When I heard my toddler dragging her toy box from room to room, the toys slowly spilling on the ground, I knew summer in Arizona had officially set in. This is our version of “cabin fever,” too hot to go outside unless there is some kind of water involved, and staying inside makes everyone a little stir-crazy. With a few years of motherhood under my belt and my sanity in question, I started on a quest to cure hot weather boredom and discovered an excellent idea of playdates.
I initially thought my toddler was too young for playdates with other children her age. Not only was I (thankfully) wrong, but they are great for young children’s development. Through play, a child explores and makes sense of the world around her. Play impacts a child’s physical abilities, helps with vocabulary and problem-solving, and, when there are others around, shows them teamwork and empathy.
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Setting up playdates for your children to have fun can benefit both child and parent. I put together some tips to consider when seeking the perfect playdate.
1. Go outside the circle.
When choosing children you want your child to have a playtime experience with, try to go beyond the people they see regularly. While a familiar face is good, having your child play with kids they don’t see as often can be beneficial. This helps them establish friends of their own. You can use that to motivate your little one to clean up before friends come over.
2. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
I have two moms with very different parenting styles in my circle of friends. One is what I call a “walk it off mom.” She doesn’t let things get to her and takes a liberal approach to decisions and discipline. My other friend is much stricter and sticks to a consistent parenting plan. Both very different, both fine, of course. Every child is different, and we all have different parenting styles on how to feed, discipline and teach our children.
When finding friends for your little one to have playdates with, be open to personalities but conscious of how the children are parented. It’s okay to ask questions about different views on food or how they discipline themselves. Sometimes, you find the people you didn’t expect to have a connection with, parents similar to you and make playtime go much smoother.
3. Point out the rules.
I took my daughter to the house of a friend she met in preschool. They didn’t allow shoes to be worn inside their home, which did not sit well with my little girl. She could not concentrate on playing and needed to walk over to the front door every few minutes to ensure her shoes were still there.
Then she would yell, “Shoes here!” each time. Meeting different people for playdates at other locations gave me an excellent opportunity to talk about rules with my little girl. I was able to explain how rules are followed. Some rules are at our house, and others at different locations. This was an excellent set-up for learning rules at preschool.
4. Have fun, structure-ly.
Playdates can happen at any age as long as you plan accordingly. I remember when my baby was 8 months old, and I set up a time to meet with a friend and her baby. I and the other mom sat in the living room and placed the babies on the floor. We stared at the two littles for 15 minutes until I realized they didn’t know how to play. Mostly, they have always interacted with adults who brought toys and silly games to them.
So I got down on the floor, brought out some toys I knew they would want to look at, and proceeded to play. Once they got the hang of interacting, I stepped back a bit. Sometimes playdates happened with my toddler wrapped around my leg the whole time, and that’s ok. If you have some ideas on little art projects or specific games, they can play with toys, or if they are too little for those, just some specific favorite toys they can learn to share, your dates will have a better chance at fun.
Good luck, and most importantly, have some fun through play!
