To throw DS a swimming party?

This works only if you provide all the adults to supervise.

My idea of hell

unless you make sure you have enough Adults /teens /family friends to adult then don’t do it

Does it have to be the children's own parents or is it just rules about an adult to child ratio? If so you could ask some of your family or friends to help so that less parents would have to stay?

I would honestly hate this, even though I like swimming. I wouldn't necessarily want all the other parents from school seeing me in a swimming costume and no makeup.

One of my friends has a really lovely nanny who occasionally babysits for us and has taken my kids swimming on occasion. I'd offer her double rate to do a swimming party with my DS so I didn't have to and I'd kiss her feet if she agreed.

Otherwise, I'd send my DH without telling him what sort of party it was and hide his swim stuff in DS's rucksack.

I took DD to one when her friend was turning 6 (so they were mostly 6 yo and some 5yo). Parents didn't have to get in the pool, they had to stay and supervise but mostly sat poolside. I did get in though, because siblings were invited too and I had to get in with 2yo DD. There were a couple of other parents supervising younger kids, and the birthday girl's mum got in to play pool games too. I didn't have a problem with wearing a swimsuit there, we take the dcs swimming every week so I'm just used to it.

Yep, sounds horrible, embarrassing and potentially a health & safety nightmare.

I have to say unfortunately you'd be secretly hated for a while by a few parents if you did this 🤣

Ive never wanted to turn down an invite more than when DS was invited to one of these. I even tried faking having the shits on the morning but DS was so gutted at the thought of not going i had to miraculously get better for him.

I just bobbed around like an angry pale sea slug for an hour, just seething at the sheer awfulness of it all. Most of us did tbf.

I still think about that party now sometimes, 6 years later and I know most of the other parents who went also really did not appreciate being put in that position.

Worst idea ever. I'd rather go to a party an hour away at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon than a swim party 😂

Are you speaking for the whole homogeneous population of your school / town / city?

Shock horror - not everyone is the same!!

As PP have said, most pools have a minimum age kids can be in the pool without adults so if the kids can swim or not is a moot point.

As a parent of 3 I am always happy when a party doesn't make my life any harder and a party where I have to get in the pool does not fit that criteria.

I think you’re misunderstanding. People are saying 9 because the rule at most pools is that children need to be 8 to go swimming without an adult and a 9th birthday party means that even the youngest in the class will be the required 8.

Also, worth keeping in mind that a 7th birthday in the Autumn term means most of the class will actually still be 6 and not all 6YOs are strong swimmers even if they can swim a bit which will potentially limit the fun on the inflatables. My summer born DD is really confident now at 8 but absolutely was not at just turned 6. At that age we both would have hated a swimming party. She’d love it now though and so would I as presumably I could drop off!

Big fat nope from me! I'd decline as I am not getting in the pool, or I'd send DP but I imagine he'd feel the same.

Even for older kids, swim parties can be a bit hit and miss. Some kids that can't swim well won't be invited or will have to decline the invite (we've had a few parties for my kids for friends 10+ birthdays and the invites have all said "kids will be made to swim a lap by the lifeguard so if they can't swim this distance, they will need to decline the invite - what the fuck?) Thankfully mine can swim but not all kids can, even in late primary!

Sorry I have massively digressed.

I would absolutely HATE that.

I wear hearing aids, and cannot be in a swimming pool with them in.

Plus I don't like public swimming pools full of kids peeing.

This would be a definite no from me! I can’t think of any parent that I know that would be up for this.

Sorry.

I suppose it's area dependant a lot of the children who live in my area unfortunately won't have parents who can afford swimming lessons.

Although even in an area such as yours I still don't think the party would be sensible as most of his classmates will be 6 and some will have been 5 only a matter of weeks ago.

We did this when we lived abroad. DD was turning 6. However all the kids in the class could swim (they all had lessons at school and mist had lessons out of school) and all but one had passed the swim test which included treading water for a minute and swimming 25m straight after (no touching the side in between).

I wouldn't in the UK where swimming standards a lot lower at that age. Its a lot more fun when you can swim better.

My son just started his school swimming lessons - a couple months of weekly lessons in P5 so he's 9. They split them up into groups and the largest group is the non-swimmers - many of whom had never been in a swimming pool before.

We've done weekly lessons for my son since he was a toddler (with the covid breaks) but he's still not exactly a strong swimmer and he's on the luckier end and in the top group in his class. He's in swim skills 2 in the version of swim lessons the council has in my city.

So the places near us do private hire. We did swimming as a 9th birthday party - no parents went in, one wore their swimwear in case they needed to go in as their child wasn't a confident swimmer but they were fine playing on the floats. A friend did it for an 8th birthday and had family members in the pool, no parents of the invited guests went in as again they could all generally swim (or at least enough) and the family members were more for younger siblings and cousins.

I would wait til you know more kids are confident in the water to save parents the torture of having to get into the pool.

How many friends/relatives can you rustle up to get in the water, op?
That’s the way they worked it with the one’s my dc were invited to, rather than expecting every kid’s parent to attend too…

My da went to a 7th birthday party that’s was swimming. They had to have 2 adults per child under 8 so so parents sorted out between themselves who went in and those who didn’t supervised dressing whilst the parents showered and changed.

Might have helped that the party hosts ordered pizzas for everyone as they had a party room after for 30 minutes.

I’ll do most things for pizza 😂

Generally all the parents I know hate swimming parties.

I think one of mine went to a swimming party where parents needed to get in. If memory serves dads were quickly nominated for this job - and I think it was 2 kids per adult so that halved the number needed. Overall though I agree with PP - wait till they don't need adults in the pool.

I wouldn’t be pleased with this

I’m really surprised by the number of people whose children couldn’t swim until they were nine. Most finish stage 7 of the swimming stages before the end of Year 3 here which is for ages 7-8.

I can't imagine anything worse and would decline without any guilt.

I wouldn't let my child go either just for safety reasons - neither of mine were confident swimmers at 7 and I would have wanted to be with them, but also very vehemently would not have wanted to ever get into that pool.

I would hold off on the swimming party until your DC is older - most pools will only let them on the inflatables once they have turned 8 and are reasonable swimmers. It’s best to wait until at least year 4 when the youngest in the year have turned 8…

Absolutely fucking not.