[ikarcuaso]

Don't get me wrong...great kid. Same age as my eldest son (1st grade). Well-mannered, they get along great, etc.

I guess our concern is more with his parents. They have:

- sent him over in the afternoon w/o having fed him lunch
- sent him over in the middle of dinner, or right before
- not checked on him or called for him to come home for several hours, right through our dinner time and beyond
- not check on him up to as late as 9:00 P.M. (when we have to take the initiative to send him home)
- left their house w/o telling us while he was over, delaying our going out until they got back home (or forcing us to bring their son along)
- almost always leaving us to be the ones to end the "play date"
- never invited our son over to their place (he has gone there a couple times at our suggestion)

Are we missing something, and is it us with the problem?

It's not that we have a problem feeding the kid or having him over, although we have had to improvise at dinner time a few times. We've just taught our kids that un-invited visits (or extended stays) during meal times are not appropriate. The parents of our son's classmates that we've met all seem to be aware of these un-written rules. Is it different if the "visitor" lives nearby and doesn't have to be "dropped off"? Do we need to just chill out?

We have gotten the feeling that we're being "cased out" sometimes, as he'll appear when we go out on our porch or as we are just arriving home. We also feel sometimes that we're convenient sitters or child "entertainment" for his parents (he's an only child, we have another child).

Anyway, just looking for some input on how best to handle this. We haven't before been put in such a position due to (what we perceive to be) inconsideration. Making the kid feel bad in anyway is not an easy thing for us to do. We haven't really said anything to his parents to this point.