Play date?

My impression has always been that playdates are something for very young children. You’re not going to let your three year old wander around the neighborhood to see if his friends are out playing, so you have to schedule stuff with the parents.

I do have a problem/question though. My daughter is 5, and getting towards being able to go to a friend’s house without me actually accompanying her. But I hate the idea of her showing up on someone’s doorstep and inviting herself over to play - it seems rude. I wish there was a playground in our neighborhood, safe to get to and not intruding into anyone’s home. But even that has limits - it’s great if there are kids playing outside, and she could just run over and participate, but for much of the summer it’s blistering hot and no one stays out more than they have to. To me, if your kid is asking to go play at Sally’s house, it’s only polite to ask Sally’s mom first.

No utensils… it is just play after all.

That depends on the relationship between you and your neighbor. Some would think it cute for your daughter to knock and ask if their kid can play. A five year-old would likely be coimg within sight, giving you a chance to wave.

I know, right? People seem to have these really nostalgic memories of being small children and going over to play at their friends’ houses whenever they wanted for however long they wanted. From the kid’s perspective, that does seem pretty great. From the perspective of the parent who is hosting an unknown number of children for an unknown length of time, not so much.

Anyway, my experience has been that playdates are primarily a toddler/preschooler thing, and are almost as much for the benefit of the parents, who get to visit with other adults and socialize a bit, as for the kids. Whatsit Jr. is in first grade now, and playdates are a thing of the past. He does sometimes go over to his friend Jack’s house, and vice versa, but we usually just negotiate this at the bus stop that day and we definitely don’t call it a “playdate.”

Well, we didn’t call them ‘playdates’, but growing up on a farm, there were two other kids my age who lived a quarter mile away, and most of my other friends were in the city. So, until I got comfortable enough on my bike to ride alongside the highway the five miles into town, (somewhere around grade 6 or so, IIRC), getting together with friends meant one of us had to get a lift and hang out for a few hours, if not the whole day. Other than the co-ordination of rides, parental involvement was minimal - negligent, in fact, by today’s standards. (‘Have you ever climbed into the back of a combine harvester? It’s cool…’ ‘Nah, the electric fence doesn’t hurt that much…’ ‘Sure you can jump into it, just make sure you know where the pitchfork is…’)

The only time it bothered me was when I had to change schools between grade 3 and grade 4. It didn’t make much difference to my townie friends because all the kids at the new school lived in roughly the same neighbourhood, whereas I was on the wrong side of 18th street from my closest friends. I was so jealous that all the other kids in the new school got to play with each other on the way home, while I had to ride the bus and miss out on the evening’s excitement. Once the snow fell, I had the cool house, being halfway up the North Hill, but it was a lonely couple of months when school first started.

Yeah, it’s not like kids knock at all hours. It’s usually during that part of the day most kids are available for play. It is cute when Sally next door knocks and asks if your kid can come out and play. If you step out on your doorstep you can usually see Sally’s parent standing on their doorstep watching.

Now, when they’re teenagers and stealthily crawl through each other’s windows, well, like we weren’t all teenagers.

Totally stole my joke.

Asshole. :frowning:

That’s manly.
–rimshot–

My kids didn’t have playdates, and they’re 18 and 16.5 I detest the word. I just… I feel like I’m going to see a 7 year old girl show up at my door with her Palm Pilot in hand, glancing nervously. " Cartooniverse? Father of Fem-Bot? Yes? It’s me, GardenImp. We’re looking at a 4:45 to 5:25 Play Date with a possible Dinner Invite Angle added on. This the right joint? "

I mean, please. Kids play. Adults make appointments… My mom’s instructions to me were, " Be home for dinner." It seemed to work.

Cartooniverse

I too pictured boy/girl practice dating when I first heard the term.
Moms (yes, moms) comparing notes and trading pictures of six year-olds over the internet. Maybe checking report cards. :stuck_out_tongue:

I lived in a tiny rural area of no consequence, and most of my friends were quite a distance away. Sometimes that meant having to be driven to and from their home, but that was less frequently needed as I got older.

In the 70s, stranger danger in my little nowhere place was not emphasised, especially as we all knew each other so there were no strangers. So overall we were considered pretty safe, and as far as I can recall there weren’t any incidents, so they were right to trust.

The way it used to happen for me was, if after school (3pm) I was off to a friend’s house, I’d either drop by home and tell my Mum where I was going, and she’d let me go, and we’d walk over to the friend’s place; or we’d go to my place and my friend would phone up his Mum to ask, and then arrange pickup. Usually dinner was included in this arrangement (5.30pm), so it would be around 7pm when the play was over and time to head home for either of us.

Seemed to work. But then, we could wander around all over the place on weekends, and randomly encounter each other rather often, usually at the beach somewhere, then run around like crazed little maniacs for the rest of the day.

A lot more women work these days. When I was a kid all the moms were at home so if I went over to someone’s house my mom knew there was an adult there. That made it a lot easier to meet informally.

