1. On a note from the birthday party question, are there any criteria you have for parent friends? Any “no-go” kinda of things? 2. Do you engage in social engineering on behalf of your kids?
1. No real criteria in advance for parent friends, but I'm kind of done trying to make friendships work out so that my kids can have friends. DD1 is old enough that I don't have to be around for play dates. There's one kid in her class that is a total sweetheart and I'm trying to encourage that friendship despite her dad being a total ahole.
2. Absolutely. Not to increase their popularity, but if I think someone is a problem, I will range from subtly discouraging the friendship to outright banning any play dates or socialization outside of school. Luckily this hasn't been an issue at the new school. But I totally did it at the old school.
1. They have to be laid back, not super uptight. We enjoy things like sitting around a fire, having a couple of drinks, watching the game, barbeques etc. Preferably they are into the same things we are. Lately, we have talked about needing friends that are a little more laid back and like to wrap it up early. Currently some of our friends still drink like they are in college and feel it is a badge of honor to stay out until 2 am.
2. To some degree. I definite discourage some friends based on behavior. I signed DD up for a winter volleyball league just so she will meet some friends before high school .
1. We don’t hang out with people who are very conservative. Conservative is okay. Crazy conservative is just a no go. Like there is a couple we really like in a lot of ways. But on the back of their car is a bumper sticker that says something like “Christians cannot belong to the Anti-God Democrat Party.” They are officially out.
Also anyone who cancels multiple times on us. I tend to have a little social anxiety. I think DD does too. I don’t need to worry we are being shunned or rejected. Just nope.
2 Not really. I do talk about good friends and how good friends act. And how they don’t. There’s a little girl I kind of guide DD away from. She’s stolen money at school, told really scary stories like there’s a bloody ghost in the bathroom who will kill you if you go in there, and recently wrote a note to a little boy that said “I love you” and signed DD’s name. The boy is the same one she stole money from, and DD doesn’t like him. In fact, DD doesn’t even consider him her friend because he’s been pretty mean to her in the past. This recent note feels like bullying to me. She’s really setting out to hurt his feelings, and that’s just wrong. So while I told DD how I felt about that behavior, I didn’t say, “You shouldn’t be friends with this girl” or “I don’t want you hanging around this girl.”
1. On a note from the birthday party question, are there any criteria you have for parent friends? Any “no-go” kinda of things? 2. Do you engage in social engineering on behalf of your kids?
1. We have one family we’re friends with that we had to put huge qualifiers on - they don’t come to our house and we don’t go out with them in public unless it’s a 100% kid oriented place. I know it’s a shocker, but we don’t see them that often.
2. We haven’t had much of a reason to so far. When she started JrK, I requested she be separated from two of the “mean” girls (as described by her teacher), and daycare had already had a few of those requests. We lucked out when kinder started - one of those girls goes to the same school, but they’re in different classes. They’re in aftercare together, but I don’t think they play all that much together. If they do, I don’t hear about it.
Post by HeartofCheese on Nov 6, 2018 10:52:14 GMT -5
1. None except that I want a response to an invite right away, not the day of or the day before. You need to cancel last minute for a legit reason? Ok. Better to do that than to obviously just be waiting until you know if you "feel" like going.
2. I'll try to shelter my kids a little from mean kids, but that's it.
1. I don't do overly religious people. I also avoid SAH moms. They only seem to want to get together during the week while I am at work.
2. Uh no. I am really bad at this and my kids are 3 and 4 months. I have arranged play dates with kids that he has asked to have play dates with, but that is it.
1. Not really. I run into more people that are too busy or not interested. It's hard to get together with people so the kids can play if they just don't care about getting the kids together. In this case, I am not really so interested in the parents as helping my son form friendships. Also I am realizing the friendships right now are changing every year with the class, so trying to figure out how to keep their old friends while seeing new friends.
For example, like I said earlier one parent never texted me back. Ok I can take the hint. Then I saw her in person, and she was like let me know when you are free. No that isn't how this works, I ask you- you respond. Don't make me text you 15 times letting you know when I am free so that you can not respond. So I put it back on her with a gentle let me know. Anyway, obviously it's an example of she kind of wants to want it but she doesn't actually, so she doesn't want to actually do anything. So I guess reciprocity and being easy to make plans with.
