If your child is doing a reasonably-priced local activity (rec sport, music, camp), consider letting the parents of your child’s classmates and acquaintances know. The benefit is more involvement by more kids, which leads to building of friendships. An antidote to screens.

Especially let know new families about these activities. Yes, this may lead to your involvement in the activity to boost it to run well. Extending invitations to objectively wholesome activities demonstrates credibility that you care about community and common good.

You are sharing good news that you have discovered a good local cheap activity in case they’re interested. An invitation to dinner or church or play date builds on this base of trust.

Friendship development is more likely when children do outside activities with other children from their same gender of their grade at their school and who live nearby. So, encourage cheap local activities with this pool of other children.

Yes, many or all of these kids currently have issues (not kind, don’t know how to play, selfish, different interests). That is a good reason to cast the net wide. Most will mature and become civil. And some will even become friends who enjoy and initiate with your child.

But, casting your net infinitely wide—doing different children’s activities all over the driving area—without some attempt at coordination with school classmates is unlikely to result in the consistent steady development of friendships. Time spent together and proximity matter.

But initiating or inviting coordination with other parents is likely in the short-run to get you labeled as meddling, over-functioning, helicopter-parenting, nosy, interfering, controlling, and judgmental. This does not feel good. But these perceptions will reduce over time.

Maybe this sort of initiating social interactions is unthinkable to you. Contrary to your personality. You like 1-on-1 interaction and a best friend, not interacting in groups. Ok, but at least see the logic of the large funnel and affirm the initiators who stick their neck out.

Specifically for our family, I’m thinking about our 13, 10, 8 year-olds: rec soccer, basketball, baseball, ultimate, cross-country; scouts; swimming, band, school musical, church activities, day camps, bike rides, camping, lake paddleboarding, creek tubing, camping, games /cards.

Related to facilitating kids’ friendships is making one’s house fun: swimming pool, trampoline, zip line, slack line, pool table, ping pong table, air hockey table, foosball, basketball hoop. We only have Nerf blasters, Swurfer swing, 8-player Super Smash Bros Wii U, junk food.

Note: The above were tweets that I was trying to keep within a certain character limit–hence the lack of complete sentences.

Tweet thread:

https://twitter.com/AndyRowell/status/1023967142289592320

See also the quote:

Indeed, moving from acquaintance to casual friend typically takes around 50 hours of shared activities and everyday talk, and it can take more than 200 hours before someone becomes a best friend, according to a report in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/smarter-living/how-to-revive-a-friendship.html

See also:

How to Make Friends, According to Science

To begin, don’t dismiss the humble acquaintance.

• • BEN HEALY
  • AUG 1, 2018

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/565742/