Playdates

Playdates have always been hard. Think about it. How long do you suppose a 4-year-old's attention span is? 10 minutes? 5? Less? Yep, probably less. How about a 3-year-old? A kid who has seen just 24 cycles of the moon?

Historically, on a playdate, my boy and his "friend" may engage in parallel play, or even actual play with each other for a moment...then the attention span wanes (at least for the buddy) and off one of them goes...fast and probably down or up some stairs. Good luck with that, little boy who can't walk. Time to play alone again.

No malice or rudeness was ever involved. The 4- or 3- or 2-year old was just being a 2- or 3- or 4-year old. But, it sucked. It really, really, really sucked...for me that is. My boy didn't seem to really care. He's always been perfectly happy playing on his own.

Preschool recess was the same deal. It's impossible to count how many tiny pieces my heart disintegrated into when my boy told me "they don't want to play with me" when describing his classmates on the playground. Pure rage and abject sadness are apparently complimentary feelings.

It didn't help that my boy adopted a detached attitude about it all. He made no real effort to initiate play or change the status quo. He just played by himself. Frustrating for a father who wants his kid to be the center of everyone's universe (not just my own).

And, it created a chicken and egg problem. Were there no playmates who engaged with him for more than a few minutes because he acted like he just didn't care, or did he retreat into himself as a defense mechanism because he quickly learned that able-bodied kids his age would leave him behind? And, I harkened back to me at that age. I could (and did) play for hours on end alone up in my room with GI Joes, Star Wars toys, or superheroes. I was perfectly content.

Ah, the confusion and competing feelings emerge. As in much of this journey, it is hard to figure out what part of any action, attitude, or personality trait is due to the physical condition and which is just who the kid is.

So where are we now? As readers know from my last post, Kindergarten is going swimingly. But what of recess? What of playdates? Well, my boy's teacher reports that he's in surprisingly great shape at recess because there is a cadre of kids who want to play with him. That's pretty great. Still, my boy acts pretty nonplussed...even uninterested at times...but he is warming up to the attention.

But what of playdates you ask (remembering the title of this post)? Promising I reply, at least based on two very recent playdates with his best friend from Kindergarten. Hours of playing together, talking together, being friends together. That's pretty awesome.

I still don't know if all this fretting about playdates is really an issue for my boy, or just me projecting my worries and frustrations on him. Probably a fair mix of both and only time will tell how it will shake down.