I know this must be tough for an only child. I have a friend (in her 40's) who is an only child. She still cries whenever visitors have to leave (though she waits until after they've gone).

Try offering yourself as a free babysitting service in the evening--I'll bet lots of parents would take you up on that one--trouble is, you might end up with 3 or 4 kids to watch instead of just 2.

Hope this helps. Liz

My only advice is you have to keep trying and you will eventually find at least one or two families that are reliable in this regard, hopefully with kids your kid wants to play with. For these other unreliable folks, you will be lucky if you can get most of those kids to show up for your son's birthday party. I guess some people are just far more casual about this than others. In general, other families with just one kid are usually looking for a break and will be more dependable about showing up. When there are many kids in a family, the parents have many more demands on their time, including just chauffering the kids around, and they don't get that much of a break, anyway, with just one kid being gone.

Good luck. Dianna

Another thing I've noticed is that kids sometimes just loose enthusiasm for visiting a particular friend or going on visits in general. Regretfully, many kids don't seem to understand that they can say no when the invitation is issued, so they say yes but balk when it comes time to go. My daughter went through a phase like this that was a real problem until we changed the way we deal with invitations: we no longer discuss the invitation with the other party on the phone, which created pressure on my daughter to say yes even if she wasn't interested. We now get off the phone, discuss it for a few minutes, and call right back with an answer. Maybe you could work in a suggestion to this effect when making the invitation, particularly to those families that have disappointed before?

Patrick

Maybe you just have to bite the bullet and wait till your son hooks up with a buddy who has more reliable parents. Or maybe you can find a parent you like and then "create" a friendship between the 2 kids.
Ginger

If people are saying yes to a playdate and then breaking it later, maybe you are coming on too strong when asking and they feel they can't say no. Also, whenever my son goes to a friend's house, they usually are very appreciate and thank my son for coming to play, they don't make it seem that they are doing me a favor. Maybe your son just happens to have friends with very busy parents or tends to pick out the popular kids to ask over. Try finding a kid that's new to the area/school or one that doesn't have as many friends. Good Luck.

My suggestions:

1. Try to invite friends who are also the only child in their family -- their parents are usually more eager to have a playmate for their kid and therefore will be more willing to shuffle their schedules.

2. Try to avoid weekends. When both parents work, weekends is about the only time the families can do things together. Sometimes it is hard to work the schedules around a date. However, I must say if a parent makes a date for a child, he/should keep it, or at least not wait until the last minute to cancel it. A better time to invite friends over would be on weekdays right after school.

I have two children myself, and both my husband and I work. I only invite friends over for my kids during holdiay breaks. And, when I do it, I have to invite one for each kid, otherwise the one without a friend will feel left out. There is quite a bit of logistics involved. Usually, those kids who have no siblings are more accommodating.

I hope this helps. Annie