To think that children aren't as good at playing together anymore?

[Hoverflies]

When I am at the park with my dc (6 and 3) I mostly just see children playing with their parents and not really mingling with each other unless they already know each other. My dd has tried a few times to talk to other children at the park and they just stare at her or run off. She is also shy about talking to new children and both DC want us to play with them all the time at the park, just like I see the other parents doing.

I'm not a confident person but I used to love making friends with other children at parks (well usually pub beer gardens in my childhood!) And especially on holiday, my brother and I would just go up to people and become friends for the rest of the holiday! We are going away soon and I would love that for her but it just never seems to happen and if she ever does interact with other children it feels like I or the other parents always have to intervene in some way which my parents never did. If we argued as kids we just had to work it out and not come crying to them every five minutes!

This isn't to say that I don't want to spend time with my kids, but I just want them to be able to play more with other children and for parents to actually sit and talk to each other and finish a sentence!

NAH, COVID was years ago, an especially long time in a young child’s life.

If it has affected them, time to support them to learn to play with others.

Don't agree with this either. So many years ago.

Of course you are going to watch your child as they play, you are the adult.

As the adult you are also going to help your child to be independent, support them in their socialisation and build their skills in risk assessing times when they do play alone as age/developmentally appropriate.

Children are so plugged in to screens they are losing all of the above.

Well back then there was always a parent around so kids could roam and come back. Even back then we always did play dates though. Now people are working, these things have to be arranged. My 3yo has play dates - how do you suggest we do that if it’s not arranged?

Oh fgs, are you still riding this thing out? Covid ended years ago and life has moved on. Not everyone was so severely affected. My dc was 4yo and we did not have contact with anyone for a whole years. Just us 3, in another country. He doesn’t even remember it.
When we got here and realised that life was going on as normal for a long while, I dont understand what people moan about when they have no idea about how much more brutal it was in other countries

They aren't as good at anything anymore. They seem to have regressed in all areas they need to develop.

Wow. My children made new "friends" every time we went to the playground. Everyone is a stranger until you get to know them.

On holiday recently I noticed that the kids who were most gregarious tended to have string Northern accents- Liverpool, Lancs, Yorkshire, Manchester, Newcastle. Could be a cultural thing.

@Optimustime I do agree with you actually, you’re totally right that certainly for my generation the news stories about Madeleine McCann and also Holly and Jessica definitely took up space in my head and made me much more cautious as a mother and more “helicopter parent” than I think I’d have been otherwise. Easy to say those are old news now and haven’t shaped the current generation of young kids but I do think those events helped shape general social and parental attitudes for a long while, then the new generation came along with seemingly even more worries about child safety. Plus there are plenty of people my age with school age kids still!

We can’t win. Go to the park and play with your kid, you’re making them unsociable. Go to the park and ignore your kid, you’re a bad parent who should be engaging with their child and not doing the online shop on your phone.

@BusWankers You're so right about it not being as easy as it was back in the day for kids to meet up organically, for all sorts of reasons.

@DownsideUpside yes it does feel like that I agree!!

Absolutely this.

I'm not seeing this where I am, both my kids have made many friends playing at random parks. At public events I see kids gathering in a crowd and running around together (though I also saw one kid stamp on another one's belly so hard it made him cry, don't think he'd learnt yet how to play with others). I just had a holiday where there was my two children (7 and 14) and my two little cousins (11 and 14), it did take a while for the older cousin to warm up but the 11 year old and my two played together so much (kicking a ball about, playing volleyball, playing card games), whenever my 7 year old was bored the 11 year old was happy to play with him (he was also really good at talking to adults, I was very impressed)

Same - schools seem to have particular parks that the kids go to (annoyingly DS’s school all seem to go to the tiny boring park right next to the school rather than the much bigger and more exciting park ten minutes walk away).

All the kids play together for a good hour after school and the adults can have a chat or read a book. All years and across “normal” friendship groups. It’s rather lovely. I see similar things with other schools in other parks too (you can tell by the uniforms).

DS seems to make friends with kids in other parks (even in other countries) - I’ve always assumed it’s because he’s an only and so has nobody else to play with if he doesn’t join in (I do play a bit but am not as much fun as another child now he’s a bit older).

I think that even though it was ages ago, covid and high profile child abductions have had an effect on parenting. During lockdown, many children naturally had more time with their parents than they would have done otherwise. My DC are generally quite happy with their own company and the lockdowns just encouraged them even more to look inwards.

And having children is seen to be a lifestyle change nowadays - we are considered to be negligent parents if we don’t want to play with and engage with our children. My life would be so much easier if I could send the DC out all day.

Agree - and how old are we talking about? DS is 8, covid disrupted nursery but his school life was completely unaffected. Younger kids won’t have been affected at all as either not born or too young to really play together. Older kids presumably learned to socialise before Covid hit. We can’t blame Covid for everything, it was more than five years ago at this point.

My ds now 12 has always made a friend where ever we go, he just seems to be one of those kids that makes friends very easily. Helps that he's quite confident and not shy. He's a very friendly and approachable boy so other kids just seem to like him, he's always been very popular at school.
My older child has always been a bit more reserved and not made friends quite so easily.

That was 5 bloody years ago!

How did she make friends?

A stranger is just a friend you haven't met!

Play dates are for when they are either too young to play out unsupervised or live too far from each other to safely call to play out.

I think it depends they are in to. My DS is 7 and football mad. If he takes a ball to the park he soon find someone to have a kick about with. DS 4 playing tonight whilst watching older sibling playing cricket - soon found a little friend to play with his monster trucks with, racing them along and chasing each other in circles. Definitely worth taking a toy etc with you, it seems to help break the ice and give them something to talk about/do.

I haven't found this much. My daughter is 4 and is able to make friends very easily, in parks, on holidays and also with adults 😂
My son is 3 and is similar although sometimes they will just choose to play together, they often take interest in different things and make different friends. 3 yo son usually also finds a much older girl 10+ to play with him, pick him up ect!
As a previous poster said, they also attend a school with a playground opposite where the children play freely 😀

This thread is so interesting to me because I feel completely at a loss to know how much time I should be actively engaging with my 4 year old and 1 year old, and how much benign neglect would actually be useful in fostering life skills like letting them play by themselves together and figure it out on their own.

Ridiculous as it is, I feel as though I should be interacting with them every second that I’m not cooking or cleaning something (I don’t because that would be exhausting). But it’s mad because I would hate for someone to be doing that to me. If I let the 4 year old watch tv for a bit after nursery or when he’s tired I fear I’m rotting his brain with screen time. But sometimes he’s so tired he just needs to chill. I equally know this hyper awareness is also not healthy.

I wonder if previous generations just didn’t overthink everything and had a healthy does of “it’ll be fine”. Which I try to do but what about if the screen time rots his brain or he thinks I’m an emotionally distant parent who he can’t come to with a problem?? I’m exaggerating for effect but you see what I mean!

Same. I've not really.experienced what many in this thread are talking about. My 6 year old find people to play with quite easily. And my toddler is just a bit of chaotic energy looking for a game on legs.

Are you surprised with some of the parenting you see on here? Panic at minor things, danger at every turn, every male a likely sex offender, complete inability to contend with even minor issues, refusal to let their DP/DH look after children etc etc etc.