What happens about 'play dates'?

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The kids organise it themselves. You just need to know the address and time to pick up if they need picking up.

Don't check with parents or try and take over the arranging, they will be mortified!

Why are you dreading it bonbon? It's just a natural step to growing up.

Geography also comes into it though - much more likely to drop in on a mate that lives down the road from the school over one who lives 2 miles away.

My parents were always very good about having friends over and would not be embarrassing but were 'present'. This meant they got to know a lot more about my friends/their families/our lives than other parents who had less of an open doors policy. So that would be my top tip.

DS texts "Going to Toby's house"
You text "Who is Toby, where does he live?"
DS texts "Friend, dunno, what time do I need to be home?"

Half the time they just meet up randomnly in the park/outside school though.

They arrange it all themselves, but, by then they tend to have phones so it is a bit of a safety net.
When dc used to come here, if I was in, I'd always just ask them if their parents knew where they were, and I'd also instill in my dc it was important to let me know where they were - ie, not just 'I've gone to Jack's', but the address, if it was someone I didn't know, or there were 7 Jacks he was mates with.

It is frightening - they arrange it all themselves. But they have phones so you are in contact and we all use the find friends function so we (the 4 of us) can all see where each other is all the time.

However I have made it very clear that they can text/call at any point if they feel uncomfortable for whatever reason and one of us will go get them immediately.

DD just tends to ring me and say " can I go to X's house" - so far it's mostly been parents I've met briefly, one wasn't. She always has her phone and I would normally then go pick her up, and say hi to the parents then.

DS has never done a sleepover so that's not a problem for us.

In terms of 'play dates' they arrange it amongst themselves and I use common sense in setting some boundaries- so for example I wouldn't allow DS to go and spend a whole day at a friend's house because I know if he had a friend over here for 8 hours I'd find it too much, but a few hours is ok.

He has set times that he has to be home, and likewise I have no qualms about saying "right boys, it's getting late, your parents must be wondering where you are, time to go home - I'll drop you off/can you call your folks to come and collect you".

If he has a friend over and it's teatime I'll ask the friend if they'd like to stay and eat with us, if it's convenient for us, but will tell them to text their parents and let them know.

There is one mum who keeps texting and calling me to arrange for us "to meet up with the boys" and quite frankly it's starting to get on my nerves, plus if I mention it to DS he's like . I thought maybe she was wanting to make friends so invited her over for a coffee or to go out for a drink but nope - she wants a primary school style "play date".

When I was at secondary school parents didn't get involved. We'd just go and play at a friends, if it was walking distance we'd be told when to get home, or if in another village we'd figure out which parent would drop us back/ pick us up. Calling another parent to get to know them would have been odd, but don't know if that's changed nowadays.

I don't know but I am dreading this next year too, dd1 going to random people's houses etc. I guess number one rule is always have your phone and call immediately if you feel uncomfortable with anything.