Does anyone else have troubles making playdates for their kids? I have a 7 year-old (only child) and I have found that trying to make playdates for him is like pulling teeth. Yes, he is well-liked by his peers. I just wonder if it’s the city I live in or if it’s like that for a lot of parents? The kids he wants to have a playdate with tell my husband and I that they want to play with my son, but the parents never respond. Just doesn’t seem important to them. Or, they will respond and expect me to host all the time. I do realize that I’m asking, so I should be the one to first host, but how about reciprocating?
Am I doing something wrong? Just wondering about other people’s experiences.
There could be lots of reasons why someone doesn’t want company in their apartment, especially in an expensive city where apartments come in various sizes and levels of distress. If reciprocation is an issue or you are just tired of hosting all the time, then maybe suggest going to a movie, zoo, museum, playground, kid-friendly restaurant, etc. That may (or may not) make it more enticing for the other parents. If someone doesn’t want to host, I suspect that’ll be pretty much an immovable object.
Do the kids’ parents work? That could be part of the issue. Personally, my husband and I mean to schedule playdates for our son, but because we work, that leaves us just weeknights and weekends. We don’t particularly like to schedule weeknights since we have a baby to manage and our son turns into a brat when he gets off his schedule at night. Weekends we’ll do, but we have about a zillion other things that have to wait 'til the weekend, too, that unfortunately playdates fall rather low on the list.
Perhaps the other kids’ parents are in similar situations? I’m hoping that as our son gets older (he’s 4 now), he’ll require less supervision and we can just drop him off at a friend’s house and his friends’ parents can just drop them off with us. As it stands now, the parents usually hang out and supervise while the kids play and sometimes I and my husband just don’t have time to do that.
7 years old and his mommy makes play dates for him?
Is he that inept socially that he can’t make friends himself?
Oh, hold on…you want an interior decorator in your family, right? Or maybe a hairdresser?
Jesus wept, I can’t believe it. I bet he plays with dolls too, right?
My impression is that when kids are relatively young, dropping them at a friend’s house is a playdate, but when they get older, you’re just dropping them at a friend’s house to play. I think the distinction (from what I can tell) is that in the former, both sets of parents or at least one parent for each kid is there to supervise, so more planning is required from both parties. In the latter, the kids are older and can manage themselves and don’t require as much supervision.
That’s the way it’s viewed in my area, at least. It’s probably also a function of people’s children spending lots more time indoors, more structured play and not hanging out as much with neighborhood kids, so they have to be driven to another kid’s house to play, where they might have specific activities.
The hell are you two on about? The kid’s 7. Do you expect him to walk to his friend’s house and just drop in unannounced? Do you expect him to hop in the car and drive himself to the movies with a friend? Or do you think that parents just do this stuff on a whim, out of the blue, without any planning whatsoever?
I really think it depends on the kid and where they live. Yeah, seven years old may sound a little old to make play dates, but not if the kid lives in a different neighborhood than his friends. It’s one thing if the kid lives next door or around the block from the kid he wants to play with; another if he lives fairly far away or has to cross a bunch of busy streets to get to his friend’s house.
Not bloody likely – he probably can’t even see over the steering wheel.
Don’t know – I never had to have my mommy make a “play date” for me. I had friends at school who didn’t live nearby, sure, but there were enough neighbourhood kids to hang out with instead. When I was 8, I was allowed to ride my bike to where they lived and hang out with them if I wanted.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t rude. You just walked into people’s houses whenever you felt like it?
There’s your problem right there. We’re not all baby boomers. When I grew up, you know how many kids were within biking distance from my house? One, and he was 4 years younger than me so we didn’t really get along well. And I grew up in the suburbs, not in the country.
Now how exactly would I get to play at another kid’s house without getting a ride? And how could I get a ride without asking my parents? And how could they say yes or no without seeing if the other family was home and willing to have company?
BAM. Play date.
You seem to have this idea that a play date is when the parents meet each other and decide that the kids should play together. If that’s your impression, then not only do you not know what a play date is, but you didn’t read the OP closely enough.