Advice please...

Pigeongirl

Oh and no, my son has never been invited to hers which is fine.

justme111

Pigeongirl wrote: »

Oh and no, my son has never been invited to hers which is fine.

I find it very strange , not fine. Out of all you described this one sounds like the only abnormal fact. I dont see anything wrong with feeding her if yout son is going to eat and enjoys her company , I have one cjild only as well and I think it is great for them , I love having her friends around and that's why I wanted a big dinner table . If on a particular day I am limited with food /want some solo time with daughter I simply and without
guilt say "no sorry not today"

krlyr

All of our friends loved it around our house, they'd often pop around and not want to go home. Infact, several of them ended up at ours on a weekly basis for dinner - they were around so often my mum found it easier to just make it official!

Don't think any of them had issues at home, just found our house a bit more novel. We lived down a private track in the middle of a farm (not out in the sticks but it was tucked away on the edge of town) and my parents always encouraged us to be outside playing in the summer, or kept us amused with things like crafts and other games indoors (she had to keep us busy, with 4 of us, or we'd find our own entertainment!). Although we didn't have tons of fancy gadgets, because there were quite a few of us, with a range of ages, there was quite a variety of toys we could all play with, and once we were a bit older they converted the loft into a bit of a playroom so we all loved chilling out up there with our friends.

So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a sign of anything other than that she enjoys being around your house. If you're concerned, then perhaps this page is worth a read
http://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/our-services/family-support/child-neglect/im-concerned-about-a-child-but-uncertain-what-to-do-next

rozmister

Pigeongirl wrote: »

Thanks all.

My son loves having her round and she really is good as gold, it's just a bit full on! She's skinny but not malnourished and always clean and well clothed.

My house is a quiet house and my son an only child - my husband and I are happily married. I know her parents are divorced and there's apparently nine children altogether so perhaps she likes the contrast!

You've put my mind at rest somewhat as my friend told me today I was being a mug and I should be careful. I just feel that if my home can be a place of peace and stability for a child then I shouldn't begrudge that.

I think I'll just be a little stricter about when is our family time!

Your home does sound like it might be novel compared to hers. My parents have a semi with a shared garden and until I went to secondary school I used to live in next door. They had two daughters and a son and there was a mum and a dad. I lived with just my mum as my half brothers and half sister were grown up and my dad came and went so I loved their house! It had everything mine didn't. I suppose I was a bit lonely at home and I craved the kind of routine and stability their home had! I remember marveling at the meal planner they had and the fact their dad did grocery shopping and housework! The boundaries were that I only came to play when they were home and I didn't eat there. I don't know where they came from because we played together from wee but I thought they were fair enough.

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not that odd, your house is probably a welcome break for this kid although she's not necessarily being abused! It's nice your son has a friend to play with too who lives nearby xx

aileth

I'd wonder what her home life is like. She might see your house as a haven compared to hers. I have vague memories from when I was young and there were two girls living just down the road from us. Their parents were going through a pretty nasty divorce and home was very turbulent. They did just like this girl did, for example when me and my sister were at Rainbows or Brownies they'd go over and ask my mum whether they could come in and she'd give them some drinks and biscuits and let them sit and quietly watch TV or play.

Quite sad really.

It could also be that your house is more relaxing, you have lots of treats, or DS has lots of toys that she wants as has been mentioned above.

busiscoming2

I think she probably enjoys the peace and quiet if there is lots of siblings at home.

FWIW I live in a cul de sac with a green where the kids play. When mine were young I had a rule that none of the children could come into the house to play, otherwise I would have been overrun! This seemed to be the norm with the other families too.

Billie-S

Pigeongirl wrote: »

Hello all

My son is 8 years old and has recently made friends with a girl from a nearby house. He has only recently started being allowed to play on the small green outside without supervision (though I'm always in my house if he needs me).

This girl is a couple of years older, polite and well behaved though can be quite 'forward'. What I mean by that is she keeps asking to sleep over and I keep saying no (because I don't know her family and I'm not comfortable with it).

I've spoken to her mum a few times and she seems pleasant enough - a bit rough round the edges perhaps.

The thing I'm finding hard is that this girl wants to be here all the time. She even asks to come in when my son is not here. She will stay all day if allowed. Her mum seems happy for her to do this and I hate saying no but I'm finding it hard to feed her and my son all the time and also, i feel like i want some space back!

What concerns me is that there must be a reason she doesn't want to be at home and if I reject her then I'm damaging a possibly lonely and neglected girl. But if I have her over all the time am I just a mug?

Any advice?

I hear and see warning signs here. Of a parent trying to take advantage of someone's good nature. It happened to me repeatedly when my 2 kids were younger.

