Here I am, all easy breezy, having scheduled TWO spring break playdates like it ain’t no thing. When it turns out I am not done stressing about playdates, not even a little bit. Here are some of my specific (and let’s face it, pretty deranged) worries:
Being Too Lax or, Conversely, Too Strict: We have house rules, and I think it’s reasonable that kids who visit our house should abide by those rules, just as I’d expect Carla to abide by the rules of any house she visits. But when people who aren’t my family are in my house, I start to second guess our rules. Is it weirdly fastidious to ask that people take off their shoes? Am I helicoptering if I tell the friend that there’s no dropping things/throwing things/jumping from the balcony? Am I being a psychopathic germaphobe/germaphobic psychopath if I expect kids to wash their hands when they come into the house (which is what every member of my immediate family does upon entering our home, every time)? I don’t want kids playing in my bedroom or my office, I don’t want kids jumping or standing on the furniture, we don’t eat anywhere besides the kitchen. These things feel reasonable in my day-to-day life, but when I collect all these rules into a tidy bunch to present to another person, they feel like A Lot. And how do you convey your expectations? I don’t want to be condescending or overly rigid by announcing a thousand rules up front, but I also don’t want a kid to “break” a rule she doesn’t know and then feel like she’s being scolded for it. And also, what about rules that you feel like you shouldn’t have to say out loud, and also are hard to anticipate because they seem so obvious, like “don’t throw food” or “don’t paint on things using the carpet as a dropcloth”?
Logistics: We now live out of town, and I realize that it’s not super easy to get here. One recent playdate, we brought the kid home with us from school and then drove her home. Another recent playdate, I picked the kid up from her house, her parent came and got her from mine. I think I have established logistics upfront for one of our two already-scheduled playdates – we are going to be in the area of the kid’s house, so when we arranged the day, I said we would pick her up and suggested that her parent come and get her after the playdate is over. But the other kid lives QUITE far away. We can drop her off, and I already let her parent know that… but we haven’t figured out the details of how the kid is getting to my house… I really don’t want to offer to go get her, because it will be a long drive and we are already going to drop her off. But… is it fair to ask her parents to endure the long drive to bring her here? I could suggest we meet somewhere in the middle, I guess. Is that weird?
Duration: When Carla was little, playdates were pretty typically two or three hours long. These days, they seem to last a bit longer, which is fine… but how long is too long? Are they going to hate each other if they spend more than three hours together? And what about sleepovers, which are necessarily much longer? Carla has had ONE sleepover, and when her mom asked what time she should pick her up, and I suggested eleven the next morning, the mom expressed surprise. “Let me know if I should come earlier,” she said ominously, as though the kids would be at each other’s throats. (Eleven worked out fine, but that feels like beginner’s luck????) At this age, is a meal always involved? For instance, I think our playdates are beginning after lunch… but does that mean I need to prepare dinner? (I am already prepared to prepare dinner, I am just wondering if that’s normal or if I’m overthinking the whole thing.) (Hahahahaha, ME?!?!, overthink anything?!?!?!)
Reciprocity Signals: Carla doesn’t get invited to a whole lot of playdates. I don’t think she’s been to a single one this year. Yet she and her friends seem to PLAN a lot of playdates at school. And everyone we’ve invited for a playdate at our house has said yes. So… is this just a case of the other families are busy and/or hate playdates even more than I do and/or they just haven’t gotten around to it and/or they have multiple children so fitting playdates in and among the thousand extracurricular activities they must be juggling is simply impossible? Or am I missing a subtle signal that Carla is not welcome at their homes or not well liked by other kids or or or?????
My mom reminds me that when I was a kid, NONE OF THIS was an issue. She said the word “playdate” was not even part of our vocabulary. I would just say, “Can So-and-So come over?” and that was that. We’d come over and entertain ourselves. But… how? I am guessing – hoping – some of this stress comes from lack of practice. In any event, the ball is already picking up speed as it bumbles down the hill.
