Trying to organise play dates - don’t know what I’m doing wrong

[Legotower]

My DS is in reception and I asked one of the mums of a boy he talks a lot about whether he wants to come round to ours after school for tea one day. I asked her before Christmas, so she said that would be great, but she’d get back to me in the new year because of work commitments and so on.

January comes around and I asked her again at a party our children were both invited to.
She basically said she still hasn’t had time to sort it and I said don’t worry there’s no rush.

Then last week I saw her son go home with another boy and his mum. So obviously a play date had been organised with them.

What am I doing wrong? I’m now thinking it must be me. I feel sad for my DS too.

Reception is still very young, she may not feel comfortable leaving her son with someone she doesn't know?

The other parent might be providing reciprocal childcare, or they might already know each other, may have older siblings etc.

Have you actually given her a date or just a vague "one day"?

Organise something and put a couple of dates to her. Otherwise you're just saying "shall we do this sometime?" and no-one's actually pulling their finger out and getting anything done.

Agree reception is still very young. No need to rush these things.

Agreed. If she's working full time then she's probably calling in favours. Maybe they go to the same club or have known each other for ages.

Invite someone else in the meantime.

The other option is that her child doesn't want to play with yours. Even in reception, both mine were expressing preferences for who (more likely who not) they didn't want to play with. Often because those kids hadn't quite adjusted to school - were hitting, more shouty
It just took a little longer for them to make friends. Doesn't mean another child won't want to come and play.

Keep on at it OP but don't sweat it. Your kids social behaviour pattern through to secondary is not going to be impacted by any playdates you've arranged in reception.

You probably haven’t done anything wrong. Perhaps the other child prefers the child he went home with, or they live closer, or his mother knows the parents?

Reception is quite young for playdates still without a parent staying, so it can be rather stilted making chitchat with someone you don’t know or don’t much like. I think we stuck to kids who were neighbours, so getting them home wasn’t too much faff.

It's a numbers game.

You need to ask lots of people and be prepared that quite a few will be too busy or not prepared to make the effort.

When mine moved to a new school I threw a Halloween party so that the kids and parents could meet us and see our house and then they were happy to do play dates.