THe problem these days is like this:
My sons are 8 and 6. The other kids in the neighborhood are girls who are 10 and 8. There aren’t other kids for them to play with. I don’t mind them playing with girls per se, but they need boys to play with too.
We have to arrange for boys to come to the house to play or we go to them in their neighborhoods who have similar circumstances. There just isn’t a neighborhood full of children anymore.
It’s not like it was in the 1960’s and early 1970’s where practically every house in the neighborhood had kids and a stay at home mom.
Now the kids are shuffled off to daycare in the summer, and the houses that do have kids, no-one is home during the day.
It’s not the same world.
It sure isn’t. Have you checked the database lately to see all the pedophiles listed in your neighborhood?
I don’t think not having other similar kids around is unusual...probably more a factor of smaller families (people used to play with their siblings more?) and as you said both parents working...yes times have changed ...
Consider if they are not in school, they are in some sort of daycare or daycamp all summer long. Structure, structure, structure...where or when do the learn to think for themselves? And what are they learning in these camps anyway?