Would This Make You Want to Move? - Coatesville,PA

Stay where you are. Housing developments are NOT all they're cracked to be. They put a couple of cul-de-sac's around where I grew up as a kid. The houses are priced at around $500,000. The occupants are horrible snobs. They wouldn't let their kids play with mine because we lived in an old military family housing unit from the '50's. Yes place was run down, yes we bought out clothes from thrift stores. That did NOT mean that we were bad people though.

They thought J. Crew was a off-brand. I was SO glad we moved when my now 4th grader was in 1st grade.

We live in a newer development and I wish we lived out in the country with some privacy. The neighbors are not very friendly and there are definitely cliques. Most of the kids go to daycare anyway or have grandparents who watch them so I still have to arrange playdates with kids outside the neighborhood. My kids don't have a single friend in this neighborhood.

The houses are pretty close together and it is totally awkward being outside at the same time as the next door neighbor who refuses to even say hello.

A home is what you make it. Playmates will want to be where it is not so built up at some point in their lives. Activities will take up time and introduce good friends with similar interests. The kids who are friends in preschool will likely change several times over the course of yrs.

Moving because you think the grass is greener, well...

No.

What if you move and all the kids are mean little brats that you can't stand having around your kid? Will it be worth it then?

We live in a housing development and we can't get our neighbor kids to stay away. My son has learned lots of mean behavior from them. Their parent's don't care where their kids are and the fact that they are at our house all the time. I've had to chase them away. Their parents just don't care!

In my opinion, I would prefer if playtimes were pre-arranged. The problem (for me) with being in a giant neighborhood full of kids is that children are always at the door. Always. There is no privacy. It does not matter that I consistently tell the same kids over and over "please call first before coming over" or "the kids have to do homework and chores after school, playtime is always 5 pm or later". Heck, it does not matter if I disable the doorbell and tell the kids we can't have guests that day. I can pretty much count on some little gremlin pressing his nose on the window and standing there, watching us eat dinner until I shut the curtains or escort him home. i can count on kids knocking on the door all day long, sometimes as early as 7:30 am. And I don't like it. I would absolutely love it if our house was far away enough that people HAD to call ahead of time and make sure it was a good time for me, not just pop on over and knock incessantly.

Obviously I am a bit of an introvert!

One thing to keep in mind, now that I am done with my annoyed rant, is that your kid is not guaranteed to click with the kiddos next door. In fact, we have kids next door identical ages to my kids who are horribly behaved and are not welcomed over. There are several kids in the neighborhood that are the same ages as my kids that just have way different personalities and interests and they are not playmates. Most of the playmates my kids choose, are kids they have met in school or at the park or through my friends, and have to be driven over anyway.

I would hang on to your privacy! It sounds wonderful!

Please remove your rose colored glasses. The grass may not be greener on the other side. I grew up in a development. At any given time there were never less than 25 kids to play with. If this sounds great to you, it was a nightmare for me but heaven for my sister. I'm an introvert and my sister (4 years younger) an extrovert. I would watch the kids from my window playing nicely one minute then fighting to the death the next, then friends again a few weeks later.

I didn't really go outside to play with the neighborhood kids consistently until I was 12 years old by choice. My mom (God rest her soul) would try and try but I wasn't having it. I prefered my books and tv movies. My sister would be one of the last children coming inside at as young as 5 years old.

I would encourage you to make the most of where you live right now because the home you have you enjoy and it suits the family's needs for now. Arranging playdates is not so bad, it's what I did with my son when he was growing up. Often my home would become the kid hub. Mom's and Dad's would come by to find their kids playing at my house. LOL

No matter where your kids grow up and make their friends they will have tons of life lessons but I've learned from experience that the decisions I make for my family about where we live has much less to do with the kids social network and more to do with a whole host of other factors like distance to and from the workplace, what it is close to, does it have the space my family needs, and can I afford it. Children are adaptable when it comes to learning to make friends. I had to learn to be a lot more outgoing but I'm still an introvert.

We live in a "development" and I love it for the kids. It's so heart warming to have their friends just stop by and ask if my kids can come play like in the "old days". And they can go off at young ages - we have kids in K out on their own - and ride bikes or play in the little neighborhood park, there's some open land etc. I think it's made life way easier for me and I have two friends in not so kid friendly neighborhoods who really want to move so playing is easier. Our neighborhood is beyond friendly. The adults now have parties and no one has to drive! So just the opposite of what some people are saying... I even have a friend in the neighborhood who comes from huge money so could afford way nicer but says she was alone as a kid so much on her big piece of property that she doens't want that for her kids. We also could afford nicer but I'm waiting till the kids are older. My question is if any move involves switching schools. And if it wasn't for the playdate factor, do you love your house and would stay forever? The downside to our situation is I want a nicer house and since we can afford one, I do want to move some day and that will involve changing schools for our kids. Big downside there. I think the "development" thing can be great for ages 2-12 but after that it's not such a big deal. So in a way maybe not great where you are for a while but if you'd just be moving right back where you are now in less than 10 years, maybe just deal with it bc of the longer term vision.

