AIBU? I don't seem to understand playdates etc? Can anyone explain what the etiquette is?

[nat73]

AIBU?

When I was primary aged I had playdates and you invited people round and they invited you back. When I had parties I invited my friends and they invited me back.

DC1 is very sociable and every year we have had a party with about 15 guests (mostly from school)and she and the other kids enjoy themselves. It seems not everyone has a party but even those who do we don't always get invited. Typically in a year DC1 gets 3-4 party invites. How does this work? Where have all the parties gone?

Then for the playdates.. we have another family we are good friends with and we have done various stuff to help them out over time (DIY, finding jobs, giving their kids lifts etc). This weekend we'd agreed we would meet up with the kids. When I mentioned it to the Mum this morning she said she'd organised playdates with friends (but not us!). So they are not free this weekend. This is about the 3rd time this has happened.

I am getting really hacked off. We have left tomorrow free to hang out with these people and they have organised something else.... (no apology just told us it wasn't happening)... child's birthday last year they went on a 'treat' so only a small number of chums invited but our child was not. DC explained to me some months later that though they are best friends because we see alot of them the child thought she better invite other people.

Am I missing something? Do I lack emotional intelligence? Is this normal and I making too much of it? Should I ask if our kids have fallen out? I do not want to draw DC1's attention to it. DC1 is well behaved so its not like she's a handful for people!?

It just seems a bit sh!t to me!

These people are telling you by their actions that they don't want to socialize with you. It doesn't matter why. Just stop inviting them & stop planning things with them. Also maybe grow a spine and raise anything you're upset with directly - if someone had cancelled that last minute on me I'd have sent them a terse text.

I used to get much of the same - send dsd to private school, but I am much younger than the typical parent there & so we're still in our starter home. Play dates are next to impossible to arrange because nobody wants to be seen in my area. So I've stopped arranging them & stopped inviting the kids to parties when they don't invite my dsd. I'm not going to subsidize families who won't make an effort with me and my own - if that makes me petty so be it.

"I'm not going to subsidize families who won't make an effort with me"

Gosh. Never heard having a friend to tea called "subsidising" before!

As for the party invites - I wouldn't worry about them. I certainly don't do parties for my DS1, instead he invites maybe 3 friends to go to the cinema and have a sleepover. This isn't because I don't want to invite additional children - it's just my DH and I both work full time and DH works away a lot so I just don't have time to organise parties.
As for play dates; it's always nice to return the invites but again sometimes people are generally too busy to have children over in return.
As for you friends......sorry but I wouldn't consider them friends at all. That is not how you treat people you care about so I think you need to accept this 'friendship' is only one sided. Step away from them and spend time with real friends that don't muck you about.

Hi, this is going to sound really rude so I apologise in advance. I am a new mum but always talk about mum issues with my best friend who always have words of advice and wisdom about things and we had a conversation a while ago about something like your problem and my friends advice was, be prepared to lose friends because of your children, you may not realise it but if your friends kids don't like yours for what ever reason you will find the parents start avoiding you and making excuses not to see you because of some random comment their kid may have made and so it makes their life easier. I am in no way saying this is what's happening in your situation and I hope that is not the case and maybe it's just a bit of insensitivity on your friends part but I thought I would share what my friend said. I hope it all gets better soon x

be prepared to lose friends because of your children, you may not realise it but if your friends kids don't like yours for what ever reason you will find the parents start avoiding you and making excuses not to see you
This is true. The other thing is in some areas people use their DC as a means of social climbing.I have noticed people like this have 2 sorts of friend .the first one is people they use to help them.The second is the people they want to impress , and they will drop the first set of 'friends' when the 'superior' friends are about.

I wouldn't worry about play dates at all, I work and can't host play dates after school, only when I have time off in the holidays. We often have commitments to see family and I genuinely only have a handful of dates in the year that we can do something with DD's friends. I let her choose who she invites to parties and I don't worry about reciprocity, it's miserable attending a party when you're not really part of the friendship group (for older ones not tinies).

OP have you perhaps seen too much of your friends? I have one friend who wants to arrange stuff every holiday and because we have so little free time it gets to be a bit of a chore, we want to spend time with other people too.

This could be completely off the mark, but to me it seems like they feel they already 'have' you. You're there for more than just acquaintance help. You've proven that. So they are making an effort with others and not you as they feel you're already there for them to use when needed in regards to play dates and school runs and a helping hand.

