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Downstairs in the church social hall last Sunday, I witnessed the following spectacle: Parents were drinking coffee and munching doughnuts. Kids were running underfoot, some attached to mothers or fathers, some not. Suddenly there was a loud wail, followed by a young girl's insistent voice shouting, "I won't! And you can't make me." She stood in the corner in a pink frilly dress. "You're not my mother!" Happily, the mother in question dashed to the rescue, saving the rest of us from the awkwardness of trying to parent someone else's child.

It's a familiar scene and a familiar problem: disciplining other people's kids. Whether it's at church, at the playground, or in your own home, it's always a little tricky to know when and how to intervene when another child is acting up.

Your authority to discipline other people's children differs depending on where you are. In your own home, you're in charge, so you can expect other children to follow your rules, and discipline them accordingly when they don't. But you have to be clear about what those rules are. A simple statement at the beginning of a play date—"At our home, we only throw balls outside"—is necessary, because other parents may allow their children to play ball in the house.

With older kids, the issue of enforcing house rules often goes beyond where to play ball. One day, Shelia Carmichael came home to find her 17-year-old son and his friend Mike waiting for a pizza to be delivered. "That was fine," said Shelia. "I knew I would be late getting home, so I left a note and some money for pizza." What wasn't fine was Mike's choice of beverage: he was casually sipping a beer. "That may be fine at his house, but it's not fine in mine," said Shelia. "I managed not to lose it, and I didn't get moralistic. I simply told him that at our house we obey the laws of the land, including no beer for 17-year-olds. When I asked him to hand over the rest of his beer, he did."

You might feel uncomfortable playing the tough parent, but for the sake of your own children, you need to hold visiting children to the same standards of kindness, courtesy, and respect you have for them. It can be very confusing for your child to see a friend getting away with behaviors your child has been told are unacceptable.

Of course doling out discipline to someone else's child doesn't always go over well with the parent. When 7-year-old Rory came over to play with Josh, Josh's mom, Melissa, had to give Rory and Josh a time out. "They were fighting and just would not stop," says Melissa. "I tried to turn them on to another activity, and I gave them three warnings, but I finally gave them each a five-minute time-out." Melissa later received an angry phone call from Rory's mom, who felt Melissa had overstepped her bounds. Melissa says, "I told her calmly that when she left her child in my home, she was leaving him in my supervision, and if she wasn't comfortable with that, next time he comes to play, she could stay and supervise with me."

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