Many women who stay at home or work at home are participating in frequent play dates with another trusted mom and you should too! When you and your child participate in play dates, it’s a great opportunity for you to interact with another adult and a great opportunity for your child to learn to play with other children that are their same age. Once you have made the decision to participate in play dates, it is important to find the perfect mom to swap play dates with. Here are a few things you need to consider when looking for a play date swapping partner.
* Check out the person you are swapping play dates with if you don’t know them well. You can do criminal checks or ask them for references. Or you can casually ask other moms their thoughts. Personally, I have befriended the other women and visited their homes before allowing my children to hang out there. I can usually gauge a person pretty well and never had an issue doing that.
* Does this person have a clean and safe home? This is an important question to get an answer to if the play dates are occurring in their home. Do other moms swap playdates with them too?
* What kind of activities will this person be doing with your children? You want to make sure that its quality time spent and not just placing children in front of a TV all day long.
Once you have the answers to these questions you can make an informed decision on whether or not this person would make a great play date partner. Once you find a partner, start your play dates out on trial run basis and keep them short until you and your child adjust to them. After you and your child participate in a few play dates, you will know if this is the right partner to be participating with.
Exchanging play date time with another mom is a great way for you to get a break from the kids. It also helps your kids to learn to play with other children and helps them to learn that it’s okay to be away from mommy as she always comes back for them. Finding the right partner to be exchanging play dates with an important key to having successful play dates so take your time and check out the person you are considering partnering with.
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Play dates are great for socialization and interaction skills. It gives you and your child some separation, but there is a lot to think about. You are going to be trusting someone else with your child and even if you know there kids you want to make sure you know them, too. It’s even better when you can be friends with the people in your community or play date group. You make some great points to consider.
VERY important point you brought up – visiting the home first, and getting to know the mom before sending your child over there. You can pick up vibes with your “mom radar” pretty quickly like that. Excellent article!
When I was growing up it wasn’t called ‘play dates’ just going over to a friend’s house to play. This was 50 years ago and we lived in a small town where everybody knew everyone else.