One of the great things you have to look forward to is that older kids make their own social plans! Once my kids got phones (7th grade), they started arranging their own time with friends! I still get involved to arrange some details, like drop off/pickup. We usually set 3-4 hrs for friend time unless its a sleep over. Late morning is pretty standard for sleep over pickup. The kids like to sleep in; we’ll make pancakes or something and they and hang out in the morning.
I keep hearing about this magical time!!!! It seems so unfathomable!
Yes, 3-4 hours seems like a good amount of time for a regular playdate.
I do a lot of playdates at my house. Generally, we are the only ones who host. I think it’s just too much for most people. I am fine with this, I prefer my children to be here where I know what is going on. One other family reciprocates on a semi regular basis. One of the teens has approximately 2.3 parties at her house per year. Other than that, I have never seen any of the other kids’ houses. And we regularly have 10-15 kids over at once so I am getting a good sample size. So being the only one to host is normal in my experience.
Generally the host doesn’t drive. I would expect playdate kids to be dropped off and picked up. We sometimes bring them home from school with us and there’s one of my teens who needs me to drive her back and forth or she’d never get to come, but kind of the general expectation is that the visiting kid is in charge of their own rides. And I would certainly be happy to do some of the driving but at least in my experience, the other parent brings them to and from and we provide the playdate. And we do have some kids that come from quite far and their parents have never said anything about me doing any of the driving. One of the moms hangs around in town waiting for the playdate to be over and I’ve told her to let me know when she’s doing that and she can hang out with me instead but so far she hasn’t.
I loosen up on the house rules a little but not excessively. And eventually the visiting kids end up learning all your rules and adapting to them quite nicely. Also I generally don’t announce them ahead of time, just as they come up. “Here’s a snack, you can eat it at the table or the counter.” It helps that my kids know all the rules, they tend to mostly take care of it themselves.
We haven’t had any trouble with duration yet. *I* am more ready for them to go home than any of them are ready to go home. I serve whichever meals they are here for. Our usual playdates are after school until bedtime on Friday and I give them dinner. (And I make it as soon as they get here because they are ravenous after school.) During the summer, we did open house style hours from 9-4 and I served lunch. (And also I expected kids to come and go but they just all stayed the entire time and that was too long for me but fine for all the kids.) If it’s just one kid, they have whatever we are already having and I am happy to make them a PBJ or a pile of shredded mozzarella cheese next to some dry bread (yes) if they don’t eat what we are having. If it is many children, I make something that does well for groups (pasta, grilled cheese/tomato soup, pancakes, hot dogs/chili.)
You regularly have 10-15 kids over – Jen, you are superhuman. But I am with you in (ostensibly) wanting to have the kids where I can keep an eye on them.
I mean, I have three kids, if they each have 2-3 friends over, it’s over ten already.
Still a supermom.
You can arrange with Carla that she needs to communicate the house rules to her friends. That usually happened naturally when my kids had guests over. Then you don’t need to get involved unless they deliberately break the rule. Which likely won’t happen! I think most every household has rules and the kids won’t be surprised at your rules even if they’re not the same as their house rules.
I do love the idea of delegating this to Carla!
Yes on what MCW said – it’s not long before she’ll be making all her own plans. I can’t remember exactly when that happened, but I want to say it was maybe grade 5 or 6 that the guys scheduled things without my knowledge (and often to my surprise, as we would almost always have boys coming to our house after school on Fridays, which was historically an early-dismissal day). And by the time they were in grade 7, forget about it. I never heard boo about anything, except “I’m going over to Sam’s, is that okay?” Then again, we lived in a neighbourhood where everyone walked or biked to the park/ each other’s house. So that’s a complication, but I think your willingness to drive at least one way really really helps.
As for house rules, from a very young age – like pre-k – every friend that came over washed their hands and it continued on until we moved. But that was the guys telling their guests that we “had to” do that. So they would just automatically go and wash their hands, all together. As for dropping things off the balcony, that’s a safety issue and I guess that is probably obvious? But maybe not? So I’d say something if they were going on the balcony in a light way “don’t drop things.” And if everyone is taking off their shoes (we are a shoes off house), then it’s not a big deal. I think kids just know when they are in a different house they just do things the way the host kid does things. I would only step in if there was an obvious violation (please not six kids on the trampoline, only Joey is allowed to do flips) (Joey was an actual gymnast who specialized in tramp) (this is getting unwieldy).
