Playdate Activities to Promote Social Interactions: Upper Elementary Age

​​Nili Geldwert, M.A. CCC-SLP and Julie Pike, M.A., CCC-SLP

Your child keeps coming home and talking about wanting to invite a friend over. How exciting! He really wants to get together with the friend, but doesn’t know what steps to take to make it happen. He is getting older and now is a great time to help guide them and make them feel confident in eventually doing this independently. Below are steps that you could follow to support your child in “hanging out.”

Getting Digits
Have your child give his friend his (if has his own cell phone) or your phone number. You could write down this information for them so he could pass it along to his friend at school. Remind your child to also ask for his friend’s information. If your child needs help with this step, you could get the phone number for them but try to encourage your child to do it himself.  Role play with your child what he could say when he calls his friend. You could have him make the phone call on speaker so you could ensure all the important details are discussed. Follow-up with the other parent to confirm.

Hanging Out Guidelines

1. Encourage your child to brainstorm activities that he and his friend could do. He could chat about this with his friend at school. Make sure their ideas are realistic, you don’t need a comic con party in your home.
2. Review the house rules. The goal is for him to take responsibility when his friend is over. You can role play how this looks if his friend doesn’t follow the rules so that he feels comfortable saying it. For example, if the friend tries to go on your personal computer, you could model what your child could say, “That’s my mom’s computer, we can’t use it. Please get off.” He is responsible in helping his friend follow them, but of course have your ear open for any major conflicts.
3. As hinted at above, as kids get older they thrive off of feeling independent. It’s important that they start to learn how to compromise and negotiate with a friend. Hence, you should be in a different room as they are hanging out and only check up on them periodically.
4. If the kids look like they are getting bored or having trouble agreeing on what to do, offering a snack serves as a grounding activity and promotes conversation. This is an opportunity to encourage them to chat and decide on the next activity. If they need support, you could offer a few suggestions for them to discuss.

Activities

1. Video Games: while playing video games has a stigma of being isolating, we think they are quite the contrary. Kids often relate to one another through video games and share and talk about their experiences while playing. They could be playing on two different devices but playing the same game, like Roblox, Mindcraft or Mario Brothers. By  playing the same game, kids are learning to respond to their friend calling their name (but eliminating the sometimes uncomfortable eye contact demand), using trash talk in a fun, non threatening way, inquiring and offering different tricks or techniques and making comments on each other’s actions. Most importantly they are sharing in a fun, mutual interest. Video games are a popular conversation that could be carried over at school with other kids. 
   
   ​Disclaimer: Yes, we are promoting playing video games, however, when children are playing different video games on different devices and aren’t connecting, then the activity should have a time limit on it. You could explain that this way of playing could take place in separate homes and defeats the purpose of the playdate.
   
2. LEGO Creators are fun, cooperative building activity. The kids need to follow instructions, deal with frustrating moments, know when to seek help and also when to encourage each other. One of the things that we really like about LEGO Creators is it gives the kids an opportunity to do a little parallel play as well as cooperative play. They could each build a few steps of a project on their own and then collaborate together. Sometime parents feel that hanging out means always interacting but for children with social communication challenges, that could feel very overwhelming. Legos allows for a nice balance.
3. Board games and card games provide a great structure and explicit directions. There is a clear beginning and ending with a natural time limit. Board games and card games rules are often altered. Your family might play UNO differently compared to another family. It is important that the kids agree on the rules before playing and if a new rule presents itself while playing then they agree to discuss it. These rules can be written or discussed depending on the the kids’ needs. Below are some games that we suggest.
   - Uno
   - Secret Door or other cooperative games by Peaceable Kingdom and Family Pastimes 
   - Bubble Talk
   - Headbands
   - Castle Keep
   - Monopoly
   - Sorry
   - Trouble
   - Jenga
   - Connect Four

Post Playdate
After the playdate has finished, take some time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t work. Your child might need some down time, but later on ask your child how he thought it went. You could help to recall some of activities and how he felt about them. If the kids had a conflict you could discuss how it got resolved. Often times kids focus on the negative, so try to wrap up on a positive experience. If your child really worked hard in being a host, commend them for a job well done - it takes a lot of social thinking and courage to have a friend over!

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