Who DOESN'T Do Play Dates and Why?

To be honest, I don't really like other peoples kids. I don't mind play dates at others houses, but not here.

I'm with Jo W. They did have "play dates" when they were small (pre-school and kinder), but now it is just called playing or hanging out. When my kids had friends over they stayed out of my hair and I could get more work done. If one kid goes to a friends house, the other kid will invite a friend over. Sometimes I get lucky and they both go to a friends place. My boys play well together, but they really do need time away from one another to be with their peers. My kids usually get to each bring a friend on family outings as well.

Just the name "play date" takes the kid out of it and makes mom be responsible. Another old schooler here--dang, just let the kids come over and put them in the backyard, bedroom, pool area (while you sit and read), etc.

When my son was about 5, I was friends with other moms whose kids were 5, so while they played we caught up on gossip.

My kids don't do play dates, they have friends over and go to friends houses.

I never had issues with having to watch them or entertain them, they are kids, they play together. About the only time they bother me is if they want food.

So far as transportation goes it takes me less than five minutes to load up the kids when they were little and at least with my kid's friend's parents if I said one of the kids were sleeping they would pick my kid up.

I have four kids by the way.

I don't know, I guess around here we just don't stand on ceremony, I suppose that is why we don't call them play dates.
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Please tell me I am not the only mom who's kids need me less when they have friends over..... Please?
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Wow I am amazed how many women use working as an excuse. I work full time and manage it, even when I was going to school full time and working full time I managed it. I just don't think it is fair on them to say you have to hang out with me because I miss you. I guess I see it as about them and what they want.

I didn't do play dates when my boys were younger. I still don't do them now because they are old enough to make friends on their own now. We moved into our new house on Friday and T has already made a friend down the street.

I've never understood the appeal of forcing a play situation. I took them to the park, out in the yard, to local play-spaces, and they made friends with whomever they ran in to. I'm a free-range parent, so my kids have spent a lot of time exploring and playing independently. We started with them playing in the back yard alone, and then added the front yard, and then added the front yards of friends on the street, and then the back yards too. Once they were "out of sight," I got them watches so they'd know when to come and check in. As they have gotten older, check in times are more and more spaced out.

The point of play is to teach independence. I just never saw how that could be done with a contrived play date. But that's just me.

We have kids in the neighborhood that my children play with or friends of ours who have children and when we get together they all play. I think a scheduled play date can be kind of a hassle......I kind of feel parents are too into scheduling kids to have friends - just let them make their own friends if they are around.

I have three kids, and they are two and three years apart in age.
Prior to kindergarten our only "play dates" were with family friends, but once they hit elementary school we started inviting friends over and they were invited to friends' houses as well.
I LIKED having their friends over, it kept them busy and happy and out of my hair. I never went out of my way to entertain them (other than maybe giving them a snack) they just played!
And I never would have expected my kids' friends to invite my other kids over just because they are siblings.
I think some people make too big of a deal out of these structured play dates. Sure, we need to drive and make arrangements ahead of time when the kids don't live in our neighborhood, but other than that it's just kids hanging out with their friends. It's really not a big deal.

Backwards answers to your question. I did/do play dates and this is why! My kids are 6 years apart. I wish to have a friends over or I'm playing dolls. I need play dates to socialize them and entertain them. It's easier for me.

We don't do play dates anymore for the same reasons as 2daughters, 2cats, 1 hubby. I would also plan little activites for the kids and then they'd flake out. And I'd also have a crying child. I see some people say they don't make a big deal out of it. That's fine and all but either way my child would be disappointed if the other child didn't show up. My child gets excited regardless if I have a little activity set up or not.

Now we just go to the park and my son will usually find someone to play with there. That's our "play dates", lol.

We never did playmates. We had kids come to the front door and asked my child if they could play. Sometimes my house sometimes the other kids house. Most times OUTSIDE! Life was casual unstructured and a lot more fun then.