Last, the reciprocity thing. Sometimes, it is the parent who doesn’t want kids in their house. One friend they had was ALWAYS at our house, and the boys were literally never invited over there. Never! And they were friends since M was 3 and J was 2. But his mother was not open to having people over. In fact, I was HER friend for all those years and I never stepped foot once in her house. I think she was ashamed of the messiness or something, and that just made her not want to have people over. So that was a “it’s not me, it’s her” thing, so it could be the same thing in this case. I mean, Carla is delightful and if her little friends didn’t like her then they wouldn’t accept the playdate situation!
Also, yes, this was not an issue when we were kids. I remember one day – I was probably four or five – a girl rang our doorbell and asked my mom if “she had any little girls she could play with.” I mean, that was a pretty easy way to make friends and get a social life back then!
That is so interesting, Nicole, that she would never invite you or the kids over! I have my own introverty reasons for feeling awkward about having people over but that is commitment to keeping your house to yourself! No judgment – I am kind of impressed!
All these concerns are valid and not deranged at all.
Carla is old enough to say, “Oh, we have to wash our hands first” or “No, we are not allowed to do that.” Most kids are fine with following house rules; even if they aren’t the same rules they have at home. And, if you see something you don’t like, you can just gently tell them that isn’t acceptable.
Logistics are tricky but I think most parents are willing to work together to figure it out. Of course, there’s always one that won’t. Then you have determine if you have the bandwidth to host the playdate and do all the driving.
I would think a couple of hours is more than enough time for a playdate. Snacks are always appropriate and if the child will still be there for dinner or lunch, well….then they are are there for dinner or lunch.
Reciprocity – that one. Well, there are a lot of reasons why some parents don’t host playdates – and I’m willing to bet it has absolutely nothing to do with Carla; so I’d put that right out of your mind. Whatever it has to do with is them (the parents).
And your mom is 100% correct – playdate wasn’t in the vocabulary when we were growing up. It was a different time and our lives were much less structured.
And yes, these “playdates” will get easier the older she gets. But you’ll probably still do a lot of the driving.
Thanks, Gigi! Always a relief to know I am less deranged than I feel! 😂
I’m here to drop in my 2 cents! Your house rules are 100% reasonable. Yes to providing one way transport for the long distance kid and having the other parents take the other way. The kids can stay over as long as YOU want them to. And I dunno what it is about kids these days because we have one kid who talks a good game but almost never sees his friends outside of school and also the boys’ friends are over here a lot more than they are at the other kids’ houses.
Playdate dynamics are so weird?!?!
I agree with the other commenter about having Carla deal with the house rules. It’s better coming from a friend than from the friend’s parent. I didn’t enjoy setting up or dealing with playdates or overnights. I was used to my own kids and parenting and not other people’s.
I totally get it. Other people’s kids are tricky.
Carla is in 5th grade, right? (I seem to remember she is the same age as my niece.) I think soon this will all be out of your hands and the kids will be handling arrangements. For us though, there was an awkward period right around this age when the kids wanted to make the arrangements and couldn’t quite get things off the ground (forgetting to check with parents and not having a ride so not showing up when they said they would, and then your kid is disappointed, etc.). But eventually they get the hang of it and it’s not your problem any more.
Yes, our parents never had to deal with this. We usually just went outside to play with other kids in the neighborhood, or sometimes someone would come over to play. My parents were never involved, other than of course making sure everyone was safe. And we just wandered into the kitchen when we got hungry and found something to eat. Those were the good old days!
I think you’ll get better at this as it goes on- I think kids understand that different houses have different rules. One thing I will say is, I also found it VERY lopsided when my kids were younger. I felt like we were constantly inviting people over for playdates, and it was rarely reciprocated. I never really understood that- other than that I always got the feeling the other parents were super busy and didn’t feel like making it a priority? It was weird.
