[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.

[taormina]

I mean, as much as the modern world wants to convince you to revolve your life around making your kid comfortable at every moment of the day, this is actually a super important life skill and you need your kid to develop 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.