Children playing with friends vs playing with siblings

[catstudies]

Do children have less meet ups/ play dates with other children outside the family nowadays or it’s just something we are seeing in our circles?

My child had zero friend meet ups over the Easter holidays. Most of them are doing things with siblings and cousins.

I had two sisters but I always played with my friends, not sisters, as did they…

Every time I mention about not being able to get dc do stuff with friends outside school I get the ‘ah, we don’t have that problem as we have two/ three…’

We are only really looking for the occasional, not every day, friendly catch ups.

Holidays can be hard as people go away. This is where things like brownies can help or a sports activity or something.

I think particularly Easter seems like catching up with families more so than other breaks.

my dd 11 wants to go out today to see a movie or something. After running through the various friends both old and new she said she just wants to go out with her brother (16). No idea why as he’s not very nice to her mostly. Haven’t had any contact from her friends asking to do anything either which we normally have in the holidays.

My daughter was friends with a couple of girls who were only children and their mums were quite pushy with organising play dates. She's not as close with those girls now but the play dates did slow down in the holidays as we'd prefer to do things like swimming as a family.

My children are now 10 and 8 and I don't arrange anything for my 10 year old (year 6) , that's all sorted by text message or in school (obvs she asks permission). My 8 year old plays with his two best friends who live 2 doors down and 5 doors down so he plays probably 3-4 times a week but not long play dates as such, just a quick half hour here and there.

I have 3 DSs & they always played with each other so no real need for playdates. They would still see friends but didn’t have the same need to meet with others as they always have each other.

I think people are so busy that they have lots of family and friends to see already and the time in between they want to chill. Once you plan one or two things as a family, one day with each set of grandparents, Easter Sunday and a few relaxed days the holidays are mostly filled up.

I had two sisters but I always played with my friends, not sisters, as did they…
From what age though? When kids are young enough to still have parent arranged play dates I think it’s normal for most of their socialising to be with siblings and family.

This holiday my kids have played with each other, neighbours kids who live on the same street, two friend meet-ups from school (DD), randomly bumping into practically every kid DS knows in the cinema at the Minecraft movie. Trips to see family and do hobby. Pretty low key.

I think it's possible that the covid time has trained us to hang out with family more. Our family didn't do it much before but now I get a very strong feeling that family are the people who are there for us and others will drop us without a second thought.

It's very difficult for only children I think. We used to have a best friend who was also an only child but unfortunately his family moved away. The lockdowns were lonely because he wasn't allowed to come over. He used to practically live here.

I lived abroad with no extended family and I found the Easter holidays and the time around Christmas the hardest for seeing friends. Both mine and the children’s. People do seem to be busier with their,own families and working parents tend to take time off so people don’t arrange to see friends as much.

My daughter was invited by her single child friend every weekend but it left her sister on her own! So we dialled it right back to the occasional play date.

I have one DS and get plenty of play dates all year round including holidays although that might be because the majority of people I’ve met through nursery etc also only have 1 DC.

It is one of the advantages of being an older parent as you meet many in a similar situation who also only had 1 DC and 35/40+

I have two daughters 1 year apart (6 & 7) and they play together all the time this probably makes us less motivated about play dates. We do try and have met up with one child on a day out during Easter holidays.

Can your DC join any weekend clubs? My DS did quite a bit but also met with friends

Do children have less meet ups/ play dates with other children outside the family nowadays or it’s just something we are seeing in our circles?

Fewer than when ?

How old is / are the dc ?

Most of both my dds friends parents are working at least some of the holidays if they’re not away, I am also intermittently working although we have had schoolfriends over inbetween.
It’s not the most relaxing holiday. I’m playing catch up and haven’t really got much headspace for play dates as we’re catching up on all sorts of other things that should have happened in termtime (replacing carpets, getting pet jabs before the summer, visiting relatives who we haven’t seen since Christmas etc etc.
Its probably may just be other parents needing to juggle too

One-child family here. My DC is a toddler and is in daycare most days. So the break is a time to spend quality fun time with her parents. We have a visit to see family for Easter lunch. I’m looking forward to going out with DH and DC a couple of times over the long weekend. We also will relax at home.

