Would You Be Upset by This?

I would have probably NOT ended the party, but punished the child in his room and probably a spanking or other physical discipline. Punishing everyone for one child's behavioral issue was a bit much and definitely did give too much power to the bad child.

I think they did what was best for their child and the fact that the guest were inconvenienced shouldn't have stopped the parents from disaplining their child. We have to assume they know how their child is better calmed. Personally calming the house works best for my kids, I can see how just sending him to his room wouldn't have stopped him if he has issues with being around a lot of people.

I would not have been upset as a guest. They probably have tried to send him to his room when guests were visiting and found that it did not work. Or...they said the punishment without thinking ahead and then had to following through. Either way they did the right thing but acting on their punishment even though it was inconvenient to their friends.

if it was my child i personally would have sent him/her to their room and shut the door. however, that is MY child. i dont know how THEIR child would have reacted to that. it may have made things worse.

That child's parents knew him better than anyone else there. if that is what THEY thought was best for THEIR child and they were not physically hurting him or anyone else, than i think that they handled it perfectly for their family!

I agree that they gave the child too much power and should have excused themselves, dealt with him, and rejointed the party. That is what I would have done.

That said, they probably also felt that he was disturbing everyone and would rather cancel then continue to bother others and be embarassed by his behavior. It was their party and their son. My guess is they know their son well enough to know that not having an audience may be the only way to settle him down. Their primary responsiblility is to parent him.

I would've wooped my kids butt!!! LOL ~ but that is just me!

I'm with you, I've been in that situation, and it's just a risk of being a parent... they tried their best short of holding the door shut in his room while he throws a tantrum. It was time to end the evening.

99% of the time my son will stay in his room if sent there. The other 1% he'll have an absolute meltdown, destroy his room, and refuse to stay in it. Which becomes a battle I *cannot* lose, and am *unwilling* to put others through OR myself with an audience -abandoning them for what is typically an hour long meltdown. I would have given hugs and apologies to my friends and sent them away, and dealt with my child as he needed to be dealt with.

It's a hard truism in parenting IMHO that I miss out sometimes in order to do what is best for my family. Fortunately, those times are few and far between, but when they come up I have to sacrifice my good time for consistant discipline and followthrough. Parenting is inconvenient. Occupational hazard.

.

If it were my child I would have spanked his butt and sent him to his room. I would not have ruined everyone elses night as a punishment to my son. I'm sure the parents did they best they knew how, perhaps they'll make a different decision next time.

I don't know how to answer this without feeling like I'm judging another's parenting. I haven't walked in their shoes.

I, as a parent, am careful not to make threats I won't follow through. If I found myself in their position I would have had to follow through or I would have sent the message to my misbehaving child that they could misbehave and get away with it.

I think there are many things that occurred, long before the point of cancelling the evening, that I would have chosen to do differently.

Either myself or DH would have taken DS to his room, or outside or away from the activity and stayed with him while the other adult continued to act as host. I find adult/kid functions with multiple kids stressful - so many people allow their kids to run around other people's houses that it is difficult to expect your own to behave the way they normally do when the see others acting like wild people. Especially if some of the other kids are older.

I can understand why this mom did what she did, but for myself I would not have ended. the party. I would have felt as the others did that it would be inconveniencing the other guests too much and punishing the other kids.

I do feel sorry for the other mom, because I think we've all had those moments where we feel people are judging our parenting and maybe she felt people would prefer to be given the opportunity to leave rather than hear her reprimand her kid. I just would've gone another way with it. I think if it were me, either my husband or myself would've excused ourselves from the party with the rambunctious child and removed him to somewhere quiet away from the other guests. I would probably try to see if I could get him to a calm state where I felt he understood what was expected so he could rejoin the party and if I couldn't we would just hide out all night.

As a guest, I think I would have disagreed maybe, but not necessarily been upset, maybe irritated. But there may have been an issue with the child that we don't know about, so I think I'd probably try to keep that in mind, if it were me.

I think sending everyone home handed all the power to the 8 year old child. His poor behavior got his parents, and every other adult in the house, to do what he wanted. WOW!

That being said, I feel sorry for his parents. It is horribly embarrassing when our children act out of control in front of others. I think that maybe a time out, possible with one of parents sitting with him until he calmed down, may have been a better solution. But it seems like they did what they felt they had to do to control the child.

Sorry to see it happen, but I think the parent's were in a tough spot.

Were I a guest, I think I might have been relieved to leave and escape the drama.

Well, so it was an adult dinner gathering, with the boy, being the only kid there???? (Oh sorry, there were other kids there).
Does he have other behavioral issues like ADHD or whatever?

