Learner Dad: I'm on a WhatsApp group for driving kids to matches - they treat me like a chauffeur 

Kids have an incredible ability to hang out and enjoy their buddies. It can end in tears, but that’s just fatigue or hunger.

I’m in my first Driving-Kids-To-Matches WhatsApp group. Our eldest is aged  10, so I’ve done well to avoid ferrying duties up to now.

Or maybe I haven’t. It turns out I enjoy driving around with a pack of kids in the car.

There is no real parenting involved unless one of them veers too close to a curse word. Most of the time, they treat me like a chauffeur. 

There is a lot of talk lot about computer games. They’re currently addicted to a game called Thick Legends on Roblox. It involves accumulating extra stomachs so can you eat more and more food, but instead of putting on weight, you develop muscles and become ‘buff’, according to those in the know, which was everyone in the car on the way to a match last Saturday, except me.

I couldn’t have joined in even if I wanted to. So I got to meander through the countryside as they argued over how many points you get when you eat a chocolate fountain.

I reckon the kids chose this game because no adult in their right mind would want to talk about it. We might have an opinion on Minecraft or Super Mario, but this Thick Legends was one for the kids and the kids alone.

That said, the kids had a pretty grown-up conversation. They swapped information and expressed opinions on Thick Legends the way we might talk about a new series on Netflix or a campsite in France.

They were excited but also serious. There was a spat over whether you get more points for a chocolate fountain or a giant pizza, but they managed it far better than a lot of adults I’ve heard disputing whether something happened in season two or season three of  Game of Thrones.

Two of the kids assured a third one that she was wrong about the points for a Giant Pizza in polite matter-of-fact voices. She accepted this and they went back to debating how much they liked squashing noobs. (A noob is a new player and Thick Legends, like most video games, is all about picking on the newbies. If nothing else, it will help if they ever go to work in a large corporation.)

On the way home, they started a game where one person had to say a word, the next person added to it, and so on until we ended up with a five-word sentence. (They let me join in.)

Three of the kids were serious about it. The fourth, my son, said ‘boom-boom’ every time it was his turn. It was surprising the first time he did, annoying the second. By the fifth go around, I was drinking my tears I was laughing so much. There is something about someone saying boom-boom when you’re  expecting them to do it. I don’t know – maybe you had to be there.

I dropped the other two kids at their house. My two jumped out of the car after them and basically invited themselves to a spontaneous play date. I chatted to the Dad of the house for an enjoyable while as the kids spilled into their third hour together, and it felt like they were only getting warmed up.

Kids have an incredible ability to hang out and enjoy their buddies. It can end in tears, but that’s just fatigue or hunger. Most of the time, they love each other.

Maybe it’s just that I’m a noob at this driving them to soccer thing. Ask me in six months and I might tell you that I can’t take another second of them talking about whatever Roblox game they’re addicted to that week and that my son’s boom-boom isn’t funny anymore.

I doubt it though because driving  your kids around with other kids is a great way to see how they’re getting on. I like that they ignore me and act like I’m not there. I like the way they’re so at ease with each other and able to sort things out themselves. They’re more grown-up than I thought they were. The kids will be alright.