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YourHub.com \\ Santa Clarita Valley \\ Stories \\ Parenting

Because it's a child's job to play!

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Contributed by: Hillary Broadwater on 6/28/2007

Have you ever been out with your children, and one of them sees a schoolmate with their parents or meets a new friend at the park? Inevitably, one of them asks to have a future play date.

You fumble around for a piece of paper, possibly a crumpled grocery receipt, business card, (or gum wrapper) to write down the other parent's phone number so that your children can get together.

Time goes by, and of course, you have lost or thrown that piece of paper away. Your child wants to know if they can have a play date, but you don't have the parent's phone number or e-mail address.

Starting around the time our kids were in kindergarten, we were repeatedly bombarded with the same questions from our kids, "Can I have a play date with ..." or "Can ... sleepover at our house?"

The answer always played out, "What is ...'s phone number?" or "I need to call ...'s mommy/daddy first, but we don't have their number or e-mail address."

A few days later, one of our kids would come home from school with a torn off piece of paper illustrating some semblance of a child's name and phone number.

Unable to decode a12-digit phone number, we had to refuse our kid's request for a play date. Again, our kids were left disappointed and frustrated, and of course we felt guilty.

As sisters and best friends, we decided to get together and create colorful personalized play date cards for our kids. After seeing the success they had with the cards, we saw a need to give other children a fun and creative way to make play dates with their friends.

It was at this time that My Kid's Cards was born.

If children are to have long-lasting friendships, they need to have frequent opportunities to play with friends and neighbors outside of school. As parents, we need to play an active role in making sure that this happens.

We can help our children plan a play date by teaching them how to call their friends on the telephone. We can also take it upon ourselves to call the other parents. It is very important to know our children's friends and their parents. We want to know that our children are in a safe environment during their play date.

We feel that parents should encourage their children to get out and do what they do best. Play. It is, by far, the most important job in a child's life.

Please visit us at www.mykidscards.com.

Hillary Broadwater lives in the Santa Clarita Valley.

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