Playdates - what's the norm?

Weyhey

A recent thread on kids being left out got me thinking about playdates.
They weren’t the done thing when I was growing up so I am looking for some help please on what the etiquette is and any advice really.
I know my kids are missing out on loads of playdates that happen after school when I am at work so I need to start the ball rolling soon
.
How do families where both parents (or the single parent) who work full time manage it?
How long do they normally go on for?
Can you invite groups (I hate the thought of leaving any kid out but with 28 kids in a class what do people do?) or is one to one better at the start.
Do you have to provide activities or bring the kid(s) out?
Are they normally during school terms?
What do you do with siblings especially younger ones, who want to join in – this will be a huge issue in our house?

I know there can be different rules for different ages etc. but any advice would be really appreciated.

mordeith

I don't get them to be honest. My kids have enough of their classmates in school and rarely want to have a play date outside of that. They do the odd time but it's just with one particular friend at a time. Then again maybe they're just anti social like me!

Victor

Classmates are not friends, certainly not 28 of them. Friends may be classmates.

Are there particular friends that they know and/or parents that you know?

cyning

Play dates happen Sat/Sun here. Normally just one friend over or because of fights lately each of them gets one friend when I can it stops the fighting. No organised activities just let them off to play: like the last one they played science in the bathroom with shaving foam, soap and Barbies. Not really sure how it was science but they were delighted and I sat downstairs. The smaller ones tend to need a bit more help playing setting up board games or whatever. Normally they last 2/3 hours. Just make sure you have snacks or treats! We do groups sometimes 4/5 but they are rare enough because the whole place ends up messed up and it’s like a mini party.

Crunchymomma

Playdates happen Friday after school or Saturdays here. I work ft so if my girl is going on a playdates she usually gets picked up from school by the other mum and dropped home by five

I do ones on a Saturday, usually ony one kid, sometimes two. If the parent is a friend of mine they will usually stick around, if not playdate usually lasts 2/3 hours. No real planned activities, just play in the garden or playroom. And I always make something like pancakes cos it's quite treaty

shesty

I posted in the other thread that my little one is just getting into them.One, maybe two kids.Hot chocolate with a few marshmallows were a great treat at a friends house lately so I am stealing that idea!To be honest, the last one she was on I didn't know the family at all, so I stayed an hour, and then left and came back after another hour.But the mum didn't know me either and the first thing she said to me was to stay if I wanted to, as it was the first time we had done it with strangers, and the kids are quite young still.They basically ran riot around the house for two hours, something similar would be my idea....we don't have a huge house (the others did) but there is enough space to manage a couple of hours.Two hours is plenty at that age.I will be back to work soon, so they will have to be Friday afternoons/Saturdays, and like you, we have younger siblings, so we are just going to have to manage it as they come.Life rolls on I suppose, I can't be getting the other two minded just to suit a playdate for my eldest.

aisling86

We use parties as playdates, there is usually one party every two weeks. I find at the age of 5&6 they don't know who their real friends are yet, they chop and change daily.

vicwatson

The word playdates :mad:

wirelessdude01

Why are they called playdates? Just invite one or two of the friends over and stop putting a stressful label on it.

vicwatson

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Why are they called playdates? Just invite one or two of the friends over and stop putting a stressful label on it.

Playdates in merica

shesty

My child brought it home from playschool!!!One of the other little girls told her they had to arrange a playdate.....
I was somewhere between laughing hysterically and thinking "oh my god what country do we live in".....

Big Bag of Chips

I know... 'in our day' you went to a friends house and played! You didn't bring everyone in the class and there were certainly no activities put on by the parents. There wasn't even a time limit on it, as such. You were sent/brought home when the parents felt you'd had enough (or they'd had enough!)

Keep it simple. Children want to play with each other, facilitate that.

pwurple

Yeah, they go over to friends to play. Or they come here. We hunt them outside into the back garden so they don’t wreck the gaff.

For full time working parents, your childcare can sort it out if you tell them about it.

CheerLouth

Sometimes, we have a playdate with my BFF and her kids. It basically involves us trying to get the kids to play, them ignoring each other & playing/fighting only with their own sibling while we also try to get a cup of tea and a catch up! Then just as we decide to call it a day, they decide they are BFFs & spend the rest of the day saying "oh but I really wanted to play more with XXX, she's my best friend". :P

Weyhey

Sorry I haven’t replied sooner – we’ve had a sick house. Thanks everyone – it’s good to get some info, I really appreciate it.
One of my kids (1st class) seems to latch on to one kid at a time in school and then that kid seems to get bored of them and then they don’t really have anyone else to play with for a while. Also seems to be very shy with the opposite sex (possibly totally normal at that age but have heard them talk of lots of kids in the class who have a best friend of the opposite sex) so we were trying to think of ways to encourage them to play with others too.

Most of my friends and family have grown up kids so can’t arrange catchups there and don’t get to do school runs so don’t know many of the school parents. As someone on another thread said – the kids a child may play with or get on with are not always the kids they want to invite to a party so I assume it may be the case with ‘playdates’ (yep I hate that term too – that and ‘laundry’ – its clothes washing ffs 😊).

Younger siblings also won’t leave the older one alone so I know there will be a meltdown when we invite others over – do other parents try to keep the siblings away or just let them join in on the playdates?

cyning

Depending on age difference I normally let them have a friend each. It’s not fair on either to have a sibling interfering with their very limited time with a friend over. It always ends up in fights and they play together all the time so it’s ok to not want to share their friends all the time too. If I can’t I try entertain the one left out: especially the younger ones. Younger sibling are beyond annoying at times

skallywag

Weyhey wrote: »

They weren’t the done thing when I was growing up so I am looking for some help please on what the etiquette is and any advice really...

At the risk of sounding incredibly out of touch, is this not just a friend or friends calling over to your house and the kids, errrr, just play together? Or am I missing something

shesty

Welll.....it's the kids friends calling over.You may not even know their parents.Which can make it a bit tricky for getting in touch and finding a time to suit, especially if you are working and don't see parents at the school etc.

skallywag

shesty wrote: »

Welll.....it's the kids friends calling over.You may not even know their parents....

Hmmm, OK. I don't think we have any kid friends calling over where we don't at least somehow loosely know the parents.