Could be completely wrong, but that's kind of how it seems to me. But I do agree with pp that it's not always reciprocal. I won't be throwing a birthday part for my little one, so even though she will be going to a couple of friends parties, they won't be coming here for her birthday.

This is in no way a criticism, but encouraging her to invite people she doesn't even like to something that is meant to be for her, doesn't seem like a particularly good thing. This post makes a good point about respecting their feelings on who they like and don't like.

to http://foreverymom.com/family-parenting/im-not-raising-nice-girls-kimberly-mathis/?utmcontent=buffer43c94&utmmmedium=social&utmsource=facebook.com&utmmcampaign=buffer

I think too many mums are working now, so the children are unable to go on after school play dates, I can remember always asking for someone to come and play after school and then we would vice versa it.
I started doing this with mine, but quickly found that no one ever vice versa'd it so gave up.

Its really sad, same reason there are loads of kids who live nearby but none of them are ever out playing.

Its awful to say , but I think parents who don't have play dates at there houses are doing their children a disservice, these are far better for your child than any after school structured activity. If you don't have time to do it but have time to send them to an after school activity, I would drop the activity and give your child the time they need with their friends out of the school environment.

I find it sad to hear when parents prioritise work over their children's free time.

"I find it sad to hear when parents prioritise work over their children's free time."
Difficult to have a play date if you don't have a house........

I suspect you may occupy a low position in some people's pecking order or alternatively, as a pp suggests, some people feel they 'have' you secured.

Many parents conduct aspirational social lives for their children - they will invite people to parties whom they want to see their child associate with, and they will prioritise invitations to playdates with A-list children.

They will also invite children over because they want to be chums with the parents. They use their children to further their own social ambitions.

There are those who will play the field before they settle on a group for their child. Some of the factors that go into choosing a potential group for their child - socio economic, potential to go to the same secondary, siblings of similar ages, some old connection you may be unaware of. If you are doing a lot of unreciprocated inviting, you may be in a holding pattern while the other parent sees if anyone more attractive shows up to concentrate on.

I agree 100% with Angeldelightedme on this.

This non-reciprocating invitation thing has caused DS, now 12, anguish over the years. He had more than one boy for sleepovers, birthday treats, playdates and lift shares, but got invited back rarely.
In our case I think it was because he was not in their immediate neighbourhood, mums worked less than me so socialised together more, (and also socialised with the partners, whereas I split from my xdh when DS was 6). His friends were busy all the time with sports activities mainly. They tended to default to the same little group of friends or someone just down the road who could pop over with minimum effort, rather than thinking maybe it was time to return the invitation.
I found it frustrating and felt sorry for my sociable DS. I just kept on inviting them here. It's all different now he's at secondary school and he can Skype a friend and they can arrange something together.

Oopsdeary I agree. I worked more than most of ds's friends' mums, but my DS did fewer after school activities and would have loved to see his friends more, but they were doing something else nearly every evening and weekend!

We only did parties every other year, and after the very early ones narrowed it down to 3 or so close friends. Kids themselves use parties as a bargaining tool (I've actually heard a little girl make a huge deal of handing invites yo everyone there and walking up to my DCs and saying loudly you are NOT invited I punched her in the face.

Those friends sound like vile users. Don't do them any more favours just quietly distance yourself.

There is an etiquette around play dates - IME it's that there's a LOT of mums happy to have their child go on one, but will never host back!

they are best friends because we see alot of them

So they aren't really best friends who have chosen each other are they? Do they feel that they have to be best friends?

I think that you just offer what works for you, generally and don't expect reciprocation. One of dd's best friends has never invited her over to her house, her mum works FT and then at weekends she is at her dad's 50% of the time who lives 30 miles away. So shrugs it's hard isn't it? Dd never wants to have a party anyway and will always choose the same 3 children to invite to everything. We get the odd party invite from others, 2 in the past 12 months.... So you are beating us OP, presumably because you had 15 to dd's.

This thread is really helping me make sense of our playdate situation! It feels like we've had quite a few children round, but we only get invited back by a select number...

They sound very much like fair weather friends. If DC like getting together then continue to invite on playdates but stop bothering with whole family arrangements.

