Why Playdates Fill Me With Dread

Cheryl Barry - 14 Nov 17

Now that my kids are both at school, they have a busier social life than me.  Not a week goes by without at least one of them going to a friend’s house or having a friend over to our house for a playdate. And this is on top of the usual after school and weekend clubs.

Whilst playdates do have their good points like boosting confidence, increasing socialness (as well as getting extra child free time when mine are at a friend’s house), I can’t help but dread them and here’s why:

1) Showing Off

No doubt about it, when a school friend comes to play at our house, both my daughters transform into unknown characters. They act up, showing off. Their behaviour can range from mildly irritating – shouting, being bossy and running around the house over excited, to the downright unacceptable – usually involving fisti-cuffs with their sibling as they try and prevent them from playing with their new best friend.

2) Pressure

I can’t help it, but whenever a school friend comes over for tea, I get a little knot of panic in my stomach about what we are going to “do”. I think the pressure has built up after my girls have both been to several friends’ houses where a multitude of crafts, baking and festive activities have been laid on. I’ve somehow felt the need to reciprocate. God forbid any friends of my children go home complaining that our house is “boring”.  The only trouble is, I’m pretty crap at all the usual arts and crafts stuff so we often muddle through with free play and an occasional bit of cake making.  There’s also the pressure of making sure all the ingredients are on hand for a tea that the playdate approves with. I was severely told off on one occasion when I dared to let the tomato ketchup run out.

3) Behaviour 

We’ve mostly been lucky and had well-behaved children round to play. But there have been some horrors. There was the sulky child who only wanted to play with the i-Pad or watch T.V, there was the child that wanted to play with all my daughter’s toy but didn’t want to share, and there have been a couple of instances of sulks. I’m hoping the days of toddler tantrums are now behind us. But in fact, I can see a new issue arising – the precocious child, where six and seven year old girls talk to my eldest daughter about which clothes to wear,  who they’re “going out with” and had to “break up with” whilst my daughter looks on agog.

4) The Toilet

And so whilst my eldest daughter listens to chats about boys and the latest must-have fashions, my youngest daughter is still little enough to have friends over to play that aren’t quite used to using the toilet. Or getting to the toilet on time.  In the last few weeks, I’ve had to deal with two separate poo situations, one of which involved cleaning up carnage from the bathroom after my daughter and her friend had tried to deal with the situation themselves……It wasn’t pretty.

I might dread them, but I can’t see I’ll ever get away with stopping them completely. I guess the only way to cope, is to form more of my own playdates…. with plenty of wine!

A version of this post was first published on Cheryl’s blog – Tea or Wine. Cheryl is a Marketing Freelance Copywriter and you can follow her on Twitter.

Cheryl Barry

Cheryl Barry is mum to Alice, 6 and Eva 4. She is trying to grow her working life as a freelance marketing copywriter whilst juggling motherhood. She blogs mostly about these two different worlds and how they often collide at www.teaorwine.com and at Huff Post. Cheryl lives in Chelmsford, Essex. Follow her on Twitter at @cherylebarry

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