Making playdates would not be a reason for me to move.
When my daughter was young, we lived a fair distance from her school and there weren't a lot of kids in the neighborhood.
She made friends anyway - at school, at dance class, at church. If the kids wanted to get together, we let them do so on weekends.

There are pros and cons. I have lived both. I grew up out in the country (now the land is deveoped), but I was a ways away from friends growing up. It was actually nice because I played with my sisters and I stayed out of neighborhood drama. I was always one of the "special" friends since people didn't play with me every day.

I live in a development now and there's lots of drama between the girls who go to school together. People seem to know your business and it gets annoying. My dd actually plays more with people who live outside our immediate neighborhood. You aren't missing anything!

In our development it is nice that my child has a friend's house next door to walk to. Other than that, no matter how close if it involves crossing a street (even our small one), it's not going to happen until at least age 11 or so.

I grew up with playdates (but again it was the kids next door). It was great.

Moving, well, you never know who the neighbors would be, right?
Generally we don't have playdates because they are too chaotic and just plain hard. Adding a 6th child to watch is difficult!

I would LOVE new housing. Fresh, shiny newness to make your own OR a really old one with history. But anything between is basically blah, like our house. Not old enough to be cool and have a real history, and too old to look nice and tidy and fresh (basically it needs an update). New was just too expensive.

Well, having lived in both situations, I'll pick being spaced apart any day!! I absolutely hated living in developments where it felt like we were on top of each other; heard everything that was going on and had to put up with traffic, etc. When my son was just a baby we built a house on a 2-1/2 acre lot and loved our street of only about 15 houses. We made friends with all our neighbors and when our kids (I later had a daughter) wanted to play, we simply walked them over for a playdate. Once they were in school and made friends, I would drive them to their friends' houses and let them play while I ran errands. The other moms and I always took turns having them over and it was great. Also met at parks, story times at the library or book store, etc. Never was a problem.

Then we had to move (which I hated!) because of my husband's job but now we're on 7-1/2 acres and I wouldn't trade it for anything!!! I dread the thought of ever having to go back to a subdivision or some other type of small development.

Good luck!!!

Like many things in life, I think the fantasy is often better than the reality.
I used to hate the fact that our neighborhood was so hilly and the houses are pretty isolated from each other. Plus it's mostly older people, hardly any kids. I always imagined how nice it would be to have friendly neighbors, block parties, play dates, BBQs, you name it. But pretty much everyone I know who lives in a neighborhood like that has problems. Pushy neighbors and kids being the most common complaint. Your kids aren't going to be friends with someone just because they happen to live next door. It's nice when it works out that way but it seems more often than not it doesn't. Your kids can still have their friends over, it just takes a little more effort on your part. We had after school and weekend play dates ALL the time, easy to arrange by email/text, no biggie!

No. We do live in a development and the friends the kids have made from school still often require organizing play dates. I would rather be a little more spread out (we are in an older development with more elbow room) than crammed up 15 ft off the bathroom of the next guy. Having lots of neighbors doesn't mean you'll like them any more than the people you live next to. I would DO things for friends, not MOVE for friends. Invite people over. Know that relationships ebb and flow. People move. When my SD was little, there wasn't really anybody nearby for her to play with. A few years back a family with a daughter DD's age moved in behind us. It's been great. But it was luck of the draw. I still have to take her to see many of her friends from preschool.

I grew up across from a corn field. I had friends along our road (the kids from our school/bus). Being spread out doesn't mean there's nobody to play with any more than being more crowded does. You just have to look.

We live in a neighborhood where the houses are near eachother. There are a total of 8-10 boys all my kids' age that all get together and play. It's unusual to even see the kids until it gets dark.

