To ask how often your primary school aged children see friends outside of school

[Blended87]

Just curious as to what is normal. My Y4 son plays football twice a week and so sees a few school friends doing that. Then maybe once a month we will arrange a soft play date with a friend of his. My Y1 daughter probably sees a friend at least once a half term/school holiday. I work full time so try to keep weekends for family time but I'm aware they need to socialise especially my y4 son.

Never any more. DH is working from home and has calls with the US every afternoon. Inviting friends round to play is incompatible. It's frustrating but the house isn't big enough to keep loud children and DH apart.

@MyCatHatesWhiskas I would message privately after finding their number in the class WhatsApp group or class list. I wouldn’t put a not in a bag as I hardly ever check my own children’s bags. I am at the school gates most days but hardly ever organise play dates this way, though lots of impromptu trips to the park.

Fairly often. We are lucky to live in a small village on a very quiet private road, where the children can play out together safely. We have our children’s friends round to dinner a couple of times a week (DC are 9 and 7). Sleepovers at ours a couple of times a month. Weekend meet ups as well.

Lots of factors can dictate your ability to arrange play dates. Your job / location etc.

However, I definitely wouldn’t mandate weekends as family only - We love seeing our children running around having fun with their friends. We do family visits afterwards.

At that age mine would see other friends at various activities, who didn't necessarily attend their school..... so the people they swam with at swimming; the other children at Church; their friends at Cubs (some of whom might attend their school, but not necessarily their 'friends from school' .
So it depends if the question is
'How often do / did they mix with peers / friends outside of school?'
or
'How often did they invite a schoolfriend round to play?' as quite different for us.
I think it has been great for them growing up with lots of different sets of friends, as a bonus.

Play dates in the week are always straight after school until between 5.30 and 6.30. There aren’t many families where both parents are working full time at my children’s schools, even the ones who work full time they seem to have quite a lot of flexibility so are able to pick up from school at least once a week.

Ds in Yr2 doesn’t enjoy play dates much, had a few and asks not to do them again for a while, prefers park meet ups. Plays rugby, bmx all the time. He is In a small mixed class of a rural school and the few that all do meet-ups live opposite and a few doors away, and it’s a clique we are not in. Dd is yr1 and hasn’t really had many since preschool but she does a lot of clubs and seems to prefer mixing with kids outside of her class. Ds & dd are same class and neither have really made any good friends but seem to play well with the others.
Dd2 is in reception and has had one since school and one next week. We have a few meet ups in park, soft play, NT places during the holidays and are social with another family from school and have evenings at each other’s once or twice over the term, takeaway for adults and kids play etc.

I find as I have 4dc close in age people rarely ask me, I tend to help parents out though if they need a pick up or drop to clubs. The school and village are a little cliquey, most of the parents live on the one street, grew up together or are related to each other. We also Live on a busy road so just playing out isn’t feasible sadly. One class has a WhatsApp group and I can guarantee if there is ever a chat and I comment it stops it dead.

At that age 1 or 2 "fixed" playdates each week. DS (yr4) did football and judo with children in his class, Dd did ballet and went to a friend's while Ds was at judo. I generally had one of their friends round at least one day in the holidays. A weekend playdate (usually involving a sleepover) maybe once a month ?

I'm really interested that people have playdates so often from reading this thread. How do you fit everything in like the kids homework?
My DC do actives a couple of times in the week and at the weekend. What with that, seeing family and homework of some sort most nights (even if it's just reading) there is no way we could manage a playdate most weeks. We do a couple a term and some in the holidays.

@Whatamoraldilema

I'm really interested that people have playdates so often from reading this thread. How do you fit everything in like the kids homework? My DC do actives a couple of times in the week and at the weekend. What with that, seeing family and homework of some sort most nights (even if it's just reading) there is no way we could manage a playdate most weeks. We do a couple a term and some in the holidays.

Family live abroad so we don’t see them during the average week. Homework is minimal in primary school (don’t see reading as homework as they read for half an hour before bed anyway). They do a couple of evening activities and a couple of weekend activities. I do a half day on a Friday so that’s our usual ‘play date’ evening. The 2 school aged DC tend to alternate, and it often works out so that DD1 is at a play date while DD2 has a friend at ours, or vice versa.

Hardly ever, we're busy with clubs at the weekend and they have homework after school so it just doesn't work,

My DD 10 see's her friends daily and have a group of them taking turns for sleepovers, teas and play out most days. My Son who is 7 mixed less frequent after a fall out with his friends Mum. We used to do a lot with them and its all stopped, this half term 'm letting him play out with his other school friends on our estate and planning more with other parents to get us out socialising together. He's often invited to one friends for tea/sleepovers and is lucky to have a cousin close in age and they go to a mutual hobby once/twice a week. As they get older you dont need to be friends with the parents and it makes it easier.

@GTAlogic

My dc play out most days with friends on the street. Some are kids from their school and others are from other local schools.