Next, he may have been BORED out of his mind, or over-tired.
Depending on how LONG the dinner party was... and what time it was.

I agree that his behavior should have been handled by isolating him for a time out or whatever. One parent should have been responsible for seeing this thru so that the other could continue to entertain their guests. Asking the guests to leave in order to punish the child was in poor judgement.

It sounds like the 8 year old has major behavioral issues if it amounted to that. Rather than be angry I feel sorry for them as at that age the behavior should be a lot better than if he was 3. Sounds like the parents need some good parental advice maybe Nanny 911

I might not have ended the party.
I wouldn't have been "upset" if I were the guest, but I would probably think that those particular parents knew their child best and did what they had to do.
My oldest brother yanked his entire family out of a large family dinner at a restaurant once because he was mortified at their behavior.
I don't see it as an "inconvenience" that a party was ended early. Sometimes, you gotta just roll with things...

I agree with the moms who were upset. The child should have had consequences not the whole dinner party. The other children shouldn't be punished for the 8 yr old's behavior. I would have not liked it, but I also think the parents have the right to do what they want. They must have felt really awful to have to cancel the evening based on their child's behavior. But yes, it is giving the child WAY too much power in my opinion.

M

I think they did give him too much power. He should have been sent to his room for the rest of the evening with the door closed and staid there until he was ready to act appropriately, and if he started to come outside just to bother my guests and to be rude I would have lock him there for the rest of the night or until he decided to behave himself (I would make sure that he had a plate of food in his room before though and I would check on him every half an hour or less in case he needed to go to the bathroom or decided to come out and act in a civilized manner).

It sounds like the parents haven't handled the son properly in a very long time, if ever, so it is no surprise how it turned out. Personally, I would have been relieved to have an excuse to leave. I wouldn't want that influence on my children.

personally i think they give their child to much power. ending THEIR party because of HIS behavior

I wouldn't make my guests leave if my son was misbehaving. HE'd get punished. Mom or dad might have to miss the festivities for some period of time to take care of the situation, but why screw up everyone else's evening to "punish" your kid? They just told their kid that if he misbehaves, they'll punish themselves? Seems a little wierd.

Im not sure what I would have done in that situation, but I wouldnt have been upset about it either. I think it would be hard to send a kid to his room all night while other kids were running around playing. Hopefully the kid learned his lesson.

i would stay out of it..but i agree it is giving their son too much power. but again i dont think i would be attracted to those type of people for friends. i look for kids for friends for my kids that are easy to have over that dont cause problems. i want my kids around other kids with good behavior.

I haven't read the other responses, so sorry if this is a repeat.

Yes, I would be upset if I was invited someplace and then sent home. Not only did they punish their son, they punished all of the other kids by extension. On one hand, it's good that they followed through with the threat, but that is a threat that shouldn't have been made in the first place.

I don't think I would have been upset. I think I would empathize that they did what they thought was the right thing to do. There's not enough information for me personally to have an opinion about whether or not it was the "right" thing to do or not...

Lots of kids get really overstimulated when they have company and that sounds like what happened here... to the point where the parents were embarrassed and didn't want an entire audience of people watching and listening while they try to deal with their son's behavior.

I doubt it, but maybe that severe consequence of having to end the evening, made a difference for his behavior the next time. Sounds like a can of worms...

I agree with your friends. They were invited over for a dinner party and then told to go home because of this little boys behavior. They were actually the ones being punished, not him. He probably didn't care that everyone had to go home so the consequence was not on him as it should have been.

It sounds like your friends may need to re-think their disclining style because their current one is certainly not working for them and it is only going to get worse as their son gets older and bigger.

I personally would have sent my daughter to her room and told her not to come out. But, like a few others have said .......... maybe if they did that their son would not have stayed in his room and continued to cause more problems? I don't know. Sounds like a major behavior problem to me.
Oh and also, it may have upset me. I think it would have upset me if I had made plans to go over there for a dinner party. Especially if maybe I had turned down other plans to attend their get together ... I would probably think they need to get more control over their son.

I have and will send my daughter(s) to their room when company is over. One of these times it was just my sister and her kids over. But this ultimately punished my daughter and my niece, because they were the ones playing together and fighting. I finally decided, my daughter needed some much needed time to herself. After this time out, my daughter and niece both learned they needed to start getting along.

I think they should have made him take a time out, sit down with them or whatever else they do when he acts up.

I also think, for me personally, I would be more embarrassed to ask my guests to leave.

As the guest, I can't really say whether I would be upset being asked to leave or not. Would have to be in the situation and get a real feeling at how rambunctious this child was being. If it was to the point of being worried the whole time he would cause harm to one of my kids, I probably would have wanted to leave anyway.