I once thought I'd like a farm. But now I know that "country living" isn't going to happen until my boys are out of school and in college. It's okay, we love our neighborhood. :-)

We lived in a housing development before moving out to the countryside. We now live in an area where the neighbors are farther apart and are older. I think we are some of the youngest in the people in our area. Put it this way- there's no door-to-door trick-or-treating in our area. But we love it. We have a huge yard and a house we love.
We moved primarily because our son was starting kindergarten, and we wanted to be settled in our forever home when he started school. Our first home was a starter home, and we knew that. So, we lucked out, found the house we loved, and moved the summer before he started school. Sure he doesn't have friends in his area to go bike riding with in the summer or friends to hang out with on the fly. But honestly, all the kids in his school are in the same boat living in a rural area.
I would never even consider moving just to get my son some friends in close proximity. It doesn't really even matter when they start school anyway. What I think it's important is that once he's in a school, he stay in that school the whole way. It's those friendships that last the longest as they can build over the years as they move through school together.

Well, my sisters and I grew up on a farm 6 miles out of town... Before school, I'm sure we didn't have many friends... But once school started, we had plenty!

Now my kiddo is almost 3 and even though we live in an apartment building with nice kids and all the homes on the street have kids... No one plays with each other. The older kids do, but I never see the younger kids out playing and they never come out when I'm out with my son. So we are surrounded by kids and my son still has no "friends"/playmates.

I say that you just stay where you are now.

Just fill up the time with activities that will put them around other kids, like sports or martial arts or dance. They will make extra friends this way and the need for "play dates" will lessen.

We live in a development. While the adults would love to move somewhere more secluded we have decided to stay here while our kids are young so they can have friends right here close, but I would not move from a nice house to move in here, we are only staying because we are already here. We will, at some point, be moving out somewhere where the neighbors are not so on top of us.

My lot size is .09 of an acre. My house and the neighbors house are perhaps 8 feet from one another. Thankfully, I cannot hear them.

We live in a master plan community, but in the cheaper homes...you know, no gate guard. With that, there are quite a few renters. Neighbors come and go. We lived in this house since my older daughter was in high school and she never made friends in the neighborhood. My younger daughter has been in the same house for all of her life (8 yrs). She doesn't have any life long friends in the neighborhood. She had two besties and one moved to Hawaii recently and the other lives about 7 miles away and goes to a different school. She sees her in summer camp and we still get together for bowling or movies from time to time. Yes, we drive.

Because there weren't any friends in the neighborhood, we put her in figure skating and got her heavily involved in skating. She has been on the ice for 3 years now. Many of the girls she skates with are her good friends. She also plays hockey, so she is on the ice nearly every day during the summer and about 4 days during school months.

There are three homes on our street that have children. The twins are 3 years older and they never come out to play. They go to her school. The little girl across the street was home schooled and she used to not ever come out, but recently comes out and rides bikes with my daughter. She is 4 years older. There is one more home with children and now they come out to play. They have been here for 2.5 years now and the mother would never let them come out.

The grass is not always greener.

My kids are 4.5 and almost 6. My son started kindergarten this year. We moved to our current neighborhood 2.5 years ago because I wanted my kids to be established in a neighborhood and district in which they would go to school from kindergarten to high school-God willing. I grew up in a big neighborhood that had lots of kids that were my age as well as my siblings and we all went to the same school. I loved that sense of community and wanted it for my children too. My husband and I looked for years debating neighborhoods in two different school districts.
My husband and I have different tastes in many ways. He wanted a ranch. I like two stories. I wanted to build. He wanted to find a newer existing home. He made a comment once that he was dreading the whole process because we would just fight about every little thing. So I decided to pray about it. I asked God to pick the house for us and we would love it. And I firmly believe that he did. Ironically, we found a ranch that was 6 years old. I could look at it as "my husband won", but there are so many great things about our house that I love. I told God I would love it and I honestly do! What's more is we moved to a wonderful neighborhood with lot of kids. The school is is within walking distance and there is a community clubhouse with a gym and pool. There have been rumors that a lot of neighbors can be snooty or quite the partiers (it is a very social neighborhood), but God has put so many Godly people in my life that have come from this neighborhood. So my point is, it's all in what you make it. I think if you really enjoy where you live right now, you just adapt and make it as wonderful as you want it to be. Or you could move and it might be the best decision you ever made too. If you are a praying person, pray on it. Ask God to guide your decision. You cannot go wrong with what He tells you to do!
HTH,
A.

I'll trade ya. We moved from what you describe to brick homes 10 ft apart (literally) kids ringing the door bell every 5 minutes, people parking their crappy cars in front of your house and HOA telling you that your trash can sat out too long after the trash guys came buy (not me).
And you're correct the older neighborhoods are full of empty nesters, but the charm and character of those homes can't be beat.
Good luck.

