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How often do your kids hang out with friends?



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amother
Saddlebrown


 

Post Sun, Sep 04 2016, 4:21 pm
We live in a very small community. My kids' grades have about 8 kids (co-ed). However they don't click with every kid in their grade. As a result they each have about 2-3 friends. Life is busy so each friend is not always around and, in addition, my kids don't want to be always with the same 2 kids.

My kids are lonely and bored most shabbosim and Sundays. This summer was torture. Every shabbos is torture. They're so fed up with being just with one another and few other friends.

All that said, my husband thinks that there's nothing wrong with 8 kids in a grade and we should just encourage them to play with kids in other grades. But that hasn't worked, I can't just somehow make these friends for my kids.

Out of curiosity, how often do your kids see other children? My husband isn't around on the weekend a lot and the days are so long and open-ended ....maybe kids in normal sized communities don't even do many playdates?
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flowerpower




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 04 2016, 5:03 pm
My boys hang out with the same 1-2 boys .. They go bike riding together etc... My girls play with neighbors on weekends. Not with classmates. My dd has one classmate she goes to for playdates but very rarely.
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amother
Smokey


 

Post Sun, Sep 04 2016, 6:14 pm
My kids hang out with a group of several kids from their grade in school. The grade consists of about 75 kids. They see them on weekends and Shabbos all the time and one or two times a week. I used to live in a small community and I think it is really hard on the kids socially. There were not enough selection of kids to play with.
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amother
Saddlebrown


 

Post Sun, Sep 04 2016, 9:38 pm
flowerpower wrote:
My boys hang out with the same 1-2 boys .. They go bike riding together etc... My girls play with neighbors on weekends. Not with classmates. My dd has one classmate she goes to for playdates but very rarely.


When you live way OOT, the only frum neighbors are the same few classmates....we've tried non frum neighbors but it wasn't so easy - I tried extra curricular stuff but the friendships never took off....

Feeling so depressed about this - my own loneliness is bad enough but its painful to see it in your own kids. My husband thinks they're just introverted but how are they supposed to have group of friends when there are so few around??
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amother
Scarlet


 

Post Sun, Sep 04 2016, 10:17 pm
I don't have the same situation as you, but I was a bit of a lonely child growing up so I wanted to chime in.

I grew up in a neighborhood with very few girls exactly my age, so I did have somewhat to do with the girls older and younger than me. They had their own friends from school though, so we hung out together more when our families were together rather than making specific plans to see each other. I had classmates who were too far to walk to on shabbos, but we had a lot of sleepovers when I was old enough.

Now I live in a large community and my school aged child has 20 girls in her class and 2 other classes in her grade. A handful of her classmates live within walking distance on shabbos and I try to arrange play dates for her every shabbos that we are home. There are other girls her age in shul who attend different schools or who have always been in a different class then her and she never got to know that well. Out shul can be overwhelmingly crowded and my daughter always refused to go to groups so she had never really had a chance to get to know the other girls her age until recently.

We had a family move into the neighborhood in the middle of the school year and they wanted their children to get to know the other kids their age even though they were keeping them in their old schools. So they arranged a kind of round robin thing they called Sunday Funday with a group of kids from the neighborhood from all the different schools. Each family took turns hosting and doing a project and providing a snack. It was a great way for the kids to get acquainted and much cheaper than Sunday courses like gymnastics or drama or ceramics or whatever.

Maybe you could do something similar but include an age range of 2-3 years. You don't want too big a group so that it's not overwhelming to host but you don't want too small a group so that you don't have to host once a month.

By the way, I specifically mentioned shabbos play dates because once kids have homework there doesn't seem to be time for after school play dates. Sundays we usually do something as a family (well, once the Sunday Funday is over, but that's a morning thing) so playing with friends is not usually on the agenda. The only times my daughter sees her non neighborhood school friends outside of school are birthday parties and when she has non yom tov days off and is bored.
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cm




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 04 2016, 11:04 pm
Our community is larger than yours, but not by all that much.

Some kids are more social than others, but most seem to have a core group of a few friends. Depending on age and stage, the kids hang out in the park on Shabbat afternoon, or at each other's houses, or with their families (no, they don't always have social plans with peers every single week). Friendships are not strictly by grade, but usually are within a year or two.

Almost all children from age three through high school are in camp, working in camp or involved in some other kind of program over the summer, so play dates are not an issue except on Shabbat. Similarly, there are almost no weeknight social plans during the school year. The kids get home in time to eat dinner, do homework and go to bed. Sunday is family day for most, although sometimes kids do things together (or with a friend's family), or some of the time may be spent with an organized club.

It might help on Shabbat to organize the afternoon a little bit, and schedule a time, perhaps after your own nap, when you will have a family activity. The kids can take turns choosing a game for all to play (including you). Board game, card game, charades, a non-competitive activity, whatever they want. Yes, you are tired and your husband may not be home, but it helps to give the kids some structure and something to look forward to. Your adult involvement will help develop your relationship while having an opportunity to show them how to channel their frustration into a positive experience.

No, you cannot dictate friendships, but you can help create opportunities for the children to find friends. You say this didn't "take off" before, but you never know when something will work out, especially as the kids mature. A youth group (whether independent or a chapter of a large organization) affiliated with your shul, school or community might be a great way for the kids to make friends with others not in their class or grade. Similarly, sports teams or other extra-curricular activities which attract the kids based on common interests rather than age/grade may be helpful.
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freedomseek




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 04 2016, 11:43 pm
Maybe it's your loneliness that rubbing off on them.
Enjoy yourself! Enjoy each other!
My kids are not that often with friends. We try to enrich their own personal lives. The computer has endless opportunities there for them.
Hobbies, art, music, and so on.
Friends are not ones life..
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amother
Khaki


 

Post Mon, Sep 05 2016, 7:49 am
I encourage my children to hang out with their friends, some do and some don't. To each its own!
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amother
Saddlebrown


 

Post Mon, Sep 05 2016, 9:37 am
amother wrote:
I don't have the same situation as you, but I was a bit of a lonely child growing up so I wanted to chime in.

......

Maybe you could do something similar but include an age range of 2-3 years. You don't want too big a group so that it's not overwhelming to host but you don't want too small a group so that you don't have to host once a month.




This is an interesting idea - thanks for sharing it
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Sep 10 2016, 4:16 pm
Sometimes it's every shabbes, we live in front of a park, they spot friends or other frum kids. Sometimes not at all for months.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Sep 10 2016, 10:58 pm
I grew up in a small community and the groups of friends included kids older and younger. I don't think anyone ever deliberately set us up that way, but when there were group gatherings or school activities that involved more than one grade that encouraged us to get to know each other and friendships formed. There was Bnos on Shabbos and sometimes Sunday programs that mixed grades. And there's also geography - my immediate area of the neighborhood included 2 other kids from my grade and 3 from the grade right older, so we tended to see each other around more, walk to school together, etc.

Generally once you hit the middle grades of school there's not that much time for getting together on weekdays. You make a point of getting together with partners on school projects. It's basically just Shabbos and Sunday. We had Shabbos groups in the neighborhood for all ages, but Sunday petered out at some point. I don't know what other people do but since we're busy the whole week that's the only time to do anything as a family. Don't think I do weekly idyllic family outings, I mean things like clothes or shoe shopping that you need to shlep the kids to. Sometimes getting together with cousins who live close enough to spend Sunday with but not close enough to see any other time. Things like that. I think it was similar when I was a kid.
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