Do You "Uninvite" Friends in Order to Punish Your Child?

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I don't agree w/ the way the other mom handled this. She should have given her dd her tasks to complete BEFORE she was allowed to invite a friend. Only after the girl finished her chores, should she have been allowed to invite a friend. I don't think it was a very nice thing to do to your dd.

While I Would agree for a basic sleepover or a visit to the movies--vacations are often planned far longer in advance. They aren't spur of the moment.

You can't just mow the lawn today, invite the friend and then expect that you can be lazy for the next 2 or 3 months and still get to take the friend along.

 

[java]

Over a room being clean?? That seems way too harsh.

Personally I am a let the punishment fit the crime kind of person. By not allowing her to take a friend along how does that get the point that you can't ignore the room. If it was such a big deal I would have made HER miss a day of the trip staying home cleaning it.

 

[Allison]

Over a room being clean?? That seems way too harsh.

Personally I am a let the punishment fit the crime kind of person. By not allowing her to take a friend along how does that get the point that you can't ignore the room. If it was such a big deal I would have made HER miss a day of the trip staying home cleaning it.

The OP does say she isn't clear on all the details. Who knows what the whole story may be.

 

[Serena]

I would never uninvite someone else to punish my child. If a clean room was that big a deal I would never had let her invite her until it was clean.

I would have come up with something else, or postponed it until later. If I had postponed it until later it would have been a lot more cleaning than just once though.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

Lying should never be tolerated. At least the parents get this and did what they thought would be effective in punishing the offense.

It is a shame when these things impact others, but you can not blame the parents for doing what they felt was best for their child...

 

[Serena]

Lying should never be tolerated. At least the parents get this and did what they thought would be effective in punishing the offense.

It is a shame when these things impact others, but you can not blame the parents for doing what they felt was best for their child...

I've been thinking and you are right. I may have done it a different way, but at least they are trying.

 

[Allison]

but you can not blame the parents for doing what they felt was best for their child...

Sure you can. This is the community board. Darned if you do, darned if you don't, and judged along the way.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

For those of you who have used this punishment my question is, did your child never commit their "crime" again? In other words, did they clean their room when asked going forward? If not, then obviously this punishment wasn't effective. The whole point of the punishment is to be a deterent to the poor behavior.



The child will be punished and the OPs daughter will probably not know the difference.

It's parenthood--not the military.


On the last part--the OP's child is only being "punished" if she is led to believe that she is. The OP was more than able to make alternate fun plans.

In the grownup world, there are consequences when we don't complete our work prior to going on vacation. And sometimes grownups do back out and it does affect our plans. (I've had a few times where people had to back out and then I couldn't go b/c we were sharing expenses. It stings--but the disapointment is mostly in why the person could not plan better. Back to the OP--the CHILD did not plan better.)

Cancelling in and of itself isn't rude. How the person cancels makes it rude or not.

If the friend's mother or the friend said, "I'm sorry--we've had an issue with dd's behavior and thus she will not be able to have a friend accompany her on the trip"

I see nothing wrong with this. The OP really isn't entitled to much more information than that. I'm sure the "friend" will have her thoughts of the travesty of unfairness that has taken place, but as a child--her observations are most certainly skewed.

 

[BeachGirlFLA]

I don't agree w/ the way the other mom handled this. She should have given her dd her tasks to complete BEFORE she was allowed to invite a friend. Only after the girl finished her chores, should she have been allowed to invite a friend. I don't think it was a very nice thing to do to your dd.

I totally agree with this...that way, it wouldn't have been punishing your daughter for her friend's actions. OTOH, I'm sure all of us have at one point been punished for the actions of a friend (or boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse.) I think I would use it as a lesson in how your behavior can affect someone else.

 

[scottishduffy]

I agree with the other parent on this one. I feel for your DD, but the other parent needs to do what they feel to be best for their own child. Sometimes parents are required take somewhat dramatic action to get a childs attention.

To the people who said to do chores and then invite a friend, that just is not possible with weekend vacations. A person must be given advance notice of weekend long trips.

I have been affected by this type of punishment as a child (missed out on a waterpark when a friend didn't finish chores, neither of us went). I also had this punishment done to me. Sometimes as kids we believe that Mom or dad would *never* do XYZ.... well, parents have to be willing to disprove that idea. I can assure you going on vacation alone with my parents was not at all fun when i knew i could have had my best friend along.