I'm chronically ill and have no local family for support. Done the one sided play dates with children, who have parents, who are not ill and have family support. These are the same people, who've said I can call on them to pick up my dd if I'm struggling to leave the house to pick dd up. Yeh right - if they really meant it they'd take my dd sometimes and certainly after I've had theirs over and in addition my dh had taken them out for the day. I now only do reciprocal play dates with people, who respect me and my child.

In your place I'd be casting my net wider.

I suspect you may occupy a low position in some people's pecking order or alternatively, as a pp suggests, some people feel they 'have' you secured.
This

Have seen this in one DC's class. Lots of strategic party invites and play dates- who do the parents want to be seen with, who can help with favours etc.

I suspect you and me are like comfy slippers - like them enough but wouldn't turn up noses if new ones arrived.

Just don't consider school mums friends unless it genuinely ends up there.

We have "playdates" but I do far prefer drop ins - so yes my kids play far, far more with children who live within walking distance.

I have no real interest in socialising with my kids friend's parents and Dh would absolutely hate to, plus we have 3 kids and what are the odds of a family exactly matching ours and all the kids actually liking one another? I'd give anyone who required me along/ expected to socialise with me on a"playdate" a wide swerve once children were old enough to drop and run and even wider if they were one of those joined at the hip families where both parents attend everything including meeting to play in the park, as I'd be uncomfortable and feel imposed upon.

My kids have a party every birthday but only ever invited one guest per year of age to parties, so sometimes they don't invite someone back who has invited them to a bigger party. However if they'd been one of only 2 or 3 invited to someone's party I'd want them to think hard and explain to me why they didn't want to invite them. DC3 turns 6 next month and has been to more than 6 parties I've the last year - I'm afraid I won't be hosting all 10 or 11 who have invited him as I am comfortable I can keep 7 x 6 year old boys safe and entertained but not 12 of them...

I do feel bad about one sleep over situation - we usually reciprocate like for like but dc2 has one friend he adores but who is such hard work - DC2 has had various friends to sleep over but been to this lad 3 times in a row. I have him here after school but have avoided inviting him to sleep over, he's just much louder and more in your face than dc2's other friends who slot in and I barely notice I have an extra. Plus he's an indoor cat who isn't remotely sporty which makes kicking them outdoors harder - DC2 spends most of the time playing football when he has other friends over, but this one doesn't stay outside longer than 5 minutes! I have avoided inviting him to sleepover which is not good... DC2 is at his again tonight and his mum explicitly and pointedly asked me to have her son to sleep over in two weeks time as his sister is having a sleepover - I'm working an early the next day (5:30am get up) and really don't want to, but I guess I have to...

I'd have smaller parties so that kids feel more specially chosen as if you invite 15 it's nothing special to be included and your DD won't instantly spring to mind as a special friend. I guess you should also get in the habit of trying to collar parents to confirm reciprocal play dates when they pick up - we often have phases where we arrange next week on the doorstep and for a few weeks one dc will have a playdate with the same kid every week, alternating houses.

I prefer to have kids at mine rather than run them about if it's not a sleepover, due to the logistics of having 3, so I'm fine with non reciprocation if the child is easy and it's not an overnight.

nat73 you absolutely are not doing her any favours making her invite people she doesn't like. Definitely just ask her who she wants to invite next time, as long as it's not more than 50% of the class / girls in the class if she's sticking to her classmates only. Listen to her - if she's 5+ she should decide who comes to her party as long as she's not leaving out just a couple from one source.

Play dates don't need to be after school. I don't do them at that time because homework etc (and I work) but I just think it's rude to be happy for your kid to go to someone else's and eat their food etc and not return the favour. You wouldn't go to a dinner party and not invite the hosts back, would you?

DD had one friend who clearly through gritted teeth had her over on 3 occasions for 2 hours (they're 12 and sit in the bedroom looking at YouTube stuff so hardly hard work). She would come to ours for a good afternoon and dinner. Mum was quite happy with this, saying she had a great time out with hubby while I was obviously unpaid child care.

My dd has a huge party usually but maybe only one or two party invites in return. Her bff don't have parties at all. We've had about two playdates ever... we've asked friends parents to look after dd which has been fab and had them back here but playmate invites are very few.

Angel delight and ferret lady, you've just opened my eyes. I've probably thought both these things but never put quite so clearly. Thank you