Making friends with other parents through school

[Anonymous]

The people I know who are super close with other parents from school have kids at the same school, but also live in our same neighborhood and go to our same pool. Their kids may also do other sports throughout the year together (started at rec and moved to the same travel teams together over time). People who join their clique are those already friends with someone in it who move into the neighborhood. These people absolutely do things like vacation together and are BFFs - not sure some of their kids are even really friends any more outside of the family groupings.

But if people aren't thrown together in 3 or 4 different ways like that and really discover they like each other, I haven't seen it happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some good advice here but also don’t be discouraged if things don’t go the same way for you. I tried for years to make friends in all the ways people advise:

New moms group
Moms fitness class
Going to school moms social nights
Seeing the same people at various kid sports practices and games

None of this worked for me because the larger groups (like going to a meetup of 30 moms of 1st graders) didn’t really allow me to make new friends beyond chatting with some people mixer-style. I do better just focusing on one or two people that I already seem to click with. Sports practices and games didn’t work for me because all the other families already seemed to know each other.

I am still working on friendships and what’s worked best is arranging smallish play dates and seeing whether I seem to connect with any of the moms. This doesn’t always work because lots of play dates end up being drop off. I also accept ALL invites to neighbor and small group get togethers, even if I really don’t want to go. Sometimes running into the same people over and over again at smaller get together can lead to more friendliness.

It's been said so far in various ways, but I truly think the key to making friends (even just casual "hang-out friends") if you are new to an area and your kids are already ES-age is INVITING, INVITING, INVITING. You're not going to get far enough with just being lovely and friendly at school and sports events because so many other people in this stage are not really actively looking to make friends anymore. So even if you had a great convo with someone they are likely not going to text you the next day to meet up. YOU need to be the one to do that...playdates, hosting parties, get togethers, BBQs or whatevers, inviting someone out for coffee, lunch, to take a walk, go to a fitness class or other interesting event, concert, lecture (seriously whatever!!), being the parent that organizes fun events for the team, and on and on. It can be exhausting, and only a fraction of it all will lead to friendships, but I truly think this is what it takes if you're the new family at this stage.

Yes! Invite, invite, invite. Find others who are transplants/ didn't grow up there and have family nearby. DH is very extroverted so fortunately does a lot of the heavy lifting of friend-finding, but in many families, the wife is the one to coordinate with, so that falls on me. I am relatively introverted/socially anxious but with lots of practice I have gotten used to putting myself out there. I remind myself, who cares if someone thinks it's weird I've invited them to something three times, after they said no the first two times? We have made some great friends by just extending that third invitation. We have always found it easier to find adult friends with kids first, then get the kids together. In part, that is because annoying adults are a lot more annoying than annoying kids (who usually grow out of the phase if their parents are nice). That is also partially a function of living in a very mixed area (politically, educationally, demographically, economically) - if dc makes a friend in Kindergarten whose dad is in prison, that will likely not lead to an adult / family friendship.

We have a pool, and pretty much invite someone over every week over the summer. Before we put the pool in, we had lots of backyard games, slack line and would cookout and just invite people we liked even if we had only met them once or knew them from work. We always have a big Christmas party with 35+ people - I basically invite everyone we've crossed paths with that year who seems nice and has either no kids OR kids in our kids' age range. We always host an Easter egg hunt and brunch. I know you said you don't like the large groups, but once someone comes to our Christmas or Easter party, and they get a green light from our kids, I feel less awkward inviting them to do something family-family or 1 on 1. I always host a birthday party for DH - pickleball, paintball, something like that- and again invite people I've met even just briefly at someone else's event. Any kind of activities / hobbies (pickleball, golf, movie club, dinner club, book club) you may be into - just invite people, and then if they say no - invite them again to something else. It will take a few asks to learn whether a response, "we would love to but we have soccer!" is a polite excuse or a sincere wish to hang out.

We have been in our current city for 7 years, and many of our friends' kids have become like quasi-cousins for my kids. They are not necessarily who they would pick in school, which is almost easier, since friendships will change, but we are all so close and comfortable with each other now. I do not have great social skills, so I don't know how one goes about finding that close mom friend without doing all the intentional group socializing first and then from there finding the people who are looking for deeper friendships. I have never made friends on the PTA, at sports practice, with the class moms - those have always just been cordial acquaintances.