into drawing and using walls and floors for surfaces. I correct and shes good for a bit. I would be mortified if my kid did any of that at 4. The oldest knew to ask if places we visited had "jumping couches or non jumping couches". Since she is allowed to jump on the basement couch.

I'd have given my kid a stern talking-to, but not in front of you. I believe really strongly in not embarrassing my kids publicly.

I would have focused on cleaning your wall. My child would have apologized and helped clean. What were you looking for? As the hostess who prepared a meal I would not want you to leave or even scream at your kid. If over time I thought your kid was pretty out of control, we would try to only meet you at a park.

A 2 year old doing this... it would have been my fault for letting a 2 year old have pens with no supervision.

A 4 year old though? I would have probably left the house with my child immediately as a consequence.

Anonymous wrote:I am Asian, and it’s funny to me that Americans/Europeans are so strict with their toddlers but so lax with their teenagers! Asians are generally the opposite.

I have a 4yo who occasionally draws on the walls at home and I laugh and turn a blind eye because we can easily erase it and were planning to paint the walls in a few years anyway. I would never allow my child to draw on the walls at someone else’s home though (and she’s never shown any inclination to).

I save my scary voice for more important things like consistent rudeness (a problem I have noticed with American/European children) and safety issues.

I am not Asian but agree with this approach. I don't really even think of small children as "misbehaving". They are little and don't really know. I don't understand punishing kids this age because I think it just teaches them to be afraid of you. Early childhood should be all about building trust and relationships.

It's different with a teenager and it's different with a child who 100% knows they shouldn't do something and does it anyway. I think you need to set firm boundaries with a child like this and provide more strict guidance. But the earliest you can do that is elementary school, IMO. Before that, they just lack the awareness and experience to truly understand that their behavior is problematic. I hear people call little kids "manipulative" or "defiant" and I'm like "of what???" They are literally just experimenting with stuff and seeing what response it gets. The best thing you can do is stay calm and focus on rewarding good behavior with lots of praise and positivity so that they want to do it a lot. Most negative activity will extinguish on your own if you just ignore it.

Dh and I are pretty strict with things like this. We have expensive furnishings and they aren’t going to trash them. From birth we’ve redirected. They also clean before leaving a room. I’m always a bit shocked when kids visit and start grabbing for wine glasses in my dining room or breakable things.

That being said- we are very fun parents. We have a huge bounce house in the basement, tons of outdoor toys, and there’s a playroom where they can do all the messy art they


If my kid drew on the wall on a play date- I’d ask for a rag or rubbing alcohol so my kid could clean it.

Mine drew on ours with pencil. I was surprised because it wasn’t something I thought she would do. We cleaned it up together and I told her not to do it again and we actually laughed about it while cleaning the wall. She never did it again.

My child has never ever done that. I would be shocked if they did. And I would be horrified if they did that at someone else's house.

Anonymous wrote:I have special needs kids and I warn people not to leave writing implements out

That makes sense. And again, I don’t particularly mind the writing on the wall. As is said, Sh*t happens and we all do our best and with kids there will always be stains and something breaking etc.. what surprised me was her reaction, it was very foreign to me

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she didn’t want to yell at her kid in front of you? Maybe the kid got his ass handed to him in the ride home? At 4 years old kids can understand things in the past and you don’t have to do it in the moment like with an 18 month old.

Nope, I know her very well. She didn’t discipline further

Anonymous wrote:Was it a drop off playdate? Maybe the friend thought you already disciplined the child?

No it was a dinner date, they were at our house with their kids. Had she mentioned anything about not leaving the box of crayons on the coloring table (we have an area dedicated for this). I would have accommodated

My older kids didn’t do this, probably in part because I was better able to control where writing utensils were. But I have a large age gap and my older kids have pens, markers, etc. that are sometimes left out. My 4 yr old has written on walls. I disciplined her when it has happened. She has never done it at someone else’s house. I don’t see a problem with how this mom reacted though- she didn’t want to make a scene. She should have offered to clean it for you. Some kids are more prone to this type of thing than others. Don’t take it as a parenting compliment if your kid doesn’t though- it is them, not you. As a child I was an angel and would never do something like that. My brother did though! He wrote on walls and the couch several times and our mother was super mean and strict. He didn’t care.

Anonymous wrote:Whatever my response to something might be in my own home, I generally try not to make a scene in other people’s homes when it comes to disciplining my kids, because no one else needs their time disrupted more than necessary if my kid melts down in response. In her shoes, I would have gently corrected and redirected my child, then apologized and asked if you had a magic eraser so I could clean it off.

This

Anonymous wrote:I am Asian, and it’s funny to me that Americans/Europeans are so strict with their toddlers but so lax with their teenagers! Asians are generally the opposite.

I have a 4yo who occasionally draws on the walls at home and I laugh and turn a blind eye because we can easily erase it and were planning to paint the walls in a few years anyway. I would never allow my child to draw on the walls at someone else’s home though (and she’s never shown any inclination to).

I save my scary voice for more important things like consistent rudeness (a problem I have noticed with American/European children) and safety issues.

I don’t tolerate either.