Me and my husband and 2 kids lived in a quiet cul-de-sac, and they had a bedroom each, and it was a roomy happy home with loads of DVDs and CDs and video games and consoles and books and games and so on. One or the other of my girls had someone coming around almost every day, (some weeks,) and we were constantly feeding other peoples kids. One girl asked my eldest daughter if she could have some lunch this one Saturday lunchtime, and I said 'ummmm, ok, help yourself to a crisp butty or some toast.' And my daughter said 'can we have fish and chips and peas, or egg and chips and sausage and beans? !!!

We always had a good breakfast, and I would cook a good healthy and hearty dinner, but for lunch, I never made anything. For a start, most of the time, nobody was in as we were at school or work, and secondly, I don't feel that a big meal is needed at lunchtime. So i said 'no, we don't eat cooked meals at lunchtime.' And my daughter said 'yes we do!' I don't know what came over her; whether she had told her friend (who seemed rather pushy) that I would do it or what! But I was quite annoyed and said 'No we don't! we never have a cooked meal for lunch!'

This girl came in and I had never met her before, and I re-iterated to my daughter - and her - that I was not going to be standing in the kitchen spending half an hour cooking chips, beans, sausage, eggs, fish and whatever else.

Also, we had a spate of mums dumping their kids on us. 'Oh Jade loves it at your house, can she come round?' 'Bethany prefers your house to ours as her brothers are so noisy and so on.' And day in day out, week in week out, we regularly had the neighbourhood kids around our house, eating us out of house and home, whilst the parents happily used us as a free childminder.

There was many a time when we'd say to the child in question (this is when our kids and these kids were maybe 7 to 10 y.o,) 'can you call your mum and get her to come get you?' after they had been at ours for anything from 4 to 7 hours! And they would say 'she's not answering her phone..' So WE would take them home, as I was not letting an 8 year old walk around a big estate at 6pm in the dark! And lo and behold, the mum was not in! And this happened many many times, over and over again. Many times, we had to drive back to our house, or walk back if we had walked, and wait another hour or two, until the parent(s) could be bothered to come and get their child!

We even had one cheeky madam who came to our house at about 1pm on New years's Eve, (she and my youngest daughter were friends and they were about 9,) and she was still at our house at 7pm! So I said 'ring your mum and tell her to come get you will you?' Again she said she was not answering. So I went around the house myself. Nobody in! So I knocked on a few doors nearby and asked 3 or 4 people if they knew where she was, and they said she went out!

I rang this woman and left a message on her mobile answerphone to contact me as she needed to get her daughter. No response. i rang again at about 8pm. Nothing. So at 8.30pm, I was fuming by then and I rang her AGAIN, and said 'Jane, I'm not being funny, but if you don't come and get your daughter, I'm calling the police, because your daughter is your responsibility and you have made yourself uncontactable. We are going out in an hour and we can't take her with us, so we will have to take her to the police station and tell them that her parents are not to be found! You need to get your daughter!'

She called back right away, and said 'well where are you going?!' I said 'it's new years eve, we are going out' and she said I don't think i can get back from where I am now, can Jade come with you?' And I said 'No! we have tickets for a family of 4 - 2 adults and 2 kids, and she's your child .' She huffed and puffed and said 'the police !!!!!!! How dramatic.' And I said 'well I'm sorry to ruin your night by expecting you to look after your own child' She hung up the phone!

5 minutes later, this woman's 77 year old father came to our house for her daughter - 'come on Jade' he said. No thank you to us or anything. Not even any acknowledgement. Basically, she was expecting me to look after her on New Year's Eve! That woman didn't speak to me again, and the girl began to bully my youngest daughter in the new year, and a few of the mums (this woman's friends,) at the school were short with me too.

This woman had took advantage of me a lot - expecting me to give her daughter lifts and feed her and take her out with us etc. And at least 7 or 8 other people did this too during my daughters school years.

So be careful of being taken advantage of. Some people will happily and willingly dump their kids on you, left right and centre; by saying 'oooh, he loves it at your house...' Don't let it happen! I feel quite angry when I think about how the mums in my old area took advantage of me.

Some may say I only have myself to blame. I disagree.

peachyprice

Pigeongirl wrote: »

What concerns me is that there must be a reason she doesn't want to be at home and if I reject her then I'm damaging a possibly lonely and neglected girl. But if I have her over all the time am I just a mug?

Any advice?

Not necessarily, some children just like going to other people's houses.

My cousin has a daughter like that, she's perfectly lovely mum, lovely home, the child wants for nothing yet she would go to other people's houses every day of the week given the chance.