Same for us. We're lucky we live close to a lot of families with similar aged children. Drives me mad when the doorbell goes 19 times a day though!

Hardly ever tbh. DS is 8 and we did have quite a lot of playdates with one of his friends who's mum I kind of knew but he was a wee shit to DS and so we calmed them down a bit. He was also never invited to that childs house while other boys from the class were and that upset him (and pissed me off).

DD is 5 and has had two playdates since the summer, again kind of knew the Mum.

They have lots of other friends at school but I've no idea how to arrange playdates. It is a school where almost all the parents went to school together or are related in some round about way and they don't have much interest in their kids playing with anyone outside the pack.

There is no class whatsapp group either.

I'm also really crap at talking to other parents.

Not playdates as such but will go to local park once a week and friends will usually be there too.

Playdates as in having someone over are much more rare, maybe once or twice per half term. Probably one party in that time as well.

They don't currently do any hobbies or extra curricular activities with other children either.

One with autism, one with toileting needs.

One with toileting needs has never had a play date on her own.

One with autism has had perhaps 6 play dates ever.

They go to a weekly club, where they can cope.

We have our weekends to ourselves, and usually go places together. I envy those who can arrange a play date without worrying that someone will hurt another kid or come home filthy and crying (both of which have happened). But we're a really close knit family and have a very full life so that makes up for it.

I’ve never arranged play dates. However, a school friend lives in our small close so they pop over to each other’s houses mostly at least once a week, sometimes much more. My son does loads of after school classes though so he sees his friends from them very regularly, just not school friends.

We do about 2 playdates a term and some over the holidays. So much less than most it seems. DC do swimming and dance lessons every week so we feel quite busy with that.

I'm really interested that people have playdates so often from reading this thread. How do you fit everything in like the kids homework?
My DC do actives a couple of times in the week and at the weekend. What with that, seeing family and homework of some sort most nights (even if it's just reading) there is no way we could manage a playdate most weeks. We do a couple a term and some in the holidays

At this age the after school activity is done by 4:30, home by 5 my 2 didn't go to bed until 8 or 8:30 by year 4 so still plenty of time. I do remember doing reading with one while the other did their activity. From year 5 a big chunk of Saturday morning/ sunday afternoon was homework, maybe 2 hours (11+ preparation). We tend to see family in the holidays, maybe the odd weekend.

I'm really interested that people have playdates so often from reading this thread. How do you fit everything in like the kids homework?
My DC do actives a couple of times in the week and at the weekend. What with that, seeing family and homework of some sort most nights (even if it's just reading) there is no way we could manage a playdate most weeks. We do a couple a term and some in the holidays
Twice a week, school finishes at 12:00 and the activities start at 5pm, so she has a couple of hours to play after doing homework. Two days she has no time, other she finishes at 4pm and activity starts at 630pm. She's 9 so the school are only (legally) allowed to give half an hour homework a week. We always do reading at bed time, spellings etc when the other is at an activity.

Mine do activities afterschool club / sports and other stuff every night so see mates there. But weekend activities are mornings so both usually have a mate or two over or vice versa if we aren't doing anything as a family. Weekend afternoons normally involve kids over or mine going to mates. Homework is slotted in.

I agree with whoever said up the thread that if you both work FT, you can’t then declare the weekend is 100% ‘family time’, especially as DH’s job often involves being away at weekends. DS is 9, does sports with friends Friday night and Saturday mornings, and will almost always see one if not more friends at their house or ours at some other point over the weekend, or we’ll take a friend with us to the beach. This weekend he saw a friend on Saturday afternoon, had a friend for a sleepover here last night, and is doing an activity day tomorrow (halfterm) with his entire friendship group. Thursday he’s at an early Halloween party thrown by other friends, and Sunday he’s trick or treating with neighbour friends.

I'm totally weird because I love hosting my daughter's friends more than she does! She is very serious about her horse riding and prefers to spend every day after school/on weekends at the livery yard with her big group of friends there, whereas I keep encouraging her to invite girls from school to our house

She prefers the livery yard friends because they also like to talk about horses and the best rugs, saddle pads and lickets to get 24/7 She says I'm totally interfering with her free time and ruining her half term plans (livery yard all day every day 😏 so I feel like a total mental busybody

Y3, maybe once in half-term holidays. In term time, only at Brownies once a week. I work full-time, so can't do after school play dates.
Y6, whenever he likes. He usually stays at school to do a club, then might go out to the park a couple of times a week. Saturday he has a club for 3 hours with a mix of school friends and children from other schools. This week he's going to the cinema with friends and no doubt we'll get the banging on the door a few times in the week and he'll go out.

Once or twice on school holidays. Trying to organise a play date with school mums is like pulling teeth and no one seems to make any effort. Highly frustrating!

Usually half term, I work full time and I find it very difficult having lots of kids running around

Imo I think playdates are great but I haven't seen much change in the way things are in the playground.