What is your children social life like?

[user1475317873]

Posting this here for a bit more traffic. Also, posted in parenting

Just wondering how do your children spend their weekends and what their social life is like. My children have some activities and sometimes see friends and we do things as a family, go on holidays and get them involved in the house shores but in general I feel we got lots of spare time and I would like them to see friends more often, however I feel that people is always full of activities, commitments and it can be difficult to organise things. I am not sure it is because we live in London and there is always a lot going on and the fact that we don't have family around doesn't help as my husband and I are from different countries.

I grew up spending time on the weekends with my friends, roller-skating, bike riding and running and playing on the streets, going swimming, etc. but I feel this doesn't happen anymore; despite living in a street with lots of children we barely know them and my children friends are mainly from school. I question whether they are really having a nice childhood and whether perhaps we should move somewhere else or if it is like that everywhere now and we just need to get them in more activites.

mine's 8. She's at an age now where she plays outside with kids from neighbourhood and isn't into organised playdates. Some days she's just happy to chill at home. I'm forever worried she's left out, but after speaking to other mums, it seems to be a 'normal' thing. At school she hangs around and plays with a group of kids. She doesn't walk to school alone yet, but we let her walk 'some of the way'. Usually she gets as far as 10 yards :-), or not even out of the school building yet :-)

Kids (10 and 12yrs) social life is pretty good, they hang out with friends at their house or ours most days after school. They all finish school at 2 pm while parents tend to finish work at 5pm so they entertain themselves, make dance videos, build a treehouse by the river, trampoline (alot), go swimming at the pool (need to be above 10yrs for that), play playstation, go to the playground, go to the library (where there are often fun things on). Same at the weekend really. We don’t live in the UK though so things are probably different.

Sounds lovely. Where do you live Barnet?

Brownies and guitar lessons during the week. She plays with friends from neighbourhood on free days. Mostly outdoors, until it gets too cold, when they start sneaking indoors.

Swimming on Sunday and the rest of the time either play with friends or chill out with family.

@user We live in Norway. It seems like trust levels are high and independance expected more here than in some other countries.

I think it is great that in some places children are still free to hang around with their friends and feel safe, playdates are spontaneous and they don't need much parent involvement. I don’t think there are many places like that these days.

My oldest one is very sensible but I don't feel completely safe for her to wander around locally with her friends. I think her friends parents feel similar.

We live in SE London and I'd say DD1 in particular has a pretty good social life. She's 13 and goes to Guides, dance and music activities but often arranges to go to a local park or into London with a friend. In the summer, she and her friends often don't come home until after spending some time playing in one of the parks or popping round to each other's homes.

Our street is very long and there aren't any other children of DD1's age. There are younger children and some closer in age to DD2 (she's 9) but she's far happier playing with her toys, in the garden with pets or off doing something in the countryside. She likes the time away from others and is rarely interested in playing out.