2. No. I'm really not that good at it. I have tried and failed with the playdates, so I am taking a step back until after the holidays. Our friends have it set up that all their kids are in clubs together and sports, and I thought wow that is great social engineering, I should learn from that. But we also said this togetherness is going to show cracks at some point in time, and based on what one dad was saying at Halloween it sounds like it already is, and they are starting to go their separate ways. So while I feel bad being friendly but not going all in, we are glad to be out of the drama when it breaks down. So if it works for us we join activities, if it doesn't it doesn't. I just wanted to help DS since DH said he didn't have many friends, and I saw friends every weekend. But the caveat on that was just because it was one family and the older sisters were friends, so I guess my situation is special and his is more the norm. My guess is playdates are really only with 1-2 families/ friends at the end of the day. So that is another reason I am not going to push it for now and keep waiting for it to happen organically for DS.
I did have DS start being pen pals with a cousin and now a friend from another online group. So we are both excited about that.
1. not really. I'm also not really trying very hard right now because no one seems to be clicking even in general terms.
2. Yes and no. I won't let DD play with the neighbor kids who as toddlers ran the neighborhood and went door to door asking for money for food (they are the same age as DD). We've also called the cops on that family multiple times so not the kind of people I want DD around. DD and I don't have a ton of free time so playdates are few and far between and so far her friends family seem to be the same way. I've asked for DD to be in opposites classes from N who tormented her all of K most of 1st and now in 2nd is finally in a separate class and is leaving DD alone.
I can’t do social climbers. That’s my one big no vote. Some people I just don’t enjoy, and that is what it is and isn’t for any reason specifically.
I absolutely block dangerous or cruel kids ability to access my kids. I’ll give several chances but then I draw a line. The kids next door are vulgar and mean and their mom thinks they are sweet and kind hearted. After they told DS they can make Bloody Mary appear in his room from their house (after telling him the story in the first place), tried to convince him that catching and cutting the skin off rabbits and watching them die would be fun (he was disturbed), pinned him to a tree and poked him in the face yelling “you’re stupid”....I could go on...I stopped allowing them here or DS there. I really tried but our sitter and my oldest were both vehemently opposed.
I’ll note that there’s some overlap between social climber parents and manipulative and cruel kids. It’s fascinating.
1. Not really. We are pretty friendly with everyone but have such limited time that we don’t have social visits with parent friends, or really any friends regularly. I wish we had more time for this as I really enjoy it.
2. Not really. We do encourage him to be nice to others and play with nice kids and stay away from bullies. But he seems to do pretty well on his own. If something has bothered him we talk about it and how x made a bad choice and if they always make bad choices they aren’t a good friend. And you have tons of friends so play with someone else.
Post by covergirl82 on Nov 6, 2018 12:39:39 GMT -5
1. I am an introvert, so I tend not to seek a lot of parent friends out, lol. If I wanted to be close friends with someone, I'd tend to look for people who have common interests and perspectives. As an example of a "no-go" parent friend, I could not be friends with someone who is a proclaimed Satanist.
2. At my kids' age, I'm not fully able to engineer friendships, but we still talk about what makes a good friend, and I definitely encourage my kids to grow friendships with kids who are kind, etc., and discourage friendships with kids who have exhibited behaviors that concern me. I am more concerned about DD because of girls in general. We had to have a serious talk with DD after the neighbor girl (about a year older than DD) came over a month or so ago and went into DS's room, went through some of his drawers, and used a whole cartridge of Instax film. DH and I have discouraged that friendship since then.
Post by ilovelucyvv on Nov 6, 2018 13:35:18 GMT -5
1. I think a huge income disparage would be hard, in either direction. Realistically it would be harder for me to find stuff in common with SAHM just because our lives are especially crazy right now.
2. Not yet but maybe someday... especially if i viewed the kid to be a bad influence or too bratty/entitled.
1. I feel like our parenting styles have to kind of line up. Otherwise it just makes hanging out difficult. Also cannot handle super conservative families, that doesn't mesh well with my beliefs and I'm not quiet about politics in our house. 2. Yup, definitely. I stopped making playdates and actively avoided a kid from daycare once we moved on to elementary school. She's a spoiled brat, her dad refused to ever say no to anything, and it made playdates miserable. She was always throwing a fit about something and it made my kids start to act up too. Not happening. We don't tantrum in our family and I wasn't about to let that start because of a bad example.
1. I don't go out of my way to make parent friends anymore. I have a great group - no drama, always willing to step in when one of us needs help, always up for a beer - and I don't need more friends.
2. I don't engineer friendships but I do discourage them sometimes.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”