At the age of 10 This child walked around the playground asking children if she could come round, even children she didn't particularly like, at one point she was spending from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening at one particular friends house because the girl's mum didn't mind having her. It got to the point where my cousin had to put her foot down and say no, she was hardly seeing anything of her because she was always at someone's house. My cousin actually felt quite hurt by her behaviour.

And yet the girl was never interested in activities like swimming, brownies, dance, etc., she tried them all for a couple of weeks then gave up. So it wasn't a case of jst wanting to be out of the house, it was a desire to go to other houses.

mandragora_2

I decided when I was eight years old that I was leaving home to go and live with Mrs Huggins (my friend's mum, who also 'babysat' us before and after school). I packed my suitcase with the essentials (my electric blanket and my Tiny Tears doll!) and got my friend to sit on the lid because it wouldn't close due to the flex hanging over the lid.

This life-changing decision was made on a couple of very rational, well-thought out grounds, namely:

• Mrs Huggins was patient, kind and glamorous
• She had sweets and chocolate biscuits on offer after school
• Her sister in America had sent across some neat pony-tail clips,which were unique in our provincial backwater and which I longed to own.

The deal-maker, though was a very simple one. Mrs Huggins knew how to do my hair in a ponytail so it didn't get 'bumps' in it - I was a bit of a control-freak even then, and hated things that were lumpy or uneven, and Mrs H managed to do what must have been the earliest version ever of a Croydon facelift http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/00979/Usa_idol_spl_682_979738a.jpg that my own, gentle and harrassed mother just never got the knack of.

I got as far as the back doorstep, when my mum saw me and asked me what I was doing. When I told her and she said 'If you step one foot outside that back door, don't think you'll be coming back', I can distinctly remember thinking 'Well, that's alright, because I'm not GOING to come back. I've just explained. I'm going to live with Mrs Huggins. I might come back for a visit now and then because it will be nice to see how you're all getting along.' My friend had hightailed it away at the first sign of trouble, and needless to say my foot didn't hit the ground outside the back door before I was yanked back inside and sent up to my room. :rotfl:

I'm not sure what anyone else would have made of it - it was just a thing I wanted to do, and it seemed the most rational and sensible thing in my eight-year old eyes. I was well fed, cared-for and loved (even though I secretly believed I MUST be adopted and surely came from higher stock than this....). My mum would have been mortified and embarrassed if I had actually turned up at a neighbour's house with a suitcase asking to move in, hence the swift removal upstairs!

Billie-S

I don't think that a child is necessarily unhappy or neglected if they keep going to other peoples houses, but it does puzzle me why some children are always stuck at someone else's house. If the child has everything they want in their own home: love, warmth, security, someone there for them, food, drink, space, entertainment etc, then why would they want to never be there?

One girl who used to come to ours a LOT, told my eldest daughter several years ago, that she remembers coming to ours a lot, particularly in the summer holidays, when they were all kids. Some days she was here from 9am to 6pm, and when she wasn't at ours, she was at someone else's. Anyway it emerged that her mother and father were not there (mother at work, father working away,) and she was alone in the house while they were at work.

She was about 11/12 at the time, and she had a friend of their mothers to go to for emergencies, who lived a mile from their house, at the other side of the estate, but she was out half the time. This girl was nice enough, and came out with us a few times, but I thought it odd that she was here a lot. I mean, both my daughters spent the majority of their time (when they were not at school,) at our home.

I remember distinctly this one time, we were going out and I told this girl she must go home now (it was about 2pm,) and when we came back at 4pm, this girl was sitting on a bench, 100 yards from our house, and then got up and started walking towards us to come back in! We found out why later of course: nobody was in her house.

Most of the children who were always at someone else's house, were either over-run with siblings and the house was noisy or a mess all the time, and they couldn't relax or concentrate on their homework etc, or there was nobody there for them. And in a few cases, there were more dark and serious reasons for the child not wanting to be at home.

In my experience, the children who were always at someone else's house, were not particularity happy or content in their home at that particular time. Why would they want to be at someone else's home all (or most of) the time if they were happy at home? Of course some children like to go to someone else's house sometimes, and there is nothing wrong with that, but for a child to never or rarely want to be in their own home is a concern IMO.

In addition, this girl told my daughter, that some of happiest childhood memories were of the day trips she went on with us, and having meals with us, and going to the park with us and a few other things she did with our family! Correct me if I am wrong, but a person's happiest childhood memories should not be with someone else's family.

Back to the OP: as I said in my other post, the OP needs to be careful that people don't take advantage of her, as plenty of people will be more than willing to offload their kids onto you! Also, if this little girl is always always at your home, I would be mentioning it to the parents. I wish I had said a lot more at the time now.