I am so sorry your daughter was dissapointed OP. This can be a good time to discuss other people's actions having an effect on our own plans. I am sure your daughters dissapointment next time she speaks to that friend will have an effect on the friend. The one time my parents did this to me, I remember having to talk to my friends afterward being the worst part of it all.

 

[Mickey's Minion]

What's your opinion of this? DD15 was invited by a friend to spend a long weekend at their vacation home. The friend din't finish some household chores that the parents had asked her to do in a certain time frame. I think she also lied to her parents about how much progress she had made cleaning her room - not too sure of the details.

As a punishment, DD15 was uninvited. The mom told me she couldn't let her daughter take a friend along as a punishment. So the friend got to spend the long weekend alone at the vacation house (alone meaning without a friend along) while DD15 got to stay home for 5 days and clean her room, watch TV, and hang out with us (boring.)

I just felt SO BAD for DD15!!!! I love this mom and family, so I would never do or say anything critical, but it felt a whole lot like DD15 was the one who got punished - she missed a lot of fun activities associated with this vacation location that we never have access to as a family. It was as if we had said to her friend, "Oh, we're using our DVC points at Disney this weekend, so why don't you come?" and then I'd called the mom and said, "I have to punish
DD15 so your daughter can't come with us to Disney."

Just venting a little...everyone's over it and DD15 survived!

I know it sucked for your daughter, but I can see the Mom's point if this was a punishment for lying.

We have several friends with vacation homes in exclusive resort areas.

While you may think that this is a vacation or an opportunity for your daughter to experience something that they normally don't, at least for the families that I know that have vacation houses, their homes are a get-away house, not unlike their regular house. It is just as much their regular "home", albeit one they use to get away to, but certainly not a grand vacation. Their grand vacations are ones that involve plane tickets to other parts of the world.

It would definitely be a punishment for their daughter to have to go there, away from her friends and have to sit with her parents all weekend. Especially for a teen

She did ask you if you had other plans, so I think she was respectful in that way.

And you said your daughter has had the opportunity to go before, and she probably will get invited again.

But you have to understand that this is no different than being invited to their local home. And most parents wouldn't be upset if the other mom called and canceled a sleepover at their local home due to poor behavior of their teen.

They probably don't see it as quite the opportunity as you may see it as it, so don't equate it as a great vacation for your daughter. It was just an invite to their "other" home.

 

[DVCLiz]

I know it sucked for your daughter, but I can see the Mom's point if this was a punishment for lying.

We have several friends with vacation homes in exclusive resort areas.

While you may think that this is a vacation or an opportunity for your daughter to experience something that they normally don't, at least for the families that I know that have vacation houses, their homes are a get-away house, not unlike their regular house. It is just as much their regular "home", albeit one they use to get away to, but certainly not a grand vacation.

It would definitely be a punishment for their daughter to have to go there, away from her friends and have to sit with her parents all weekend. Especially for a teen

She did ask you if you had other plans, so I think she was respectful in that way.

And you said your daughter has had the opportunity to go before, and she probably will get invited again.

But you have to understand that this is no different than being invited to their local home. And most parents wouldn't be upset if the other mom called and canceled a sleepover at their local home due to poor behavior of their teen.

They probably don't see it as quite the opportunity as you may see it as it, so don't equate it as a great vacation for your daughter. It was just an invite to their "other" home.

Yep, this is probably as close to the truth as anyone has posted. Although I disagree that it would be a punishment for the teen to have to go and sit with her parents all weekend. She wasn't restricted while at the vacation location, and she loves this location so she had a fun weekend - her punishment was not taking my daughter and losing some cell phone privileges when she returned.

It was just ironic that she spent the weekend on a jet ski and my daughter spent the weekend (voluntarily!) cleaning her room.

We all coped - DD15 is not a special snowflake so she used her coping skills and soldiered on. But it did sting a little to see the Facebook note about their great weekend!!!!

 

[PollyannaMom]

I wouldn't uninvite a friend, for the same reason I don't ground DS from birthday parties. - It would be punishing the other child (and in the weekend case, maybe causing a problem for the other family.)

Even at home, we try to make sure a punishment is designed as much as possible to affect only the wrong-doer and not everyone. (Though obviously, it sometimes punishes the parents!)

