It's SPT day (I'll get round to taking and posting my portrait later - I'll be the one posing with the Gordons).
It has now been over three weeks since the Wee Guy had a playdate with one of his peers ..... and I haven't been able to arrange another one since then.
This is a major crisis in his life, and a depressing failure in mine since I am his de facto social secretary as he cannot drive, operate a telephone (for social reasons) or go out alone.
It's a heavy burden (and a loss of some valuable after-schoolcare resources).
He has some great younger playdates with whom he has awesome and spontaneous times (waves to O and X, waves to O and X's mums - you rock BTW!) but he also needs to interact with children his own age .... and that's where my sense of failure comes in.
yes, we even went to a shoe exhibition together
He and I have had some great excursions by ourselves, we can be good companions and will find something of interest for each of us to share. He needs the rough and tumble of social cues, the admiration and scorn of those his own age, and the ability to reach group decisions by discussion rather than by age advantage.
However, arranging these peer playdates means mum-to-mum interaction and his mum is failing big time. I may be old fashioned but this social secretary thing is supposed to be reciprocal, right? I arrange one play date then you get back to me with an invite? Well sister, it's not happening. What is it all about now he's of school-age - do I just give up - which is the in-crowd I should belong to so my child has friends to play with? I do wish someone would tell me.
I never felt a pressing need to be in the right crowd when I was at school but now I'm feeling the pressure to keep in there for my son. Whoa!
So I am a failure not for myself, but for the Wee Guy.
And this is making me sad.
4 comments:
Not a fail, just sounds like normal life flow - it's hard to find your tribe but you've just got to stick with it... no sense in trying to please random folks just for the sake of socializing. It always goes in waves - I'm sure you'll be overscheduled with playdates soon enough, and pretty soon Wee Guy will be so busy scheduling his own that you'll barely get to see him, so make the most of this time together now!
Since my kids are still young, I can get away with playdates that are all about me, with kids who are the children of my friends. I'm milking it while it lasts. I am really afraid of the prospect of arranging playdates with total strangers, I have to say.
Thanks Nathania, you've sounded a voice of reason out there. Too true, it'll be all too soon when I'm wondering where he is at all hours!
This stage is weird - the socialising is for the child, but the interactions are with the mummies. So there is still a bit of adult-to-adult interaction going on too. At some stage, as long as I'm happy with the family he's with, I'll be more hands off but right now I'm still at the 'check them out' stage of hand-delivering on the first playdate to take a peek. There are some mums/families I really would like to get to know more so I do try to influence him more towards them, and the ones I don't know are more difficult to initiate contact with.
As a side note, he's stopped berating me about the lack of playdates after school now. He's 'busy' over the summer so hopefully we can make new friendships/keep up with the old ones then start the whole thing off again for Grade 2 (groans!)
Thanks Amber, it's the transitions in parenting which really throw me - a definite design fault since parenting is all about weathering the transitions. I think I'm better at the transitions that involve him the Wee Guy, rather than those which are more my department ie. arranging playdates with strangers.
PS: It's not too bad, and they're not total strangers but they are 'new' - suddenly your child has a whole different life away from you that you know very little about, and that includes friends!
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