Last week I posted below regarding other kids come & play at our home everyday.
Aftermath: I did what I should have done and talked with the parents, each with different approach. I also talked with their homeroom teachers and requested for this case to be mentioned to everyone in class and when having PTA. I also have setup rules for our kids as well, as in they must let me know beforehand if someone is going to come over. I sent away all kids who came over without invitation ever since.
Summary: I gave everyone the benefit of a doubt. Most parents didn't know that their kids were playing at our home most of the time and being such a meiwaku. They only knew their kids played "outside as in the park or community center".
Details: Overall speaking, I went to school to pick up my kids for a few days (usually I didn't because as we know, kids go to and return from school by themselves). Just so happen, I was able to meet some of the parents. I didn't want to judge them immediately at this point.
So I just did some small talk and a bit of passive aggressive when some parents didn't get the point. Somewhere along the line of, "thanking them for always playing together", "mentioning the kids played games for so many hours and didn't drink, didn't do homework, are they (parents) ok with that?", etc.
From there the conversation naturally flowed and they were surprised when finding out their kids didn't play "outside" as they thought, but instead played at our home. As some of the commenters said, most normal Japanese parents would probably hate being a meiwaku to others. So, after knowing the fact they apologized strongly because perhaps they also know that having random kids play over and clean up afterwards are very troublesome for any household. Some of them strictly questioned their kids in front of me, which for those I believe they genuinely didn't know about the fact before.
Now, for the one kid who always come to our home on Sat/Sun early morning before 9am without invitation. I went to their home, didn't care about small talk and just confronted them because sorry, I was very fed up for this particular one. Same thing, parents didn't know their kid visited our home such early morning on weekends and apologized.
All in all, everything should be good now. I should probably have done all those since the beginning, but well, things happened and we learned from it. I expect some kids may not fully understand the situation and will probably still visit like usual but I will definitely be firm and refuse all of them from now on.
Thank you for everyone's thoughts sharing!
by shionemi
19 comments
Curious:
Why couldn’t u just ask for their parents number when the kids are over. Separately, Ringed them and asked whether they were ok with their kids coming over
Turns out that talking solved the problem – who would have thought everyone.
Communication can often solve a lot of problems. Nice work.
If it were me, I would present a small gift to the parents I talked to directly. Nothing big, but you don’t want them to worry about there being bad blood and forbidding their children from playing with yours completely. Wouldn’t want your kids to suddenly find themselves friendless. Some cakes or cookies and a comment about how happy your children are to be friends with theirs or something will take off the sting of having been embarrassed about their children causing trouble.
That’s why I mentioned in the previous thread that if someone gets injured while in your home, most parents wouldn’t even know their child was there to begin with.
> the one kid who always come to our home on Sat/Sun early morning before 9am without invitation. […] parents didn’t know their kid visited our home such early morning on weekends
Seriously? How would they not know?
Anyway, I have a similar (though not as extreme) situation at my place. My take away here is that I should probably ask at least whether the little friend families are aware their kids are at my place.
It happens. Try not to fall into classical Japanese social anxiety trap.
One of neighbors kid (Japanese) came to play in my home regularly. Other homes nearby too. He is a sort of hyper-social 9 y.o. boy. Some parents are talking about “meiwaku” indeed. It is hilarious.
It’s not normal, but I think it does happen.
I once went over to a friend’s house every day during summer vacation, and I played Monster Hunter 2nd Generation and Mario Kart Wii all day long at her house. 😁
Looking back, I’m sure it was a real nuisance.
There’s a house like this in my neighborhood, other kids are actually inviting other kids to this house to play (as in, they don’t live there, but invite other kids around) the homeowners don’t seem to care (they are Japanese if that matters) and the problem is slowly getting worse and fights/arguments happen and end up with kids fighting on the street. Police have been called, but nothing so far has made a lasting difference.
Good on you for putting your foot down and nipping the entire issue in the bud.
All for play, but this is exactly how things can fly out of control and kids realize that they can get away with more than parents let on.
It was normal in my neighbourhood growing up but it depends on the person.
If you dont like it just gotta enforce limits
I think it’s normal for kids to go play in other kids houses. I think it’s definitely not normal for parents to not be aware of what their kids are up to when they go out and I think it’s a really big issue in this country that isn’t really dealt with. For example, unsupervised kids in parks climbing up dangerous places or playing ball in restricted areas with infants around.
They are just confusing your home with the local jidokan.
Sounds like you need to go back home.
Life isn’t that difficult but if you can’t handle the basics then it would be best to try in your own country. You’ll have less to find as an excuse and more to realize what you need to be better.
Best of luck.
That’s how I lived my youth. We would go over to friends and play. They would come to me for playing
Good that it was resolved.
I’m curious though, what was the general process before when kids came to your house? Like did you own child come back and just bring everyone in to play?
I had a similar situation in our old neighborhood though the kids were fairly well behaved, with 5-6 kids over frequently but I also made sure from the start with my own kid that before coming in with friends she had to ask permission from me (or mom). So if I was busy or just didn’t feel like dealing with it, I could immediately just say no, not today, and that was the end of it.
Kids shouldn’t go to other kids houses unless you’ve exchanged LINE info with the parents.
Makes it easier to be passive aggressive if you can send photos or reminders that they’re still playing.
Glad you handled things, although taking it to the level of making demands to the homeroom teachers and taking it to the PTA seems like quite the overreach.
as someone who doesn’t have kids and just a typical lurker, i enjoyed reading about this, great that you were able to resolve this on your own terms while still giving the parents some room to save face.
Lots of smartasses here having ridicuously extreme takes like telling you to “going back home”, but good for you on sharing your experiences and following up! I appreciated it.
Dont understand why every post here has to be complete “unique to japan” while people here will then whine about Japan not being some super unique and different wonderland. Can’t we just literally post questions or experience as residents in Japan? Some of us are experiencing things first time in Japan, some could be special to japan, some maybe not, but for many folks we are experiencing a situation for the first time in our lives in Japan.
No offence but it sounded like those kids were walking over you and treating your house as the local play house. That would drive me around the bend.
If you were a 90s kid or before, it was normal to go to your friends house, with permission of course.
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