I miss being with DC like I used to when I was part-time, so I am keen to have a lot of fun with her over the weekend.

Yes way less meet ups now imo- I think partly due to wfh, at least one parent will wfh and they don’t want hyper play dates around.

We've met up with friends every single day this holiday. 2 dc, opposite sex. All my friends seem to have high energy children who need a good run, so we've been really busy. We won't see anyone on Easter Sunday though outside of family.
The other families all have 2 children as well though, so each child has a playmate. I wouldn't go on an outing where one of my dc would be potentially left out if the other 2 went off together.

Yes we’re finding this a bit of a struggle too OP. We only have the one DD (7) and aside from paid holiday clubs and one meet up with a significantly older daughter of a family friend she didn’t see another child over the Easter holidays either.

We are very open to hosting play dates at our house and accept this as part of having one child, but we’ve found that people have become increasingly insular over the past couple of years. I think@OnlyFoolsnMothersand @MaryPoppinsAtAllare both on to something with their suggestions of covid and WFH as possible reasons - as a society in general we seem to be increasingly low trust, and turning inwards rather than building a wider support network of friends/neighbours/community. Combine that with many dual income households being incredibly time poor and frazzled, and it doesn’t look great for those of us with onlies (although I don’t think relying solely on family for all social needs is a great thing for anyone in the long term tbh).

We are taking the rather drastic measure of moving out of London to somewhere much smaller and very community focused, in an effort to find a more settled, less transient place for DD to grow up. Here in London we are finding that since no one actually ‘comes from’ where we live (apart from us!), everyone disappears off to visit wider family during school holidays. We feel that a smaller, more cohesive setting with lots going on for young families might help a bit with these issues.

It’s not that they are insular it’s that they are busy. I have 2 kids and we must have no time for arranged play dates with school kids during things like the Easter holiday.
We aren’t hermits stuck at home afraid to see anyone, it’s that playdates are so low on our priority list.

@SofiewooI didn’t mean insular as in ‘scared of socialising’; I meant the sense (which I’ve got over the past few years IRL and from reading a lot of similar threads in this and other topics) that many people don’t think they need any kind of network outside immediate family. Not you, clearly, but I’ve read plenty of posts on here stating that people just don’t see the need, and several NCT friends/school parents have said the same.

I totally get the time issue, but I think there’s also a wider issue around what is valued/prioritised. It’s the same with things like volunteering - despite being busy I’m a school governor, help to run a local Brownies pack, volunteer at a church kids’ club etc. The numbers of people willing to do this stuff are dwindling, due to time constraints, yes, but also due to inclination - people just don’t see the point (I’m regularly called a ‘mug’ for doing things for free). But people still want/expect everything to keep ticking over, and get cross if things disappear due to lack of support. I do think that increasingly community and social networks are breaking down, and people are becoming atomised into small family groups instead of looking outwards.

We don't do many play dates at all, at most one every few months. For us it's mainly as our DC as siblings like to spend the weekends and school holidays together and they fully occupy themselves, they also have clubs at weekends too so fitting play dates into busy lives is very low priority for us and from how friends are too I think that's quite common

We don’t do any play dates, happy to play with each other at weekends, sometimes see cousins in the holidays

We go away at Easter but while away my daughter got invited to 3 play dates from friends who all have siblings and at weekends she and her friend regularly call on each other (age 8, live round the corner)

My kids had four ‘play dates’ during Easter break but also went to both grandparents for a few days. Since they’ve gone back to school we’ve had three play dates’. But they’ve also played with each other and alone a lot too.

I don’t think it’s much different to when I was a child during holidays. My kid is an only and had a couple of play dates over the school holiday (one we hosted, one at a friend’s house), couple of days in holiday club, some family trips out and some quieter days at home. Several of her friends had grandparents staying doing childcare whilst the parents worked.

We try to limit play dates to twice a month (weekends) because it’s hard to spend any time as a family at a weekend otherwise.

I think the difference now is that there aren’t after school play dates because everyone is working, so now they need to be at a weekend. I can’t remember having weekend play dates as a child, they were always after school.