[Natttmumm]

Advice needed. If your kids muck up at friends house e.g. Tantrums, not listening, snatching from kids etc how do you deal with it. Do you find a time out spot or do you deal with it at home. My kids are 2.5 and 4.5 and I am finding this hard at the moment. The last occasion I ended up taking DD home but I didn't feel like the message sunk in. I did do time out where we were but is was ineffective. Any advice would be good.

[countrymel]

We don't have children but visiting children are sent to a 'time out' spot when they misbehave here.

One friend uses her car. Another a spot in the garden (Oh the tongue biting that went on when the 'time outed' child's sibling came up and dobbed her in for "Enjoying the birds and the flowers").

The theory used there is that if you want to go home and realise that by playing up you can actually get your way then it isn't going to be a long term satisfactory response.

[Ruffles]

I would start with "time out". I always told my kids that time out was moveable - I have even put them in time out in Myers - sitting in a corner, facing the wall.

If that wasn't working - removal. A friend of mine went through a stage of "one warning, then we go home". She had a couple of months of half drunk coffees and leaving lunches etc, but her DS soon settled down.

The key is persistence and consistency, even when it means you have to miss out on an activity/outing too - every time!. It is also hard with other kids, who might then be being "punished" for the behaviour of a sibling. (Said friend only had 1 child).

[bark]

If they continually do not listen, we would go home. I follow through on any threats.

[barrington]

Our time out spot is completely moveable as well. It is usually a chair, either at home or while we are out, but if there is no chair then they go wherever I put them. Including, like a PP, besides a counter in Myers.

If the behaviour is starting to get unacceptable then I give a warning about the use of the time out chair/spot. They know I will follow through if that behaviour continues.

It is very rare that I have to threaten to go home and even rarer that I need to follow through on that threat.

[Jemstar]

I make them sit on the floor right beside me so I can grab them if they go to take off. If they are really obnoxious, I go home.

[*lightning]

I give them a warning and if they act up again they have to sit beside me for time out. If they continue to act up, we go home.

[Natttmumm]

Thanks I have been doing that with timeout and then going home. DD who is 4 is a bit unpredictable. Some friends she's great other times totally out of control. When we gt home she's fine. I think I will stick at home a bit more as she seems to want to go home so it's no punishment. Just for a bit of background we only catch up with friends once a week maybe twice so it's not that often. Both kids are in daycare three days

[beabea]

The theory used there is that if you want to go home and realise that by playing up you can actually get your way then it isn't going to be a long term satisfactory response.

This, which I notice you've also observed. I think try to ask yourself why the kid is mucking up. I used to take DS home from the playground if he started mucking up/not playing nicely with the other children and I noticed it was making the behaviour worse. Now his punishment is that he has to go back to the playground and spend X amount of time playing nicely or we're not leaving. (Then he has to approach me and ask to leave in an appropriate manner.) It has really turned him around and the bad behaviour has pretty much stopped (at playgrounds). So you could try that. If there's another trigger such as boredom, hunger, anxiety, etc, pinpoint and work on those at the same time.

Alternatively, you could leave, but take them somewhere they'll enjoy less to fill in the time until you were planning to go home. (I vote drive-thru coffee. Or icecream - for you but not for them. Because you need to lift your spirits after that stressful display.)