Reply to S/O How important do you think playdates are?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We do play dates but I don’t love it, because they are hard to schedule, 50% of the time someone cancels due to illness or whatever, and also [b]the families in our circle expect elaborate multi-hour play dates with structured activities whereas I’d prefer just a two hour play date drop off exchange.[/b] But we soldier on because I think they’re important. I’d much much rather have a strong neighborhood community where kids can just go over each others houses without all the scheduling. Sadly even though we moved to a suburban neighborhood for this reason in part, I never ever see any of the kids playing outside. I think they’re all inside on screens or scheduled activities. It’s really too bad.[/quote]

OP here and the bolded above is why I find them stressful. I have tried to move towards to more chill version of playdates but you can tell parents (and now kids) expect something more organized. It's standard where I live for playdates to involve a craft activity (with take home craft) and either a meal or an elaborate snack. I find this stressful whether I'm hosting or not, because my kid is also a very picky eater who especially struggles to eat in other people's homes.[/quote]

Where do you live?  That is interesting.

I’m in an UMC area in NoVa and this is not an expectation at all.[/quote]

We're in DC. I do think this gets better when kids are older? But more than once I've had other parents act weird if they drop off or pick up kids and my response to "what's the plan?" or "what did you do?" is "oh just playing." But I also think we are more hands off or have a more independent kid than others? I don't know. When she does play dates at other houses, the parents usually do activities with the kids and it's more hands on. This was really surprising to me after preschool age.[/quote]

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