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Parenting
august06mom
member
How do you handle free-for-all houses?
august06mom
member
in Parenting
DS was recently invited over to a neighbor kid's house, and apparently it's a do-whatever-you-want heaven. Not in a dangerous sort of way, but the kids there get to ride their scooters in the house, eat ice cream, cake and candy whenever they want, watch as much TV as they want, play as much video games as they want, etc. I've never feel so uptight in my life. 
When I picked DS up, he was eating buckets of pixi sticks (right before dinner, thanks kid's dad) and told me, "That was the greatest place ever." Of course, he wants to go back constantly, and the kids call him almost every day to come over.
We invited them over to our house, and when they got here, they just kept saying how boring it was and that they wanted to go home. They kept asking DS why he didn't have any video games.
In general, I'm a "your house, your rules," and I'm not going to change that. But I think DS would move in there if I let him, and I'm sick of fielding questions every day about whether he can go over. Thank god for caller ID so I can at least screen the calls. (They will call 10 times a day if I don't pick up and say that DS can't come over.)
He sees the kids every day on his bus, so there's no getting around it most of the time. Or sometimes they'll walk over and knock on our door to ask if he can come out to play.
Anyone deal with something similar? I don't care if goes over once in a while, but I don't want it to be an every day thing. I also don't know what kind of video games they're playing, and DS couldn't realy describe it to me. I don't have a problem with video games (I'm sure we'll get a console in the near future), but I think the game play needs to be monitored -- I'm not keen on him playing (or watching) Call of Duty or other FPS types.
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Re: How do you handle free-for-all houses?
Hope someone has good advice, especially with summer coming!
All I can think of, and what I've done, is pack his schedule and make him less accessible-- e.g., playdates with other kids, swim lessons, park visits, soccer, etc. And with him constantly unavailable the calls will dwindle.
Ditto pps who said keep your kids busy. I'm kind of dealing with that right now with a new kid in our neighborhood. If he calls, we invite the kid here for like an hour, with the excuse that DS can't go there because we're getting ready to go out, then drop the kid off and run an errand.
I will also say on the flip side that I am a more lax mom when we have company than otherwise. I'm still not the extreme free for all I've seen, but there are more treats, later bedtimes, more game time, and other things that I'm normally pretty strict on. Even with friends, I do still kick kids outside, though, and I do still push the fruits and veggies, but when they have a friend over, they can count on also getting some time on the Wii or xbox and some kind of sweet treat.
Ditto what the pps said. Explain to your child that each household is different and that those types of activties are fine once in a while but not all the time (according to your household rules) I think its ok to set limits on how often your DS visits and perhaps you could invite the friend over more and have a mental list of activties to get them involved with to avoid "being bored." DD1 loves to watch tv and play her leapster but we limit the time and then get her involved with board games, outdoor activities, arts & crafts, dolls, etc. Once she is doing something else the tv/gaming isn't as appealing. We've also read several of the Berenstain Bear books that talk about too muck junk food, too much computer, etc. They have been great tools explaining our values and why it isn't healthy to do those things all the time.