Play groups?

I know here in austin there is a place called gymboree..
I think it is Kids gymboree.. or child gymboree something like that. But it is under toy stores in our yellow pages.
?? maybe you have one where you are?

I've always thought that scheduling play dates will really mess up your child. I mean when you make your kid's life so structured that his playing has to come at a certain time, he's gonna grow big, tall, and uptight. Let the boy have some fun, when he wants to.

Child of the Light--

Most toddlers I know have trouble using the telephone. Further, they aren't permitted to cross streets by themselves.

Pre-school play dates must be arranged by parents.

Don't patronize me Noddy24, the boy can have plenty of fun around the neighborhood with neighborhood children.

Child of Light--

Many neighborhoods don't have children.

Toddlers cannot play unsupervised.

DB--

This isn't public park weather--but spring is coming. Have you checked out Mom&Me activities at the "Y"?

Also check out: http://www.meetup.com/

Good luck.

My wife has put together a pretty good solution for our kindergardner. Twice a week, and on rotation, with four other moms from my sons class, the kids are all picked up by one of the moms and taken to that moms house for a couple hours of play.

All the moms get a couple hours of grown up time and the kids have a great time together.

We did mommy and me at our local "Y" untill we moved far enough away from the "Y" that the drive was too out of hand. That was pretty cool. Good for the kids and we even met some other parents that we are close friends with still.

I'm lucky - our neighborhood park is always crammed with kids so we never have to go far to find Mo someone to play with.

When the weather is terrible we go to the children's museum sometimes - another great place for improptu play.

We swim regularly and Mo has made some pals at the pool.

It helps to keep a fairly regular schedule for these activities so that you get to know the other parents and your kid gets to know the other kids.

We're thinking of zoo camp this summer too....

I don't care if the neighborhoods have children or not, Fascism doesn't seem a good solution.

Toddlers cannot play unsupervised? Why? Accidents and such? What's the number on child accident deaths? Like 1,000 or so a year, that's all, take a chance. God forbid we should let a child live without the fear of dying.

But if the neighborhoods don't have children, how does it work?

Kid lives in neighborhood without children. Then what? Since playdates are fascist, kid just never sees another child until kindergarten?

SurfFamily seems to have a good plan set up there. That would work well in a neighbourhood like mine, where children of a certain age are spread pretty thin.

Relative children, maybe meet some kids at the park, but it shouldn't be arranged by the parents. When parents arrange play dates they often times forget that black kids, or muslims, or a child in a gay household, could make good mates. This arrangement of children plants that superior/racist seed. Kids should be able to play when they want and with whom they want.

That is really one of the most absurd things I've ever read.

A child is just as likely to encounter the kid of a skinhead or a racist or a pervert or a psychopath or a numbskull or whatever as they are the kid of a gay parent or a Muslim or whatever at the park.

You had me there for a while, I'm not a big fan of scheduled "play dates" but really now, that last comment was just weird.

Yeah.

I think I see what you're saying, but it really doesn't work as neatly as you seem to think. My kid has zero relatives in the vicinity. In the winter, it's impossible to find kids at the park. There are places like the zoo and the science museum that are likely to have kids, and we go there -- but it costs a lot to go all the time, and more importantly, having continuous relationships are an important part of childhood. Not just seeing a kid once, then never seeing that kid again.

IF there is a neigborhood teeming with children, excellent! We were just saying earlier today that we wish more neighborhoods were like that, that it were more possible to shoo the kid out the door and be done with it.

But that ain't reality.

I know that when I was a child I had play dates. I HATED IT! My mother used to take me to her life long best friend's house so I could play with her child. My mom's best friend was an absolute angel, one of the best ladies I've ever met. But her son was an absolute dick. He was 2 years older than me and he used to beat the **** out of me. Bruises, broken nose, fingers, and arm. Just a small sample of what he did to me. I told my mom he was a douche but she just chalked it up to boys playing to rough(After the broken arm she stopped making play dates with him). 2 years ago he killed his mother...

Maybe my stance is a bit biased, but I can't help to feel intense hatred for play dates.

Well, that could instill bias.

(Killed his mother????)

Meanwhile, that seems to go against what you were saying -- wouldn't you have preferred that someone was watching and didn't let the broken nose, fingers and arm happen?

Genuinely sorry your mom wasn't that person... :-(

The 2 of them would sit inside and talk while the 2 of us played outside together. It started innocent enough, maybe a game of football or something, but it didn't take long for him to abandon the football and start being unnecessarily rough. Like I said, my mom just chalked it up to boys playing too rough.

And yeah, he killed his mother.

Daaaaaamn.

Well, I think most of us consider it our responsibility to not let something like that happen -- whether within a playdate situation or not.

At the very least, I can't imagine making my kid play with someone she actively didn't want to play with.

Stop trying to make this my mom's fault. Imagine if your closest friend, a friend you grew up with, went to all levels of school with, had a child roughly the same age as yours, are you gonna try to make them friends?

I probably should be slowly backing away from this one -- obviously feeling runs high, and entirely understandably.

I did just read that after the broken arm she stopped making playdates with him, hadn't noted that the first time. I was going by, "I told my mom he was a douche but she just chalked it up to boys playing to rough." It sounds like she finally figured out that this was serious, that's to her credit. Couldn't have been easy if it was her closest friend's kid. (Info you only gave in this last post...)