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!

I think from my experience this tends to be white children more so than ethnic children. At my local park almost no ethnic parent really plays with their child, and they are often in large groups so the parents sit talking and the children play. White parent i tend to see supervise their kids a lot more,

This.

Mine are late teens but this was starting to be an issue where we lived when they were kids.

We'd not see many kids in the park but when we did half time other parents would stop them playing together and at least few time other parents tried stopping my kids playing on stuff - sometimes considering it to dangerous others trying to make so just their kids used equipment -so then you have to hover.

I was very glad we'd had three kids and close in age so they had each other to play with.

When we moved kids would play out but playground were even worse and came with age ranges - and in some parks posh one otherside of town parents were really nasty to other kids.

I’m sure all the reasons PP have listed might play a role - I don’t think it’s just screen time or just ‘helicopter’ parenting.

Personally, I’ve found most younger kids (I’m thinking maybe 7 and younger) appear way more interested in my attention than my eldest DS’s (3) when we are out and about. I’m not bragging and making out like I’m some super fun person at the playground/softplay but I find kids generally want to tell me things or show me something they can do rather than play with my son.

This has made me think whether kids are more interested in adult focus rather than playing with another child now because they already spend a lot of time with other children (nursery then school). So they are doing all the stuff they used to do but more intensely during the week. I think it could mean they don’t necessarily crave that play time with other kids in their free time. They’ve poss maxed out on sharing and playing and just want some sustained adult attention.

I also wonder whether ‘helicopter’ parents are more involved during trips to the park etc. because they have such little time to connect during the week. It’s less being over protective and more just wanting to be involved. And young children especially would rather connect to their mum or dad than other children. I know my DH goes to the park at the weekend to properly play with my son because they don’t get that time day to day. There are, of course, still over protective parents but i think the helicopter parenting label is slightly unfair in today’s world when parents have to spend so much time away from their children!

My kids fortunately are not like this. 6&7 year old, will happily make friends at the park. 7 year old has a verbal disability so has struggled to make friends but fortunately his sister will speak to initiate things, after a while my son's confident enough to engage verbally too. They love to use their imaginations in our garden, at the park, in the house. Used to be slightly worse when they had tablets but got rid of them at the start of this year and everything is so much better. They love to go to the forest near ours and I just sit down and watch them play, usually Minecraft in real life with the things in the forest haha

Case in point - we were just in the children's section of our very large local library. Two boys aged about my son's age (almost 4) came over to where my son is sitting. My son gives them a friendly smile and says "I'm reading about dinosaurs. Do you guys like dinosaurs?" (He was inviting them to join him at his table)
In response, one of these boys sort of smirks at him and replies "don't talk to us".
Trust me when I say this is not an isolated event. As I've posted up thread I mainly see it from white, middle-class presenting families and kids.
And I think this is learned behaviour. Parents actively encouraging their kids not to interact with other children, and normalising being snippy and unpleasant to people outside the family bubble.
I find it quite chilling actually. It really doesn't bode well for social cohesion or mental health of the next generation.

It was funny I was thinking about this today and there's a number of reasons for this.

I think there can be an argument for some parents not socialising their children enough. You only have to read threads on here of people who don't like to socialise with anyone outside their tiny family units. Examples being weekends being "family time only", parents who have no friends and no desire to make any, parents who make no effort with play dates and actively avoid them and seem to think that if a child has a sibling they have no need for any additional socialising. Siblings can't possibly meet a child's full social need and if children are growing up with parents who model behaviour that is anti-social and isolating, it's no wonder they are growing up with a lack of social skills.

I also think screen time and children not playing out is a big thing too. A lot of children don't seem to get a chance to be bored and to use their imagination. It seems to be happening from a young age too. There seems to be a culture that babies and toddlers need entertained by a parent 24/7 and are just never left be. I was never entertained by my parents to the extent that kids are now. Parents can be made to feel guilty if they don't spend every waking moment dedicated to their child's attention.

I also think another aspect is children are so overscheduled nowadays with extra curricular activities. I get exhausted reading some of the schedules of kids on here, kids who are at school all day and then spend several evenings and all weekend jam packed. I've seen friends who have children who are at nursery all week and then spare time is spent doing scheduled activities. It's no wonder then when kids get time to themselves they have no idea how to entertain themselves or play.

