Play date arrangements

[Uniqueuser1975]

Hi with the holidays here I hoped for some advice.

My wife and are keen to get our son and daughter playing with other kids so look to some local people for the 'play date'.

However, I hope for some feedback. My wife seems to find that play dates seem easy to arrange but feel like they are all to easily cancelled.

We are not the types to cancel things, if we've made an arrangment, it takes quite alot to blow us off target.

Is the experience of other mums one where the play date arrangement is fairly shallow and normally prone to last minute cancellations? It is interesting to me because as a dad, I tend to find doing things with other dads quite straight forward:

• shall we take X and Y camping?
• yes
• camping trip happens

Are there some politics here that I am missing as my wife finds it a bit disappointing because she'd like a bit of human contact in the day, and we both find it a bit rude because last minute cancallations mean that there is an opportunity cost to something else you may have turned down.

Well an important factor is missing in the information you give. You say you "look to local people" for playdates but in what context?

How do you know them?

I've never known arranged play dates be cancelled (unless good reason such as illness). I think your wife, sadly, knows some very rude people.
Assuming she's making definite arrangements (i.e. they've arranged to meet in x park at 2pm on Tuesday, rather than some vague talk of "getting together on Tuesday").

How old are your children? As they get older the children themselves get more invested in the friendships so much keener for the playdates to happen.

As it's the summer holidays at the moment, I'd suggest spending time in local parks/at local events - these will generally be frequented by other local parents/children and it's an opportunity for your children to play with others without worrying about cancellations. and hopefully fun for them anyway even if they don't play with others.

Generally people in our community, people from nursery, some we've know well and would consider 'local friends' as opposed to 'close friends'.

If your wife is finding people cancelling on her a lot it could simply be that she's perhaps booking people in too often or for activities which aren't that attractive...or, she's asking them when they're "on the hop" so they feel pressured to accept and then realise they don't want to.

If your children are preschool age, I would say don't worry too much abot playdates. They happen naturally once they start school.

Don't know, to be honest, my wife normally waits until others put forward ideas, she is not a pressurising person.

but it is good advice none the less that things start to move when school starts, we live in a big city with lots to do for kids so I don't think it is about attractiveness of the proposition, we can do pretty much anything you want where we live.

I just think that people are just much more brittle than we are, a sneeze is not a reason to cancel a day out.

I agree and think that some people (a lot!) are very unreliable. When my children began school I was shocked at how lazy people are in responding to birthday party invitations.

They leave it and leave it until it's a few days before...and some don't even respond but they still turn up!

Manners are lacking...

I blame mobile phones. Once upon a time, it was more difficult to arrange things and harder to cancel them - therefore you were always more invested.

Under these little devices, we carry around, every arrangement is a brittle one and assume you think it is a brittle arrangement and so all is fair.