Now no one is here during the day but the hamsters. If my daughter wants to have a friend over we have to PLAN for it.

I think “play dates” become formalized because people live in places where you have to drive to do anything and because parents are so afraid of offending/ being the mean mom that they cannot tell the kids “No, not now, lil’deus cannot play, go home.”

this is my house. Unknown numbers of kids ebb & flow through my house after school & on weekends. About 10 minutes ago (last time I checked) there were four or five neighborhood kids downstairs playing the wii, my kids are floating around here somehwere, etc. I like it because it reminds me of the ‘good old days’. Sure, they’re eating my food & making a mess. But what the hell - they’ll all be gone in a few more years and if I don’t have it now, I’ll wish I had.

And they’ll remember you. For a while, anyway. :cool:

We didn’t have much choice, frankly. We moved onto a one way street, with a golf course across the street. Our house has childless couples on either side. The boys 2 doors down were in middle school by the time I had my daughter. The street has no sidewalks. It’s a lovely street (I think WhyNot would agree with me), but it is quite narrow and cars do not go slowly down it, despite a posted limit of 20mph.

The ONLY kids on this street were a family of what became (eventually) 6 girls, the one who was Daughter’s age was a bully. It was too far for Daughter to walk down to alone (she being 4) d/t no sidewalk etc. And since Shannon was quite the brat, we didn’t encourage that.

There was a girl 2 doors down the other way, but like the other kids (of which there were about 7), she was in daycare until after dark, every day. Weekends were their family time, since they really didn’t see much of one another M-F. I think I was the only SAHM on the block.

Hence the playdates. I ran with a pack of neighborhood kids when I was little–but all of those moms were SAHM back then (70s), there were sidewalks, we were allowed to roam at will. I wish my kids had more of that freedom, but believe me, I am considered a lax parent by some on this street because I allowed my kids at the ages of 9 and 7 to ride their bikes on the street. I even allowed them (together) to go up to the nearby convenience store for slushies–they didn’t have to cross any major streets to do so.

This was not well received by some of the moms on this street. What can you do? <shrugs>

Man, I wish it were still like that around here instead of mothers whipping out their Blackberries to co-ordinate schedules. There seem to be fewer and fewer ‘“neighbourhoods” where you just knock on the door and ask if Becky can come out and play. There’s one friend of my kids’ who is on a swim team and has a horrific schedule. You literally have to schedule 8-10 weeks in advance.

The big problem I find (other than the fact that I have twins and not every kid wants to play with both of them) is that because a play date can be so formal because of the effort it took to orgaize, that the level of expectation that it be fun and memorable is so much higher on the part of the kids. I’ve had my kids come home clutching crafts or homemade cupcakes thye’ve made with the playdate’s mom, or nanny :rolleyes:. Me, I throw a couple of fruit lollies at them and send them upstairs with strict instructions not to bug me unless someone is bleeding.

ETA: oh yeah, if one more picky eater princess comes over and won’t eat my food I’m going to scream.

Absolutely agree. It’s a lovely street, but I was a little nervous parking my car on it, 'cause there’s not even a shoulder, much less a sidewalk. And getting two toddlers out of their carseats and the car safely without risking them getting run over while I closed the car door was a little nervewracking. I was most grateful that you helped me get them safely back in the car after our visit. No sidewalk means not just no place to walk away from cars, but nowhere to tell the tots: stay HERE while Mama puts the bags in the trunk. “Here” is a vast expanse of grass leading right to the street!

You have a lovely home and an amazing yard and garden, but I think on our next visit, we’ll avail ourselves of your driveway, as well! :smiley:

Eh, enough with the “when I were a lad” nostalgia already. I mean, I’m happy for all you guys who had “neighbour kids” to play with, but when I was growing up (in the 70s) I only remember ONE time ever knowing a kid living within 3 streets of me within cooee of my own age (and she was a dipstick who I dropped out of Girl Guides specifically to avoid). Sure I had “play dates” except in those days I called them “Mum-can-I-go-over-to-Natalie’s-house-to-play?”. Am I really so unusual in that?

Later on, when I got old enough to go longish distances by myself, you better believe if I wanted to go to a friend’s house I called first - I’m not cycling 2k just to find out my friend’s gone off to the shops for the afternoon!

That’s what phones are for! "Repeat after me, CinnamonKid - ‘Please may I come and play with Sally this afternoon?’ . Or ‘Please may Sally come and play with me if she wants to?’ "

If my Bigger Girl had her way we’d probably go play with her pre-school Best Friend every day of the week (or have him round here, but going there is definitely her preference). I’ve noticed every time they come to us they bring afternoon snacks - popcorn or little cakes or something - which is a thouroughly good idea which I’m intending to emulate when term re-starts and the afternoon play sessions kick off again. There’s nothing like providing food for subduing the guilt feelings of possibly imposing yourself on people.