I remember seeing a book on here recommeded called the Idle parent by Tom Hodgkinson. Like every book, you don't take every idea from it but what I liked about it was the big emphasis on actually leaving kids alone to entertain themselves and about encouraging children and families to socialise each other. It really helped me with my mindset as I too, used to fall in the trap of thinking I had to fill up my toddlers time with activities and groups all the time.

To be fair when DDs were under school age I would be supervising and being with them or just nearby. Usually hovering nervously under very high monkey bars or steadying DD2 as she climbed to the top of a climbing frame not long after actually being able to walk. Age 5+ was different and much less hands on.

My dc definitely play with other children. In fact, I often don’t necessarily know where they are because they are out running around a field with a friend somewhere. But I don’t think they would just play with a random child at the park. Friends, yes. Me, sometimes, though I often bring a book so would rather read. 3 is young for playing with other children at all though, and 6 is also still pretty young.

I do wonder how much children in the past used to play with children they literally didn’t know - I used to play out with people in the street and in the park but they all went to my school! (Small village primary). I might play with kids on holiday if I had seen them around the resort a bit, I definitely wasn’t approaching random kids to join in their games though.

They didn't. Because generally they all went to the same school in the same area. The friendships would have been organic and shifting over the years.

They might have played with friends cousins that were visiting or whatever, but they would have had the friend as the go between.
They wouldn't have been driven 10 minutes to the nearest playground to play with strangers on a day to day basis.

I grew up in the 80s and mostly played with friends on the street and only when on holiday did we make holiday/beach buddies.

Covid wasn’t years ago. The Covid restrictions lasted nearly three years and have affected how people behave for much longer. And you have it the wrong way round. Three years is a third of a nine year old’s life. It’s actually only a twentythird of mine. Children have been more affected not less.

They wouldn't have been driven 10 minutes to the nearest playground to play with strangers on a day to day basis.

We walked to many nearby parks and often the kids were vaguely known - same school different classes and years or seen round in local area - yet they didn't play with others and parenst often encouraged that.

Actually it was often further away parks in next town full of locals and visitors like us that kids did play with total strangers or with IL in their huge country parks.

That why I though it was local town which was a bit hostile to none natives and with local family networks to leave kids with in gardens. Then we moved and it was different - kids did play out though again in networks known to them - kids from school their relatives other kids they knew that they didn't in previous area but playgrounds were just as unwelcoming.

My son surprised as. My DH is ASD and I have social anxiety, so we were both quiet, shy children. Even so, we were OK at making friends tbf. I suppose children approached us more, and then we felt comfortable. Whereas our son is the one who approaches other children. I do find, like you say, many children just look at him confused and wonder why he's talking to them! He's 3. I wonder if it has helped that he has older cousins that he sees and plays with regularly.

Many children are in full time childcare now and perhaps are after adult attention rather than more peer play.

Overall though, children are finding it harder to play cooperatively even in nursery. The cohort we currently have constantly bicker whereas usually by that age they’d be better at sharing and playing together.

This!

Lots of parents work long hours now and holidays are family now rather than children being left to their own devices. The same is probably true of parks.

Play dates aren't anything new! I grew up in the 90s and spent the vast majority of my time outside playing with kids in the street however I still had friends over to my house after school and at a weekend if they lived further away.

My children are under 3 so it's still play dates for us but as they grow I expect it will be similar for them. We live in a street where children play out so I'm hoping it will be a mix of that and friends over to the house.

I think it's calling them play dates that makes me roll my eyes. We had friends come for tea, or with their parents because their parents were my friends. It's just a new phrase that's been adopted, which some of us are just getting used to.
Basically I often had a house full of kids, or they were playing together in the street ( in the 90s/early 00s.
I used to get mine in for 'family time' when it all got too much for me with the revolving doors 😆

I'm sure there are some social trends going on, but I think it is hard for any of us individually to make generalizations based on our own experience.

I hated making random friends - no matter where or when. Yet my son will happily go and seek out other kids in a park, and sometimes it ends in them playing nicely. I could have never done that as a kid.

I can see it being easy, were the situation flipped, for me to conclude that "kids today..." and it might be true, but I don't think its wise to judge of individual children we know.