Is yours the house the kids hang out at? How'd you get that to happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's about freedom and flexibility for sure. Kids never came to my house growing up because my mom is a control freak who made us seek approval for every little thing. Now we have kids in our house ALL THE TIME. They don't knock and don't ask to come over, they just do. They break all of our stuff (it's almost all boys in our neighborhood), eat all our food, and make a disaster of the house. You have to be accepting of those inconveniences. I know when I buy a new pool toy or basketball it won't last a week. It's part of the deal. DH is better at not worrying about the mess. Sometimes I have to hide in my room.

You're kidding right?

That kind of behavior is not acceptable anywhere you go.

Sad that your expectations are so low, what kind of animals are you raising there. I feel for your mom...

Nope, not kidding. The kids aren't animals, they're kids. They aren't breaking things or making a mess on purpose. They're just kids having fun. Which they're allowed to do at our home. Which is why they come over.

No need to feel sorry for my mom, she didn't want kids over and so they never were. I suppose stuff was more important.

I have teen boys who often have friends over and destructive behavior has never been the norm. WTF

[Anonymous]

NP. People are being so weird. Has anyone heard of "necessary but not sufficient?" Something close to that applies when it comes to what makes a great hangout house. Yes, you can do All The Things and still not end up the hangout house. But those things help or are even borderline necessary if you're going to have a chance. Note that no one here is like "we are really uptight people with white antique furniture who don't allow kids to come on short notice and never put out snacks, but we are still the hangout house!"

Nothing is a guarantee, these are just tips *being given to a person who requested tips*. Settle down, defensive people.

[Anonymous]

Are you out of your mind? Or living in some alternate reality where teens do not drink, smoke weed, and have sex left and right?
That is what it means to be the hangout house for teens!
Good luck with the lawsuits, cool mom!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have boys.
Air hockey, foosball, pool table, theatre room and some pinball/arcade games.
2 of every console with tons of TVs and a few vr sets.

Our yard sucks but for 8 months or so lots of kids over

Can you pleas share the logistics of using multiple consoles/TVs? I’d love to have several kids in one place to do some of the gaming they do together on xbox live or whatever, but I don’t know the best way to do it. Do you have a smaller tv that you move into the rec room? A couple of TVs on the wall like in the movies in news people’s offices? Thanks for any advice!

Im not the pp, but this is the one we got for our DS and he and his friends LOVE it.

For what you get it's surprisingly affordable. 😁

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079NNC2YQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_N79X5QJH7AC0SS225YP3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Sorry, I hit send too fast!.
That's the link for the desk, this is the monitor set up we got that divides into 4 screens.

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-z43-425-inch-4k-uhd-display

Thank you SO much for sharing this! I stupidly was only thinking of actual TVs, and the monitor setup is so much cleaner! Thank you for taking the time to share the link

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have boys.
Air hockey, foosball, pool table, theatre room and some pinball/arcade games.
2 of every console with tons of TVs and a few vr sets.

Our yard sucks but for 8 months or so lots of kids over

Can you pleas share the logistics of using multiple consoles/TVs? I’d love to have several kids in one place to do some of the gaming they do together on xbox live or whatever, but I don’t know the best way to do it. Do you have a smaller tv that you move into the rec room? A couple of TVs on the wall like in the movies in news people’s offices? Thanks for any advice!

We have a theatre room with an 86" TV wall mounted. on either side we have a 42" TV on simple black cordenzas (I think Ikea?). Then we just have an X-rocker gaming chair in front of each 42" display. We have on the ones with the speakers built in but you do not need that as most kids wear headphones to chat. Ours were young when we built out our gaming room and used the audio in the chairs but now no one uses it - so you can just get the chairs without the speakers built in (a lot cheaper).
Each 42" "station" has a switch, xbox and playtation. We use hard wires for network to the games so they do not suck wifi up of the house (switches are only wifi).

We routed one of each console through the stereo so they can play on the big screen when they do sports or whatever. You need to have powered HDMI splitters from the console to the smaller TV and to the big tv/receiver or else you get frames dropping/degradation. They are like $15.

The two gaming stations are far enough apart that they cannot easily see them (prevents screen sniping in shooter games) and do not interfere with the main big screen.

You have to be super organized - so buy color controllers so you know what goes to what (we have red controllers for one side and white for the other); also charging docks for all controllers.

We did have to add two more outlets on that wall or else we would have powerstrips plugged into powerstrips and a fire hazard.

Everything is relatively easy to maintain now that we have a color coded "set up". Before that was always a pain in the ass of "what goes to what system".

We easily have gotten our money back in enjoyment and safe/home enjoyment for the kids (and adults).

This sounds amazing! Thank you for sharing the details—I’ve been wondering about how to accomplish this setup forever and this is really helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry my house is not a playground.

Since one neighbor kid broke my son's gaming headphones, another one spilled juice on the carpet and one "borrowed" a sports Jersey I gave up on having a bunch of kids over.

I find disrespectful when kids come into our pantry and help themselves to our groceries/school snacks.

The good thing is as they gotten older they are more selective with their friendships.