I don't host many playdates-never have. I have a very small house and no basement or anywhere for the kids to play quietly. It drives me crazy to have kids running wild around the house. I only have them when someone else invites one of my kids over several times, and I feel like I absolutely have to reciprocate. But I don't enjoy it. It's more work for me.

I work full time so play dates are sort of impossible. And on the weekends, I have a LOT to get done. I could make a play date and drop her off somewhere but I want to spend time with her.

I fond that SAHMs do the most play dates.

I have 3 kids - 9, 7 and 4. Mostly, they play with each other. They get along fairly well but once you bring in another child, inevitably there will be problems with pairing up and excluding someone. We also live in a neighborhood with lots of children and I just prefer to send the kids outside to play with the neighborhood children. Every once in a while (maybe 2-3 times a month) we will have a playdate where we actually set up specific times and someone drives over and drops their kids off. Parents do not stay since the kids are older. Otherwise, it is all pretty informal as the kids just play with whatever children happen to be outside at the time. This is a much better arrangement for me- I generally do not want a bunch of children in the house, asking for food every 5 minutes!

We don't do play dates anymore. I have tried making play date arrangements in the past but other parents can be so flaky! I would go all out and buy little craft project materials & fun snacks for the play date and the parents would call & cancel at the last minute! It would REALLY tick me off because it happened a lot & with different people! I would set that time aside (I work FT so not a lot of free time) and they would flake out on us at the last minute without even an apology or explanation! My daugther would cry her eyes out too. I always suspected it was because something better came along so they would leave us without plans while they went and did something better.

Then one time a friends 5 yr old daughter came over uninvited (she lived nearby) to play with my daughter. She did this a lot! Always uninvited! Always hungry! I've known this friend since Kindergarten and we were BFF's for years. She failed to tell me that she no longer allows her daughter to have any type of sweets (that ended up being just a phase though). Well, my daughter asked her daughter if she would like a package of fruit chews and her daughter said yes. I got a message later that night on my answering machine from her mom who was SCREAMING and YELLING and RANTING and RAVING at me until the answering machine cut her off for my having given her daughter fruit chews! She said it ruined her appetite for dinner. Okay, I don't know how a package with 5-7 fruit chews would ruin her daughter's appetite esp. when her daughter was a big eater. And dinner was 2 hours later! My husband said no more, she is not allowed to come over anymore. We had other problems with her & her mom as well.

So now I just stick my daughter in after school activities of her choosing. Her school offers a lot of after school activities for a fee. She has a girl from her class also in the her same after school activity so they've became close friends as a result. This summer she'll be going to horse camp. This works out better for us!

I thought it was a waste of time since my sons were active in other areas of interest. Swimming lessons, t-ball...etc....Also they made plenty of friends at Day Care.

I don't do them. I have two kids and work full time there is no way on my days off I want to chase other peoples kids around. Not that they are older occasionally we will take a friends with us somewhere but not often.

I have 4 kids and the two youngest are boys 22 months apart, ages 6 & 8. We have play dates all the time. They have one set of friends where there are brothers the same age as them and that's the only family with whom they do play dates together. The rest of the time only one gets invited and it's no big deal.

I don't know how old your kids are, but it may get easier as they get older. For us, it's just a routine part of our after-school and weekend life. They get together with a friend at least once a week each, and my teenagers hang out with friends either at our house or someone else's house literally almost every day (certainly every Friday through Sunday, usually a day or two Monday through Thursday as well). I work FT but three days a week are at home, so that helps with enabling them to play after school. My husband also works 6-7 days a week and I have an evening and weekend business so it's a lot to juggle, but having a good network of playdate buddies actually helps out a lot because they can hang with a friend while I'm getting chores done or running errands.

I usually have lots of play dates for my kids. And my kids' friends, have siblings. So they ALL come over too. OR I will sometimes say that the play date is ONLY for one sibling, not all. And nothing is wrong with that. Not everyone wants to have a play date for their child, then have their friend bring over their 4 other kids too, into their home. And sometimes just one of my kids have a friend or friends over, and my other child does not. It depends. But my kids don't get upset about it. They know they each have their own play dates, OR it is all combined. But it is up to, me.
I don't want 20 kids in the house. I have often had maybe 10 kids in the house. But that is too much. It is only that much because- the friend of my children has Siblings... and so they tag along.

