Playdate problem, need advice

One of my neighbors has a little girl who is about the same age as my twins (2 years old). Both of her parents work and she is home with her grandmother during the day; the grandmother does not speak much English and does not drive, so I don't think the little girl gets out much. We've been doing playdates once a week with the girl and her grandmother. The little girl never wants the playdate to end (I think she's probably bored at home) and always cries very hard and yells when it's over. The playdates are usually at my house and the little girl has gotten in the habit of grabbing one or more of my kids toys as her grandmother is trying to drag her out of our house. The problem is, she almost always grabs a favorite toy of my DS. I've tried telling the grandmother that's a favorite toy but she didn't understand, and I've tried giving the little girl another toy to take home, but she doesn't want to switch toys once she's grabbed one. The grandmother always brings this toy back the following week, but in the mean time my DS cries and asks for the toy for several days or more. Lately I've been trying to remove my DS's favorite toys from the playroom before she arrives, but I'm always worried I'll forget to grab something, and in addition, he notices his favorite toys are gone during her visit and he's upset about this. I can't explain this problem to the grandmother because of the language problem and I barely know the mother and I'm not comfortable talking with her about this. Any suggestions?

thanks,
thea

 

Maybe you could call and speak to the mother. You could say that you enjoyed the playdate on whatever day..but your son misses his toy...
Maybe the mother would relay the message to the grandmother and that would stop. Just an idea.

 

I know this is easier said than done, but if the grandmother is not going to step up and tell the little girl that she can't steal your son's toys, you may have to do it. Even if it means prying her little fingers off whatever she's trying to take away. If the language barrier is preventing the grandmother from understanding that this isn't OK with you, hopefully she will get the message through your actions.

You could also try explaining to the little girl during the playdate (before the getting-dragged-away part) that it's not OK for her to take your son's toys. At this age, I'm finding (somewhat to my surprise) that explaining things to them before the situation actually arises does make a difference.

I don't know if it's worth trying to explain (either to the girl or the grandmother) that some toys are OK to take but not others. I would just say something like "I'm glad you enjoy playing with Johnny's toys, but he gets sad when you take them away, so when you leave today, you need to leave all the toys here. They'll still be here for you to play with when you come back next time."

Alternatively, you could wait till the parents are home, then actually go over there and say that their daughter borrowed one of your son's favorite toys, and he's really missing it. That would at least get that week's toy back, and hopefully they'd have a chat with grandma about not letting it happen again.

 

I would also suggest, as I do this with my own and it really seems to help, to start letting her know that the playdate is going to end. Start around 10 min, and say "10 more minutes! Let's start cleaning up!" then "5 minutes, let's find our shoes!". Not sure how the playdate being over usually happens, but I find giving them some notice and making some preparations to end the playdate helps to make a smoother transition. If we just pick up and leave suddenly, then the kicking and screaming ensues. She's probably doing the toy borrowing as a stalling tactic.

 

Thanks for all the feedback. I wasn't sure if I was making too big a deal about this. I think I will need to speak with the mother. Minette suggested that I pry the toy out of the girl's hand; I actually did try that, the girl screamed and cried even more and the grandmother gestured for me to give the toy back to the girl (which I did)...so I think talking to the mom is the only option. Snittens, that's a great idea to give the girl some warning the playdate will be ending. Usually what happens is, the grandmother decides she needs to go home to cook dinner and she upbruptly tries to get the girl to go home. I'll start trying to give the girl some warnings.

thanks!
thea