Play Date Anxiety

Before I had kids, I had this idealistic image of what a play date looks like. I envisioned kids calmly playing together while the moms (or dads) stood around the kitchen, almond lattes in hand, discussing current events. If you have kids or have witnessed a play date…the scene I painted above is furthest from reality. (If it’s your reality, then congratulations and please don’t ever invite us as we will ruin it in 0.8 seconds). 

My child is the one who likes to play on her own. She gets lost in her imagination and doesn’t realize anyone else is there (or isn’t). When I have brought this up, some sanctimommies were quick to label her as an introvert and push on me that I needed to bring her out to change this. She isn’t really an introvert though. And I don’t like putting labels on children. 

She loves to put on talent shows for us (and for strangers in line behind us at Chipotle). She will talk to the person checking us out at Target/Costco/wherever and learn all sorts of things about him/her and disclose all sorts of things about herself (or me!). She asks to play with her friends (maybe a handful of people) and will spend quality time with them when she sees them. We tend to spend a lot of time with those people as the drama and anxiety levels are low all around. There are dozens of examples as to how she isn’t necessarily an introvert. 

But at the same time, it doesn’t change that sometimes play dates really suck for us. Here is a round up of some low points in our history of play dates:

• When my daughter was barely two years old and pulled the end of a table runner which just so happened to be full of coffee cups. Let’s just say coffee spilled everywhere and on everyone. We weren’t invited back. 
• The time she took her friend’s piggy bank and fed a bunch of the coins into this plastic toy BBQ and we couldn’t get them out. 
• The sand throwing debacle. 
• The time she didn’t want to play with someone who was a little rougher and would yell at her so she retreated and played on her own. Then the other child’s mom kept apologizing to her kid for mine not wanting to play. Over and over and over again. 

In the beginning I would force play dates on her thinking she just had to become more accustomed to them, to other kids. But the amount of anxiety for both of us leading to the play date, just wasn’t worth it. It was such a big concern for me until her preschool teacher told me something that just made sense. She said that one day I would want her to follow her gut when it came to friendships and who she should or shouldn’t hang around with. That in a way she was developing this gut check now at the ripe age of three. It was at that teacher conference that I had my my “aha” moment. It wasn’t like there were any shady 3-year-olds that I had to be concerned about being a bad influence. It was that she was exploring her own comfort zones. And I had to respect that.

I still don’t know if that is the right thing to do…or if I’m causing all sorts of issues for her to discuss in therapy years from now. The only thing I ask of her is to be inclusionary of all people and never make another child feel excluded. However, if it’s a one on one play date and she doesn’t feel comfortable, I don’t push it. It seems to work for us right now. 

What would you do?

With love,

Shahla