[bentt]

One technique that I think needs to come back into fashion, which was familiar to us Gen Xers, is to drag your kids along when socializing for you. Instead of prioritizing their play dates and sitting in the corner on our phones, we should be bringing the kids to our friend's house and they can wander around and be bored while we sit and talk as friends.

The problem we have as a parenting culture is that we're not comfortable ignoring our kids. We need to teach kids that ignoring them is not the same as not caring for them. In fact, they need to feel the sensation of not being the most important thing for once. It's better to get some attention from a happy parent than all of the attention of a sad parent.

[fy20]

Throughout her teenage years, my wife's father would drag her along to his bowling trainings and matches. A smokey dingy bowling alley with drunk middle aged men may not seem the best place to take a young teenage girl, but there were no issues.

If anything the opposite - the other men respected her more, because they knew she was her father's daughter. They would also have fatherly protective instincts towards her.

Now she plays bowling professionally herself.

[bentt]

Yeah my Dad used to take me to bars sometimes while he and a friend would sit and have some drinks. Not nice bars, real dives! I loved it.

[dottjt]

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I generally hated being dragged to the friends houses of my parents. It was just needlessly boring.

On the contrary, it sometimes was okay if that friend had children. I think the issue in the modern day however, is that less people are having children, so there simply isn't the opportunity. For example, I'm the only person in my friend group who has children.

[hollerith]

Interesting. Did you also hate it when your parents hosted a party for adults in your home?

[em-bee]

that's different. in my home i can disappear into my room and keep myself busy there. when at another place i have to behave, i can't go run around and explore (unless they have a garden and kids are allowed to go outside)

as a parent i would not drag my kids to a place unless there are other kids or i know there is something interesting for them.

but right on topic, the solution is to not live alone with your kids. we are in a multifamily compound where other families have children too, and there is no problem for some of the adults to go out while others stay back and make sure the kids are safe. (they are not providing entertainment but someone is always around should something happen).

this of course is only possible because i did connect to the neighbors. or rather, they connected to us. i always wanted to live in a place like that, but finding this one was pure serendipity. we weren't actually looking. it just happened that the neighbors turned out that way.

[jddj]

Just a 'temporary boredom as a child is/was pretty normal' datapoint, I remember sometimes falling asleep at the table in the restaurant out of sheer boredom while the adults finished chatting. I don't harbour any resentment for that, and I completely understand that they needed to hang out once in a while.

[SamBam]

Honestly there's a lot of value in kids experiencing some boredom.

[em-bee]

yes, but i needs to be boredom in an environment/situation where they can do something about it. being forced to sit still and be quiet in a foreign house while the adults have fun is not it.

[dottjt]

I mean, that's probably a different dynamic. I didn't have to interact with the adults in that scenario, I could just be alone in my room.

To be fair, I think I was just a shy child/teenager. I didn't really feel comfortable talking, it's more I'd just sit and listen. In the back of my mind, all I really wanted to do was watch TV or playing videos, and often what would happen is I would just sit in front of their TV.

That's not to say that their friends weren't interesting people. It's just more, as a child I didn't really feel like I could directly interact.

[dwayne_dibley]

That’s true, I regularly remember going to pubs, friends houses and sporting events that I was far to young to be at, but was just there because my parents where doing a thing.

[noisy_boy]

My mum used to do this - I loved going to various places because either there were kids there to play with OR they had something that I found interesting. For example, one of the places had a 12-inch very detailed sculpture of a prawn which I found very intriguing. Some of the places had lots of books which I loved to raid. And there were always snacks.

[queenkjuul]

Yeah I used to hang out with my friends while their kids were around, it was fun to get to know their kids honestly, and if we were lucky we could get the kids to bed and then have a drink on the porch before calling it a night.