I have two older steps kids 13-and 11. They never seem to have anything to do. Rarely invites to friends , we invite kids over sometimes when we are free which is not often between school, sports and life. But I find when we are free they don't have any friends around. Where we live it's not easy to walk outside and go to a neighbors house and most things )- have to be planned.
Is this a norm not hanging out with friends regularly?
My own son is 6 and is always invited to parties etc and I try to facilitate play dates etc to encourage friendships outside of school. with the older kids I've not seen their mom do much of this when they were younger and even now she doesn't often reciprocate. I know for me if I was the parent always doing it I might stop after awhile if the other parent didn't reciprocate. with older kid it should be easier as they can entertain themselves. I try to plan things fir them but it doesn't always pan out.
What do ur kids do?
Wow pretty sad I guess we don't have the luxury of Having a neighborhood conducive of our kids running around and playing outside or at homes. We are home after school sports activities by 6:30 dinner, homework, bed who has time?
On the weekends I'm surprised there aren't more plans going on but maybe because if moms lack of interest and them going back and forth makes it hard. I try to offer suggestions. Like Friday night pickup stay over etc.
Thanks everyone! For us it's more planning since the kids are only with us every other weekend. It's also hard because we have 3 different ages 6,my son, girl sd11, and ss 14. They do try to make plans but sometimes we are busy with baseball, other sport or just family related stuff. Sometimes the other kids parents will make plans and invite our ss, sd is good at making her on plans but it doesn't always pan out. For the summer she will be in cheercamp so maybe after camp on a fri her friend can come home etc. Ss bday is coming up so I'm sure we will plan an outing with a friends. I'm not into sleepovers too often as we already have a full house and often busy. I'm trying I think makes it hard when they go back and forth and their mom does absolutely no planning except for a birthday if that. It's pretty sad. They are just getting into sports while my son has been doing sports since he was 4.
My kids always had friends over or went to friends' houses. Either I or the friends' parents drove them, as my kids' friends did not live within walking distance.
We have a ton of other kids in our neighborhood, so they always have other kids to play with. We do tend to invite over a friend about once a week though. And we get them reciprocating. But if a family does not reciprocate much I don't really mind. My 10 year old gets other kids calling to ask for him to come play at their house or to come over here regularly. My other child is 4, so I have to set up her playdates for her. She begs for certain friends to come over (or she goes to their house). For my 10 year old - most of the time he is happy to play with neighborhood kids. He has some good friends who live 10m away and that is who calls (or he calls them). I don't set up playdates for him anymore...he kind of handles it himself and then asks me for permission.
I have a 6 and 9 year old. We are lucky enough that we have a TON of kids on our street ranging from age 3 to 16. My kids mostly play with the 4-12 year olds. We get home from school around 4pm and they are all outside playing until about 7pm. On the weekends, they are never even inside except to eat lol! We do playdates with school friends about once a month or so.
My kids are 11 and 6. We live about 30 mins from the nearest neighborhood. There are no kids within walking and biking distance, so any playdates have to be a big undertaking. But my kids don't really mind too much. We have a pool, so we swim a lot in the summer. My oldest likes to make movies, and my youngest plays by herself a lot. I wish there were more kids around sometimes. Then again, when there are a ton of kids over my house I don't like it, too much noise lol
If my 11 yo is not over at a friends house it is because she has a friend over. She is sleeping at her friends house tonight as a matter of fact. My oldest daughter is now 16 so not surprisingly she has a very active social life but when from 6th grade on she tended to hang with larger groups of kids (5-8) kids at a time. I think kids are all different and if your step kids are happy then be glad they are content.
Do the kids play any sports or have any other activities they like? I am always driving my kids to stuff on weekends - mostly sports related. When I was a kid, I wasn't so into sports, but at age 13, on a whim I tried out for a small part in a local community theater play and was quickly bitten by the acting bug. For the rest of middle and high school, my mom spent a lot of time driving me to practice for whatever play I was in.
The good thing is that participating in these kinds of organized activities is also conductive to making close friendships, because the kids spend a lot of time together. If your step kids are having trouble making friends, getting them into some activities might help.
We live on a bit of property like everyone else in our area so the neigh-
borhood kids aren't close (ex. we don't have sidewalks).
So no neighborhood kids on street.
No pick up games
Our youngest makes friends easily but it's harder for SD so I think a part
of it depends on the kids themselves, the neighborhood etc.
Take them to nearby parks, malls. Encourage them to invite friends over.
Have a birthday party for them, have them invite classmates over to
encourage a friendship to blossom etc.
Part of it is the kids' personality, the other part is the parents' involvement to encourage playdates/get togethers etc.