I would just have thought of something else, or maybe said no the NEXT time she wanted to bring a friend along.

 

[Buckalew11]

I would only do something like that IF the *crime* was big. In a case like this, I would have found another punsihment.

I have a 15yo too and this type thing has happened before. It just seems very unfair to me. Once we almost punished that way and I realized that we were also punsihing the friend. So, we changed the punishment.

Killed 2 birds with one stone there because we all learned a bit of a lesson about punishments and about sometimes mom and dad speak and judge before thinking everything through--sorry.

I'm glad your DD got over it quickly. I don't think mine would have.

 

[Buckalew11]

And, you know, she may get asked to go there with them again--indeed. However, I wonder what the second thought in your daughter's mind would be? If it were me, I'd be asking her every 5th text if she had cleaned her room, done her chores, etc. LOL I might volunteer to come over and help her out...

And if there were 2 invites for the same weekend? I might pick the other, just in case.

It is all part of life but I'm not going to live with the fact that I screwed up some innocent kid's weekend when I could choose an alternative punishment. That's just me. Now again, if the *crime* were huge, I would do it but I'd also put limits on the "fun" my DD was having during that weekend. It would not be "business as usual."

 

[Cool-Beans]

If I were your DD and were invited again, I'd decline the invite. These aren't gracious, responsible people who keep their word and hold up their end of the bargain.

They're people whose word (for whatever reason) cannot be trusted.

I'd take it as a lesson for DD - learning that some people follow certain ways of doing things and others don't. Stick the ones who don't in the "flake" category and don't count on them.

 

[Planogirl]

I remember when this happened to me when I was a kid. I just afterward assumed that these people were untrustworthy and didn't bother much with them again.

I just don't think that this is appropriate. Sure family bonding is important but not to the extent that it's hurts someone else.

 

[livie1205]

I side with the other mom on this one. Her main concern is her daughter, not OP's. If she thinks this is the best way to teach her daughter a lesson, then she has to do what she feels is best. Is it disappointing? Absolutely. But it also would have been disappointing if something came up at the last minute and OP's daughter wasn't able to go. And as Mystery Machine mentioned, why isn't the friend getting any flack for not doing what she had to do. Might stand to reason that this mom has threatened consequences before and never followed through. Unfortunately for OP's daughter, maybe she had finally had enough and followed through this time.

A PP mentioned not inviting a friend until chores were done. Unfortunately, you need to give the friend some sort of advanced notice and we all know how quickly a child can mess up their room. Unless you are willing to call about 3 hours before you're leaving to extend an invitation, that won't work in this situation.

I agree...as a parent I will do what should be done for MY child first...you do not know how many times this child as pulled the same thing and the parents were tired of it.I am sure your dd was upset but not really your choice.I do not find it my buisness to figure out what is the best punishment for others children and think you are really stepping in where you shouldnt.If you ivite her to go to wdw and then say nope changed my mind just because of this then you are in the wrong NOT this other girls parents....they are just trying to raise their child not trying to make you or your dd happy.If I misunderstood what you meant then sorry.

 

[C.Ann]

Stipulations should have been made prior: "Yes, Suzy - you can invite Mary to spend with weekend with us after you have cleaned your room in the time frame we have given you.."

Then there wouldn't have been an "issue" as the chore would have been completed (or not) prior to extending the invitation..

That's the way I would have handled it..

 

[livie1205]

I remember when this happened to me when I was a kid. I just afterward assumed that these people were untrustworthy and didn't bother much with them again.

I just don't think that this is appropriate. Sure family bonding is important but not to the extent that it's hurts someone else.

Missing someones elses vacation will not "hurt" the ops dd....she will wish she could have went but it will not hurt her.This was this other familys vacation and if they do not want to deal with another teen when theirs is not acting right I do not blame them.I would not ever bring another child on OUR vacation anyway...when we go on vacation it is for OUR family to spend time together.I have a friend that has done this a few times and something ALWAYS goes wrong and she is grumpy for dealing with extra teens.In the real world teens can be a handfull even when they are the most perfect, well behaved always nice kids....I think it is crazy that so many people are judging this other mom for her way of raising her kids when only half the story is known.Bottom line is no one should judge how others choose the raise and teach their kids.