Snacks
Also we try to make our house the place where grownups hang out too. Everyone feels comfortable. We have a WFH parent so 99% of the time a parent is home, including directly after school. So i think other parents in the neighborhood feel more comfortable sending their kids to our house (we tell everyone to just cone over and knock).
Also, snacks.
This is tween though - who knows where we’ll be in a few years

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).

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

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

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.

Very uptight.
A borrowed jersey?? lol
This kid borrows a jersey, your son may borrow a sweatshirt when your son is at his house... it usually evens itself out.

You like to keep score, and I get that it costs you money, but kids cost money and accidents happen.
My kids friendships are more important than the money I spent on a few broken items (I imagine that the kid didn't intentionally break the headphones... accidents DO happen).

In 10 years from now, he'll never remember what his friend did wrong, but he'll probably remember you keeping score -- just like you did above.

Junk food.

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.

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).

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!

Talk to other people's kids like they are people. Ask them about their day, their interests. Follow their lead when they tell you a silly story, play along. Have a sense of joy about having them over. I'm not talking about being the "fun mom" from Mean Girls here. You're not trying to fit in with them, you are the parent in charge. But you are able to let them have fun, too. Pick your battles wisely. It's a balance.

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!

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.

Yep. We always had extra kids at the home. I loved it. Just make them feel welcome.

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.

My mom so desperately wanted to be the hang out house - but she was really uptight and had a lot of rules about messes. My friends teased me and called my house “the museum” because it was spotless and my mom would swoop in if anything got out of place or untidy. My mom was also around, in earshot, butting into conversations WAY too much and it made me really self conscious, like I couldn’t talk to my friends without her interjecting. She would also scold or nag me in front of my friends - so I just never had people over.

I am trying to cultivate the right balance of being present / aware so nothing dangerous happens, but not butting in or making my kids feel monitored or scared of getting in trouble for things like spilled drinks.