This will get easier when Carla gets older- she’ll arrange her own things. Nowadays Angie arranges her own things (obviously since sh’es 15) and I’ll usually just touch base with the other girl’s mom via text to confirm the plans. But she also has a friend whose parents I have never met or communicated with- that girl only comes here, Angie has never gone to her house. Again… it’s weird.
Dang, I just got three of your posts in Feedly at the same time. Sorry about the late response! I’m with Jenny! We just came and went and went over to people’s houses and got our own food when we were hungry. I don’t have kids so I cannot even try to tell you any advice, but I wonder if along with having Carla tell her friends the house rules, you have a few things that they can make for themselves when they are hungry, like PB&J and ham and cheese sandwiches and stuff? Then it takes the onus off of you a little. But I don’t know what the rules are between parents, like would little Johnny go home and tell his mommy that he had to make his own sandwich and she would be appalled? To me it seems like not a big deal but maybe things are not the way that I think they are in real life as a parent. 🙂
I have a 16 year old, so feel like I had all these worries at some point. For me, as my kids got into their teens, hand outs grew to about 3/4 hours, and later even longer, as my kids grew older. My kids are in a school that is a 35 minute drive from our house so we do lots of driving, and in my experience almost all parents are up for tackling a one-way long drive. They are more reluctant to do both pick up and drop off (as am I!) if they don’t have enough time to go back home for a bit in the interim. Also, some kids are planners and communicators with their parents, and some are neither of those things. As the kids start to arrange their own get-together, they migrate mostly the houses of the planners.
GAH! I didn’t see this post until now! Our house has been crawling with kids all week, and Dorothy has gone to other people’s houses as well. It has been GREAT because more kids are usually easier than fewer. I have a couple of secrets: I leave them alone, give zero shits about what they do (as long as it is safe), and bake a from-scratch treat while they are over mainly to hear them say their mom never bakes and they love my cookies/brownies/muffins, whatever because I bake always and my kids TAKE IT FOR GRANTED. Dorothy was supposed to go to a friend’s house today and we never got an official ivite, even though I talked about it theoretically with the mom. Finally, I texted, and she was like OMG my kid was supposed to set that up– I’ll remind her than then bam! The girls set it up, and I just had to be the ride. So I think the lack of reciprocation is a kid problem and not anything to worry about. Kids are bad planners. Also, yes, I make everyone take off their shoes and wash their hands because ew.
Hi Suzanne, I’m a long time reader never commenter, and it appears now a late first time commenter (Feedly is very temperamental)!
Thank you for writing about a surprisingly complex aspect of parenting children these days. I grew up in the 70s and unlike my children, never had play dates and rarely had birthday parties outside of the family.
I agree with others here that the reciprocation thing is almost certainly not to do with you or Carla! As a case in point, I am an academic and work very strange hours, I often travel and work at home in a smallish urban flat. It isn’t always desirable or possible to have kids around (even my own!).
Please don’t agonise- mothers like me are very grateful to Other Mothers who can provide space and time that we can’t.
Paul is at such a younger age. So I have to communicate rules as things come up and I really had to do that during his birthday party a couple of weeks ago. I think/hope it’s not like that with girls of Carla’s age! 6 year old boys have very little impulse control. 😬 It does seem like some homes are more of the playdate base. Ours isn’t really because our house isn’t really big. But we don’t do a lot of play dates, mostly the playdates are with another family we are very good friends with!
AS I do not have kids I can’t really chime in and give any useful/valid information. However I just wanted to say that it will most probably all be fine and the kids will have a good time.
One thing though… I would expect the kids to go by your rules. When I have over kids in my house I also expect them not to jump on my furniture or go in my bed room and stuff like that. Not sure how to communicate those rules though… I take those for obvious most of the times
Your rules are 100% valid and should be respected by everyone. I also have a “no running” in the house rule, and yell/say it to both my kid and a visiting kid(s) all the time. If they are that sensitive then perhaps they are not the best suit for my kids who are pretty direct themselves and who are used to direct style of parenting. I also like what your mom said, love it. There was a situation where I was asked how the kids will entertain themselves at a playdate. My answer- they’ll have each other.