How often do your middle schoolers hang with friends after school?

[Anonymous]

Not often for unstructured hang outs on week days

[Anonymous]

Mine has sports most days, but on free afternoons he’ll go to the library or skate park with friends after school, or to a friend’s house. As long as he tells me where he’s going and is home by 5, I’m fine with it.

[Anonymous]

2 of my kids hang out every day. The other one is more of a homebody and comes home. I think it’s great. Sometimes they bring friends home. Sometimes they go to someone else’s house. The only rule is they have to tel me where they are and be home by dinner/dark.

[Anonymous]

My DD, now in 7th grade, may hang out on occasion after school with a friend. She has sports practice 3x/week so she usually prefers to come home and get homework done and/or decompress on the other 2 days. However, she has a 20-minute radius from
our school and home (she walks to school on her own) she is able to go if she wants to hang out with kids from school. She just has to notify me. The general rule is that she needs to be home between 4:30 and 5:00pm.

Since we are walkable from her school, we also have an open door policy whereby kids may stop by after school. The few who do that generally have siblings with activities and stay for an hour to an hour and a half and then their parents pick them up from our house.

Our DD is not an extrovert, so socialization after school is not as intense as other kids we know. She seems to feel like participating in clubs and playing a sport are largely enough for her M-F but may get together with a friend or have a party or volunteer one day on the weekend.