For those parents who let their kids go other peoples' home for countless hours everyday, please teach them good manners when "hanging out" at other people's home.

Kids will not want to hangout at your house. You are too uptight.

I should let them destroy my house... ok got it!

I’m the person whose mom was too uptight for my house to be fun. It’s not about being absent or letting kids destroy your house - it’s how you react to the inevitable things that happen when kids get together. You can express displeasure, set boundaries, and hold kids accountable all while still making them feel welcome and not embarrassing your kid. I know because lots of friends’ parents figured it out - but mine never did and she is just as annoying at my kids (her grandkids’) parties and activities now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are little, but I want to plant the seeds of the desire to be at our house now. How did you become the house the kids want to be at?

Don’t be home and don’t parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you out of your mind? Or living in some alternate reality where teens do not drink, smoke weed, and have sex left and right?
That is what it means to be the hangout house for teens!
Good luck with the lawsuits, cool mom!

Disagree. You can still be the hangout house for clean activities. And yes, they will find the hang out houses for those other things, no denying that. Our house was the hang out house for most of middle school for our kids. But we did not let them knowingly drink or do anything illegal (as much as we could control) during high school because my husband owns a business in our community. They all come back now after they are 21 to hang with us. They understood then and now, (I think) that we were protecting our livelihood. So you can still be reasonable and be a hang out house.

Also, my 2 cents but I think the hang out houses ended up being houses with multiple kids, we had 4 or very welcoming. I think parents of multiple kids just end up being more laid back about many things because it's usually organized chaos haha. So you probably don't need to have a lot of kids or a huge house but have a fun house, with some structure and flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you out of your mind? Or living in some alternate reality where teens do not drink, smoke weed, and have sex left and right?
That is what it means to be the hangout house for teens!
Good luck with the lawsuits, cool mom!

Disagree. You can still be the hangout house for clean activities. And yes, they will find the hang out houses for those other things, no denying that. Our house was the hang out house for most of middle school for our kids. But we did not let them knowingly drink or do anything illegal (as much as we could control) during high school because my husband owns a business in our community. They all come back now after they are 21 to hang with us. They understood then and now, (I think) that we were protecting our livelihood. So you can still be reasonable and be a hang out house.

Also, my 2 cents but I think the hang out houses ended up being houses with multiple kids, we had 4 or very welcoming. I think parents of multiple kids just end up being more laid back about many things because it's usually organized chaos haha. So you probably don't need to have a lot of kids or a huge house but have a fun house, with some structure and flexibility.

Usually with 4 you tend not to parent and the kids run wild.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry my house is not a playground.

Since one neighbor kid broke my son's gaming headphones, another one spilled juice on the carpet and one "borrowed" a sports Jersey I gave up on having a bunch of kids over.

I find disrespectful when kids come into our pantry and help themselves to our groceries/school snacks.

The good thing is as they gotten older they are more selective with their friendships.

For those parents who let their kids go other peoples' home for countless hours everyday, please teach them good manners when "hanging out" at other people's home.

Kids will not want to hangout at your house. You are too uptight.

I should let them destroy my house... ok got it!

I feel like there’s a big difference between breaking expensive things and having some potato chips! One is the behavior of a brat (especially for teenagers—I don’t see that as being at all normal).

If you don't want them helping themselves, you offer them food. No one wants to hang out at the house where they aren't allowed food. Kids should wait till an adult says help yourself or the kid who lives there get the food. I wouldn't want my kid over a house that doesn't feed them. I am happy to feed everyone.

[Anonymous]

Basically, be rich with a big house.

[Anonymous]

The hangout houses when I was a kid were different than the party houses, which people went to on weekends. And none of the hangout houses were giant (maybe 2500 sq ft on the top end) but they did have parents who were warm, present but not hovering, and not controlling about snacks. All the posters saying their kids like to leave their house might want to take a hard look at their parenting styles. I left home in 9th grade and basically never returned. Sports, clubs, got a job, friends houses. I didn’t want to be home because my house was cold and my parents distant. I still hate visiting my parents house as an adult. No joy there.

[Anonymous]

I know this isn't the only factor, but as others have said, I recently learned that a lot of variety of accessible snacks and drinks is a huge draw.

On my last Costco run, I bought a ton of different sports drinks, bottled water, flavored sparking water, and yes soda. I also bought a ton of snacks, both relatively healthy and unhealthy, frozen stuff like burritos and individual pizzas. I put it all in the basement, along with a microwave. I have seen a marked increase in kids hanging out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:snacks and giving them (perceived) space.....and snacks....

Yup. Kept the snack bin full all the time. Kept the backdoor unlocked too, so anyone who was locked out after school or wanted to wander in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hangout houses when I was a kid were different than the party houses, which people went to on weekends. And none of the hangout houses were giant (maybe 2500 sq ft on the top end) but they did have parents who were warm, present but not hovering, and not controlling about snacks..

I agree with this. There are houses that kids will hang out during the week but these are different than the weekend/sports game party houses with parents who are never home. The hangout houses will also need a separate spot/room for the kids to hang out in (basement).