Stay put!
This isn't a reason to move.
It's not so bad not having neighborhood playmates.
Your son will learn to occupy himself.
We've lived in a few neighborhoods and have never had neighbor playmates.
Our 1st house had many retired people and newly weds (and they tended to move to bigger homes soon as they began having kids).
In our current house all the neighbors kids have graduated high school and are away at college.
Our son (9th grader) is perfectly happy.
He plays with the neighbors dog, we babysit our neighbors chickens when they go out of town, and we fly kites, build rockets and catapults and identify birds, bugs and butterflies in our yard.
Kids don't have to run with a pack.

my kids grew up in a development. it WAS cool. they had a great community, lots of friends. it was h*** o* them when we moved into a more rural place.
but that was also when we started homeschooling, and that opened up new, more diverse, more interesting groups of friends. i'm not suggesting that you homeschool, but that you look past the ready-made wolfpack aspect of the suburbs and create your own. it IS more work to look around, arrange meet-ups and drive to get-togethers, but it's both possible and worthwhile.
it's also good for your kids to learn how to have a blast without having other kids around. too little value is put on teaching kids how to entertain themselves.
if you don't look at finding playmates as a battle, and instead look at it as opportunities to be creative and adventurous, it might just turn the whole dynamic around.
khairete
S.

I would not move for that reason. I have lived in the neighborhoods since having my kids. The first had tons of kids, but was noisy as the houses were too close together, and many of the kids had groups already formed.
The second neighborhood I lived in the longest with kids, was there for 7 years. Over that time the neighborhood started with no kids at all, elderly. Was disappointed until the elderly population started moving out/dying/or going to a retirement facility. Then young families started moving in. The kids were younger than mine, but only by a few years and were able to play together. Some kids moved in closer to their age then moved away again. A bunch of the young families moved on right around the time I moved, and so I don't who moved in or the general feel of that neighborhood now, but things change. Where we live now there are one set of kids who are my kids ages and it is great. but there is no guarantee they will stay. I hope they do and hope we live here the rest of our lives as I love this location, houses are even more spread out, but there are kids around. I am sure as the elderly people move on, younger families will move in. But again my kids have playmates just up the street. So I wouldn't move because of that, since any neighborhood can change at any time. And even if there r kids there now, they move away. If you want/need to move for other reasons then I would certainly consider that in looking for a place to meet all your needs, but not on that alone. HTH

We're in a very kid-friendly development. There's a playgroup for the pre-school kids. We also have a neighborhood pool. When my kids outgrew playgroup, they were at the pool every day in the summer with their friends. When they were young, I would go with them. When they got older, they would just hop on their bikes and spend the afternoons at the pool with their friends. We moved out of our neighborhood when our kids were 5 & 8 because we wanted a nicer house (they're kind of old here)...and less than a year later, left our large, beautiful home and MOVED BACK to the old neighborhood because our kids were so distraught and missed the old one so much. Our current house is older and smaller than the other one, but the trade-off was worth it.

Fast forward...our kids are now in high school and it doesn't matter so much any more. Their friends are mostly out of the 'hood...kids they've met at school or through other activities. When our kids are gone, we will most likely move, but the sacrifice we made to have them in this neighborhood was worth it. It's really great when the kids are preschool and elementary and even middle school to have friends close by. My son is very extroverted. I think he would have died had we not had a lot of kids for him to play with when he was younger.

I don't know if I would move because of this. I would just set up weekly playdates for my kids. But saying that, we did move to a new place bc my husband got a different job. We used to live in the country and now we are in a regular neighborhood with lots of kids. Our kids LOVE it. They have so many neighborhood buddies of all ages and all the kids play together. We often have 1-7 other kids over at our house. They love to jump on the trampoline, play hide and seek, or break into groups and play pretend games like they are spies or are battling each other. My oldest can just walk over to other kid's homes to see if they want to play. They all like to ride bikes together. It's very nice.

We live in a pretty rural area and our neighbors were spread out for years. To be honest, I never gave it much thought until we temporarily moved into a new development. We always thought we would move back out to the country but we ended up buying a house in the development because the kids just loved it so much. There are so many other kids for my kids to play with, walk home from school with, its just great. All the age groups play together, do homework together and get to know each other. Even though I personally would rather live outside of the development (mostly because of housing options) I am so glad we decided to stay and that my kids have the neighborhood experience.

I don't think that is a reason to move. The older your kids get the less this will matter any way. They will want to hang out with friends from their activities not just with the neighborhood kids. Having said that, my youngest has two best friends that live in our neighborhood so it is very convenient but it still requires driving to each other's houses. (There are about 150 houses in our development.)

I told hubby the other today that I will NEVER live in a housing development. I like old neighborhoods, but our next house will hopefully be a few acres and no close neighbors.

Kids don't need to live on top of other kids. It will get easier as your kid gets older. It really will.

Meanwhile, join a meet-up group.