Play Dates Gone Awry

I’m starting to really dislike play dates…gasp!!!  My idea of a play date is a light snack, some engaging creative play, followed up by a break with maybe another light snack or drink of water, complete with some more engaging play. Sounds pretty good and relatively freeing for the mother overseeing the play date. Generally speaking that is not at all like the play dates my seven year old is having.

Drew’s idea of a play date is an unlimited amount of garbage snacks and full access pass to Xbox. You can obviously see there is a disconnect between our two visions. In addition to the separate goals for a play date there are also some other problems with these play dates. For one, Drew is an awful host. No matter how many times we discuss that Drew should yield to the guest in regards to what they play, he is still completely insistent upon doing what he wants to do. This means that if the guest is flexible, it will be a good play date. If the guest is not, well you see where this is going…

Another problem is that Drew is a terrible sport. If the boys are playing xbox, Drew is only really happy if he’s beating the guest. Of course he is not tasteful in expressing his joy of winning. I have tried having the boys be on the same team, but Drew is not patient to the learning curve with someone who has less access to the game than he has. If they (G-d forbid) miss the pass, fumble, etc. all hell breaks loose!!!

I’m working hard to set boundaries for acceptable play date behavior. There must be free play for at least 45 minutes before the conversation can turn towards Xbox. Unfortunately I may be the only mother to insist upon these rules which may result in no one ever wanting to come here again.  If Drew keeps up this behavior, no one is going to want to come here anyway!  I just don’t think play dates should be this hard 🙁