Anyway, I have not had play dates recently. Why?
Because I don't want to.
Why?
Because, I had a play date before and one of the kids broke something in my home. And the boy lied about it come to find out. He told the Mom he didn't do it. And the Mom believes her little boy, of course. Not me. Even if me/my son/my daughter, ALL saw her son do it plain as rain.
So I am a bit fed up, now, about having play dates.
...it seems that people who always Host play dates... are also taken for granted. Then when something happens, the guests don't own up to it and they do not reciprocate.

Anyway, not everyone wants a bunch of kids in their home.
Hence, they reason they do not have play dates.
Then, some people do host play dates often and they do not mind.
But it is an effort, on the Host's part, to have, play dates.

My kids have a lot of play dates, at other kid's homes or at our home, but not at our home recently.
And common sense is, that if it is inconvenient you say no.
All of the play dates I have hosted, with any number of kids, was done only by me and my Husband was not home.

I have two boys that are two years apart and we don't do a ton of playdates either. They play so well together and it is so convenient that I'm just kind of lazy to do it. Plus I don't have to worry about watching them like hawks because if they get hurt, they're my kids. And it is hard to do playdates during the week because we need to focus on getting homework done. Our weekends are our family time. If we do a playdate it will be on a Friday when I don't have to worry about that. I sometimes arrange outings with friends when the kids have a half day, then I don't have to have all the kids at my house.

I'm old school and we don't do playdates because we're just not that structured or formal. My daughter/grandkids pretty much played at home until they were old enough to go outside to play. At first, it was outside in the backyard. As they got older, they got to go out front. Once they were old enough to go out front, either a neighbor child would come knock and ask if they could play or vice versa. They pretty much play/played outside. When they did want to come in, I would just tell them to go tell the friend's parents that they would be in the house so the parent would know where to find them. It wasn't a scheduled play date.

The neighbor child's siblings would often times play with them outside and yes, when the kids wanted to come in, the sibling would come in also.

I agree that it's just too much to have all this formality just for kids to play.

I have an only child and we didn't do many..... she had classmates from all over Chicago because she attended a magnet school. It was really a hassle to drive 45 minutes each way for a 2 hour play date.

What DID work for me... and for a couple other single mom's that I knew with only kids was to trade out OVERNIGHTS once our kids were in Kindergarten. So we each knew we would have 1 night a month "off".

If you kids are socializing with each other (and are also able to play not as physically with other kids) I would say they don't need play dates. I don't see how old your boys are???? Sometimes playdates can be beneficial so they learn how to play "nice" with other kids, which is important for school.

We are quite luckly that many of my daughters friends also have younger siblings around or the same age as our son. So most of the time we take our kids over to a "play date" they both are invited.

Since I'm never home and my house is never in any order I tend to volunteer to be the one to take kids places instead of over to our house. Or am the one who stays at the park while the other parent goes and has free time...

When it's just one kid going we don't make a huge deal about it...we just simply tell the other than that at some point in their life they will get to go by themselves too.

I don't like the term "play date"...it's just to much. We help our friends and they help us...not organized play date. When the kids do come to our house I rarely have to entertain them. They do that themselves. Once in a while I have to referee the boys vs girls...but for the most part I can chill.

I use to find playdates an issue when the kid coming over had a sibling, who the mom assumed was invited also and that was not part of the deal. This is rude in my opinion to assume that this is ok and just bring the kid too. I have an only child, so she didn't care if 2 or 10 kids came over, the more the merrier for her. I don't understand why parents assume playdates are a package deal. If my kid is coming to your house then the sibling's involvement is obvious and expected, but don't bring the sibling too when I invite just your kid. If you have several kids of different ages then you should expect that they will not have the same friends and that you will have to play taxi for playdates..........until they start driving. LOL.

