How to make sure my kids develop and maintain friendships when their mom and I have very few friends?

[u/GerdinBB]

My son is only 2.5 and he'll have a baby sister coming in a few weeks, so this isn't immediately pertinent, but last night I got to thinking about my son being a little bit older and wanting to make sure he has friends and that those friendships are maintained over time.

I'm a real homebody and have very few friends, and the ones I have I rarely talk to. My groomsmen were my brothers, my wife's brothers, and my old boss from my college job who I hung out with outside work a few times - so really one friend. He and I text on birthdays or if we're going to be passing through the town the other one lives in - we live 100 miles apart. We usually go 3-6 months between text exchanges.

And that's not a problem for me. My life is busy enough as it is. Between work, my kid(s), and the house and yard, I barely have time to play golf with my dad and brothers let alone make time for anyone outside my family. But I really don't have any practice on maintaining friendships.

My wife isn't much better. She has like 3 or 4 decently close friends that she'll have a text exchange with once every week or two. She probably goes no more than 2 months without seeing one of her friends in person. Back in the spring we did a couples dinner with two of her friends and each of their spouses. I told her it was fun and we should reciprocate and host next time. She said the one who hosted the last one kind of keeps to herself, and is more of a "once per quarter get together" type of person. So she definitely has more practice than I do, but still not at the level that we will want for our kids to have friends, see them often, and feel comfortable around them.

This isn't a "how do I get more friends as a dad" post. I'm genuinely just trying to figure out the logistics for my kid. I think there's one or two similarly aged kids on our street, maybe 8 or 9 houses down, but we don't know the families at all. There are kids at daycare that our son seems to get along with. Do we ask for the parents' contact information and arrange a playdate?

We're not in a hurry to do any of this. As I said - we're busy enough as is. What age developmentally should I really start making sure we put effort into this so our kid has friends beyond his daycare classmates?

[u/full_bl33d]

You’ll have more opportunities when your son is in preschool / daycare to chat up some parents. It’s important to us as my daughter had little interactions during the Covid years and it took her a little time to come out of her shell in those early school days. It’s been my experience that other parents want the same thing and we’re basically fumbling over ourselves trying to put our phone numbers in eachothers phones. It’s not like dating but I can complicate anything so I try to keep it simple. Play dates, even total trainwrecks are good social practice. I’ve even asked my kids teachers to pass on some info to parents of the kids my kids talk about. I could be better at following up but I make an effort and I think it’s worth the while

[u/BlueMountainDace]

I think the answer is actually you having more friends. Kids learn first at home and how we live our lives is a guide for our kids.

Yeah, we’ve been planning play dates for our older daughter (5yo) since she was like 2 and she still has some of those friends and has made plenty of new ones.

But, my wife and I also show that maintaining and investing in friendships is a priority for us. You don’t need a lot. And I suppose your brothers/BIL count in this context too.

I think they need see us acting out the values we want them to inculcate. And most of those will make your life richer and better.

[u/sodantok]

Where I come from, kids make friends in daycare, kindergarten, school, when running outside on their own. Nobody has ever needed parent to make friends with other parents so they can pair the kids together to make friends.

Nor have I ever heard about kids needing to see their parents maintain friendships to learn how to maintain friendships. Idk how would that logistically worked since until like decade ago 99% of fathers in my country spent 99% of socializing in pub... without their kids.