Would you let your 9 year old do this

[Yamaya]

Just after some opinions as I'm not entirely comfortable with this. My 9 year old (turned in may) has been invited to a theme park birthday, her and three other 9 year olds. It's over an hour and a half drive away. Its a very busy seaside place, not the best area. The birthday childs parents will be there, but they just had a baby so theoretically just one parent will be watching the 9 year olds. We went to a much smaller local event with them before and they let the girls walk around alone, which I wasn't 100% comfortable with then, so don't know if they would do that again.

Would you let your child go?

I wouldn’t let my child go with parents I didn’t trust

If your not happy then don’t send your child.

One adult and 4 children id be totally fine with that if the children stick together.

If I wasn’t sure about the parents / didn’t know them well I’d offer to go too as an extra pair of hands. But that’s very easy for me to say as I only have one child and wouldn’t mind buying the extra ticket for myself, recognise many can’t just make that decision. Ultimately if I didn’t trust them fully and couldn’t go
myself then I would find a reason my daughter couldn’t attend. Go with your gut on this one.

Wouldn’t be keen no. You have to go with your gut on stuff like this.

Could you go with them? That'd be a good compromise.

It's not that I don't trust them as such, they are just more lax than me in public places and that makes me uncomfortable. I will see what she says about me going too, I'm guessing that's not really what they had in mind though!

I wouldn’t offer to go , but I would just ask if the kids would be supervised all the time .

Nope

Yes, I would as they will be with the parents. I think it's a fairly normal thing to do, my eldest son was lucky to be invited to a friends theme park birthday at about the same age.

I can't remember whether my child had a phone at that age but I would probably give them one to put in their rucksack (a cheap or second hand one) for the day so they could contact me if they needed to.

If there is doubt, it’s a no.

Yup I would. She is going with friends, it’s a theme park. Make sure he has both your number and the number of the parents on her. Then if she gets lost she can ask a member of staff to phone you/them.

I’d go and give them a hand.

It would be irresponsible to send your child off with people you don't trust. Either don't send them or offer to go along.

No you can't invite yourself- the invitation is for your child. It's ok for your child to experience different parenting styles from friends. Insist the kids stick together but don't invite yourself - thats annoying for the parent who then has to host you.

Could you offer to go with them? They might appreciate another adult.
If you think they might not be able to supervise the girls properly I think that's what I would do.
It's not expecting them to host you, you can offer to pay for yourself etc

I wouldn't let my 11 year old go that far with parents I don't know that well and if their parenting style is a fair bit more relaxed than mine definitely not. Just say you're not comfortable with that. It's perfectly reasonable. Don't go tying yourself in knots trying to accommodate the trip. They're 9!

I think you're right. I don't actually want to go either! It's ages away and I have another child I would either have to leave at home with dad (who is working so can't come) and second child would miss out, or I'd have to try and bring second child with me which would be stressful as they have asd. I think if she was 12 or something it would be different.

Is it blackpool pleasure beach by any chance? I am not sure how I would feel about this scenario, I think at that age I would still expect the children to be close to the parents supervising and not wandering off on thier own, however my child is younger so I have not experienced this yet. If you aren't comfortable with their more relaxed parenting style though, I would probably decline as otherwise you will probably just worry all day?

It's not blackpool but very similar sort of thing

If I trusted the parents and my kid really wanted to go I'd let them. If I didn't trust the parents/situation and my kid really wanted to go I'd offer to go with and help.

I'd be ok with this for my 12 yo not my 9yo

@Yamayawhat are you specifically worried about?

It’s hard to say without knowing the place they are going. I’m generally quite protective but would feel ok about a 9 year old going to a party somewhere like Paulton’s Park or Chessington. I’d give my child strict instructions to stick with the others. Most parties at that age involve some sort of activity that is in a public place and often there is a larger group attending, so not really possible for the host parents to have “eyes on” everyone at all times.

Yeah I was, and would be, fine with this. What is realistically likely to go wrong?