how to make friends with other parents?

[Empress]

our daughters in year 1, & although she has a great social life, my adult social life is practically non-existent! the years of working f/t & having children has left little time for keeping up old friendships. we now have more time & could manage seeing friends, but we have v few now. we'd love to make friends with some of my daughters parents who seem really nice, but how do you get past the brief chitchat when you drop the kids off at each others houses?! when asked to stay for a coffee, mums/dads usually decline, cos they're off quickly, to make the most of the time when someone else has their children! lots of the families know each other thru shared local childcare when the kids were preschoool, but we missed out on that. How can we take that next step without appearing the sad no-mates people we are??!!!!

How about joining the PTA at the school. I have just joined and already have had invitations out and it is a good way to get to know loads of other mums and dads as well as the teachers at the school (always useful in case of any problems in the future).

Good Luck

Do you have time to get more involved with the school itself? helping out, organising parties at Christmas, easter, etc.. That's what I did last year and I met some really nice people. I am not normally the 'organiser' type, but it was an excellent way of meeting other like-minded parents who wanted to do a little bit more for the school, and then we had to meet for coffee to discuss ideas for activities/parties, then get organised, etc... Works really well if you have time to do this.
Also, maybe you could organise a little adults/children party for Halloween, or just before the Xmas hols, at your house, with a few friends of your dd's, and ask the parents as well saying there will also be an adults party. try and get someone to help with the kids so you can actually get chatting to the other parents...
Good luck

I have made some of my closest new friends through Nursery, and kept in touch after their children left. We sometimes go out without the children now, but made friends through doing things with our children. If I like a parent, after a few weeks of saying hello in passing, I just ask them if they would like to join us, when I am planning to do something that weekend with ds, eg take him to see a film, take him to an event at a museum, take him to play in a park. Sometimes I just ask them if they would like to go out for lunch or coffee with our children. If you are worried about appearing to have no other friends, then ask them if they would like to join you when you and a friend take your children somewhere interesting.

Empress, I agree, join the PTA and keep inviting people to tea if you like the look of them. You could also make a few invitations specific to the parent as well - i.e. I wondered if both of you wanted to come for tea? Or invite them to some social things like cinema outings or over for an early supper (with wine) on a Friday night?

When my dd started school one or two of the mums organised a mums night out for all the mums and it was a great way to get to know everyone. It used to be a fairly regular thing ie: every couple of months. Maybe you could tell people you are organising a night out as a group for a meal or something and are they interested. Most people are if someone else is doing the organising. Good luck.

THanks for those suggestions...I'm taking some of them up & I'll let you know how it goes!