How do I go about getting ds2 playdates with girls

[LadyMuck]

Ds2 is in reception at a boys school. School suits his elder brother to a tee, but ds2 has fairly pink tendancies. He spent a lovely day yesterday with the 6yo dd of friends of ours and is now desperate to go to her house. He is no longer interested in inviting boys from school home as they just want to play with all of ds1's toys. Part of me is mulling over a change of schools for him. He goes to a drama class which is mixed, but I'm not sure that that is playdate material.

So I have 2 questions:-
a) if he did go to a mixed school are boy-girl playdates standard or unusual?
b) any other ideas of picking up girlfriends for playdates? It seems a bit forward to ask someone from say swimming or drama back on a playdate?

I think playdates between genders is quite rare sadly. Many of my friends kids only play with the same sex.

Luckily my school is small so the boys and girls all know each other - and my boys do have some girls over to play - but many more boys thatn girls even so.

I would try and make a regular thing of playing with your friends dd if you can.

(My reception boy is a pink fiend too )

a) yes boy-girl are standard

ds2 took a white rose in to the girl he liked, and got a playdate out of it, plus a return invite
try that

Ds has had playdates with girls, much nicer having a girl round for tea! More civilised than when he has one of his boy friends round, trashing the house, or squabbling over the wii.

Just arranged them in the same way as any other playdate, although ds is well known in the school as a ladies man

DS1 has playdates with girls in his class as much as the boys.. but there aren't many girls, the ones that are there are really used to playing with boys.

DS2 would rather have a girl as a playdate. There is a girl who he went to playgroup with, nursery etc and he loves her to bits.

When she comes down to play there is not a minutes bother.

If no boys are about in the street and the girls are, he will join in and yet again, no bother. Perhaps there is not a need for any competitiveness with the opposite sex and that is why it runs smoothly?

There's only one girl that ds2 (aged 6) will invite over and he tells me 'she's not a girl mummy she's a tomboy'. She refuses to play with the girls. There is one boy in the class who is known for only playing with the girls. I don't know about playdates, but assume if he has them they're with the girls.

My DS thinks that girls are a different species and kicked up a fuss when I made him invite all the girls to his party.

DD (9) on the other hand has lots of mixed playdates and always has had.

Opportunities for mixed playdates include all the normal sporty things ...

DD (not reception yet, goes in September) goes to a trampolining class which has been fairly mixed so far. Well, two girls at the moment, but before that it was her and a boy, and before that three girls and two boys. It seems like a pretty non-gendered sport. Unlike something like swimming the children have a lot of down-time (when it's not their turn) and get to know each other then. DD and the little boy who was in her class until just after Christmas got on fantastically, and we did have a bit of a playdate at half-term when there was no class.

I will be delighted if she has boys as friends when she starts school - single sex friendships seem to exacerbate children's natural tendencies (as in girls get extra pink and shrieky, boys get extra rough).