I have an only child so play dates were important for socialization. She was and is still good friends with a child who had a younger brother. It worked out fine. I never had an issue including the younger sibling. We would usually meet up at a park for the kids to run around and we would talk a bit. Sometimes we'd go to her house. But every bday both kids were invited. They are a packet deal. But then the mom stayed and we hung out and had coffee or just talked while the kids played

I don't really have anything against playdates, but we don't really do them. It seems.....formal or whatever. The only playdates we've ever had were when I wanted to spend more time with a lady from my Bible study (very beginning of our friendship, and we are very close now), and we found out her granddaughter, who she kept during the day, was friends with my son; they were in the same church class together. So I brought him along and they played while we made lunch and hung out. Now they're good friends and we are too, so is it a playdate, or just friends hanging out and swimming (or whatever we're doing)? I also was very good friends with a neighbor who had a daughter 1 day older than my son (and later had another child 5 months before my younger son) so it wasn't exactly playdates.....she'd come over and we'd hang out while the kids played, or we'd go for a walk to feed ducks or go to the zoo.....but it was fun, not a structured "play date". I've never had a play date with someone I wasn't already friends with. I guess the only other thing that may be considered as a play date would be when my son was 4 and made friends with a kid on his soccer team. My husband and I talked to his parents on the sideline during practice and games, they had a younger son 1 week older than our younger son. It was just a "hey, wanna meet up at the park Saturday?" kind of thing. Now we're all friends with each other, go on family outings or each others' parties, but not a formal thing. Those are the only play dates I've ever been to. There are other times where we have a membership to an indoor playground or go to storytime at the library....we tend to see people who have the same routine as us and go to those same things, and we may chat here and there, but no actual play dates. They have very active social lives, but it's more organic: I seem to have something in common with someone, so I hang with them, and we both have kids so the kids hang together too.

As for the neighborhood children where I'm not real friends with the parents, I don't mind them hanging out in my front yard as long as they're being nice, or playing around in my backyard, and my kids sometimes meet across the street to hang out over there instead, but we don't have their children come inside (it would require permission from us AND the other parents), and my children don't go inside either. That's their chance to be loud, play, and talk without parents all in their business. :)
At this moment, I can hear all the kids, they sound like a bunch of grackles all talking at the same time, it's kinda cute. My 2, the neighbor's 2, the lady across the street has 4, and there's a few from down the road that I've never met their families. There's scooters, bikes with training wheels, "big boy bikes", my youngest son's big wheel, and balls all bouncing around as they rotate around (across the street, my house, the neighbor's house). No formal date needed.

I do them rarely. I usually find is difficult to stop my routine, coordinate, and have my house ready to do them. But when I do my daughter gets so much out of it that I'm reminded to go ahead and schedule them now and then. But honestly its like 5 a year. We have other social activities on a regular basis so I don't feel too bad for having so few play dates.

We have three kids and we do playdates weekly. Its alot of work but I make it a priority for my kids. We don't do drop-offs yet. But we usually meet at someones house or we go to a park/play place.

LOVED playdates when my kids were young! My kids are almost 2 years apart and get along well, but they're siblings and will fight. Anytime I needed to get things done, I'd do playdates because it kept them occupied and they had fun. I had a girlfriend that we'd swap once/week (one would take the boys and the other the girls) so we could clean our houses.

I have an only and will gladly have them all at my house. I even provide transportation both ways if the kids get along great and the parents are nice. I understand the logistics.

I used to allow entire families to come over, but now only let those who I am actually friends with do this. I am not going to be a free babysitter for 3-5 kids while their M. has a childfree day. That is NOT worth it to me.

I had a woman tell me her girl BEGS to come to my house because I have an only but she has to find the sister a playdate or it is a problem.
She has since decided they can just play with kids in the neighborhood which means the girls see their friends at church or school, but not at home except special occasions. The parents are much happier now.