My kids do have lots of friends within walking/bike riding distance, but they also have friends who live farther away, and I often will give them a ride to a friends house, or a friend will get dropped off here. We are also quite busy, but my kids are usually with friends for most of the weekend and once or twice during the week. The kids seem to like hanging out at our house and when we go on an outing I normally allow each of my kids to invite a friend to join us. There are a few kids whose families don't reciprocate, but I don't hold it against the kids. If my kids enjoy their company they are welcome to come over or join us on an outing.
when my boys were little we lived in a neighborhood full of friends, but when they were 10 and 14 we moved to our little farm, and suddenly there was no one within walking distance. it was an adjustment for sure.
so yeah, planning became our modus operandi, and since we started homeschooling not long after, suddenly i was driving my kids what seemed like all day every day. so there IS a planning component when you live out of range of easy friendships. but the payoff is huge- many of our best and most important conversations took place in that car. there's something about the ways cars are set up that really allows for communications to flow.
the other component was that my kids, whom i tell you true, were always pretty self-sufficient, became even more so. i don't think it's the job of parents to entertain kids. finding interests, passions and pastimes is the work of childhood, with a good dose of 'necessary work' mixed in. i rarely heard 'i'm bored' because i have little patience for it, and it would usually get met with 'well, the fencerows need to be cut back, and the window wells could stand to be cleaned out.'
but a productive afternoon spent doing chores would be rewarded with a trip to the movies, or pizza and ice cream.
are your SKs complaining?
reciprocity isn't something i ever really thought about. the kids themselves did most of the figuring out as to who was going to hang out where, or whose house should host the sleepovers (to which i was almost always amenable.) by the time they were tweens and teens i was long past arranging that stuff for them.
khairete
S.
My 13 yo grandaughter hangs out with friends for an hour and a half nearly every day after school. They hang out in the school neighborhood where her friends live. I pick her up. I do a lot of driving her. She stays overnight often on weekends with one friend or another or at my house; sometimes at her parent's but not often. Their apartment is small.
I've made a point of knowing parents starting first with my daughter. Reciprocity has never been an issue. No one keeps track. The kids stay at whatever house is convenient at the time.
When she's not with friends she uses social media: too much. But then she has always been very social. She is definitely an extrovert. Perhaps your stepsons are introverted and don't need social activity.
Ask them what they think about not spending time with friends. Ask them what they would like to do friend wise. Continue to set up times for friends including them in making plans. Perhaps help them get involved in some organized activity. If they're involved in sports perhaps that is all they need.
That is why we keep our daughter busy. For the longest time there wasn't any kids in the neighborhood her age and she wanted to play.
Now that she is involved in sports, she sees her friends regularly who are involved in the same sport. Once in a while we skip the sport and attend a party, but there are not as many parties as the kids get older.
She is 8 and still has her friend from preschool. They live about 8 miles apart, but we make it a point for them to get together for a movies a couple of times a year.
We have neighbors on one side with kids the same age as ours. And because we live on a court, there's almost no traffic, so they can ride bikes and scooters out there, play soccer, etc. My kids' friends for the most part do the same activity they do (ballet), and because as they get older, they spend more and more time doing it, they see their friends a LOT! Mostly it's sitting in the hallway of the ballet studio hanging out in between class and rehearsal or whatever, but still, they all hang out, have fun, and I know they're in a safe place. :)
My kids (7,8,12) rarely ask to see friends and never look for friends. Kids don't come very often to our house. It bothers me too because I'm not sure it's healthy. I encourage them all the time, but they have videogames and tv, so they are not interested. We don't have many kids on our street. If they ever come out, I don't about it.
Last fall, I enrolled my 12 year old in Boy Scouts. I figured that it would be a great social outlet for him. I was right. He made friends in the scouts. They only really hang out at the meetings and camp outs, but it's a start. I will probably do the same for my younger two.
I think kids this age often hang out in the mall or other places that kids gather. They hang out and do goofy stuff. If you don't have that atmosphere they don't really have a place to do that.
One of my friends had a full finished basement at her house and all the kids from her high school would hang out down there. They had a pop machine for a dime each, a pool table, jukebox with all the hits on it, and no adult supervision. Many a child was made in that room. My friend had her first child on her 16th birthday. It wasn't a great place as far as I was concerned by my friend said it was the best place ever.
Most of the kids in my town do the mall thing or the skating rink, the younger ones your kiddo's age do the rink still.
If they literally can't go anywhere then they don't have the option to do anything. The other kids are most likely already doing the stuff you're wondering about but your kiddo's aren't there since they aren't in town.
We're never home before 9pm when we do sports and stuff. Dinner on those nights is eaten out or snacks brought with us.
MY oldest child is 14 yrs. His friends moms are great at recipocating. We have his friends over often. My 10 yr and 8 yr have friends over more often.
