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Parenting

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Original poster

Kids friends / play dates

7 replies

ARenton · 23/08/2019 23:06

My daughter is moving into year 2. She has friends at school, but I struggling really hard with play dates. She hasn’t had one in over a year. I hasn’t helped that at the start of the school day I have to rush of to work for 9 and previously in the afternoon we have had to rush of down the road to get her brother from a different preschool. So I have never really had much of a opportunity to talk to other mums.
Also I am living with anxiety (under control now though).

I felt hat due to all this my daughter has suffered.
Wondering if people have any ideas that can help me reach out and get my daughter a social life she needs. It really upsets me to thing that I have been at the cause of this and I feel I have failed. Currently balling my eyes out writing this.

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limitedscreentime · 23/08/2019 23:22

I don't really know but totally sympathise as I'm totally useless at taking to people - it never even occurs to me to!! Have no idea how full time workers meet other mothers but is there a class WhatsApp or email group you could pull parent contacts from for children your child mentions as friends? Then invite them over? At that age i suspect no need for parent to stay so hopefully wouldn't be too weird/annoying/boring from that perspective for the parent? Assuming the children get on then I'd think this would work?

SmellbowSpaceBowl · 23/08/2019 23:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Heartofglass12345 · 24/08/2019 01:42

My son is going into year 2 in September and I've been there practically every day at pick up and he's never been invited on a play date. No one really talks to me. He only wanted to invite 2 friends to his birthday party, one of them showed up but he has never been invited to anything to with them

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Daphnesmate · 24/08/2019 21:24

My daughter who is going into year 1 has never been invited to a play date and I am there on the school run all the time. I think it does depend on who you are friends with i.e mums have coffee and a chat and dcs play at this age. But as they get older, they tend to chose their own friends and it becomes a bit more difficult for the parents to manipulate. Also, my dd attends two out of school extra-curricular activities and this enables her to meet children away from school. It does bother me a bit especially when I over hear mothers approach other mothers about playdates but my dd is quite flamboyant and not an easy child to invite, so would require a parent who is very relaxed to initiate an invite. I am quite introverted really and my dd has asked to invite a few friends around after the holidays. I am going to give this a try - it's rubbish when you do all of the inviting with little to no reciprocation but I frame it in terms of it is for dd. Then of course when they head off to secondary school, it is completely out of your hands.

SpeedyShutter · 24/08/2019 21:51

I'm not really sure because I've felt similar - I don't know any of the parents from school and my dc have never been invited around to their classmates' houses to play. I did try writing notes for them to give to a couple of their friends but no-one answered or took us up on it.

In the end I gave up and my biggest is going into y4 now.

It's actually happened naturally - there are kids from 2 or 3 schools (incl ours) on our street in a range of year groups and they've just started playing out with them, joining in with games of kerby, scooting up & down the street or going in & out of each others' gardens. I've had nothing to do with it apart from having to help ds cope with the noise and the changing games their unpredictable rules because he really struggles with that.

What I'm trying to say is give it time and as she gets older let your dd play with any kids that might live in your locality.

Thisismyusernamefornow · 25/08/2019 00:58

Do you have a school group Whatsapp? Or access to phone numbers?

Perhaps ask your child who they are friends with and just instigate a play date? Sure it will work out. Or even a group get together in the park after school one day?

Bite the Bullet. Good luck

twinkletwinklelittlestar123 · 25/08/2019 04:22

My mother never spoke to other mothers at pickup. But when I was a child,we'd all ask our mother if we could invite X over for dinner, usually some time after school. Then we'd ask our friend and we'd get our mothers together at pickup time and they'd swap numbers and get it organised and whichever mother would pick us both up!
Can you make this suggestion to your daughter?

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