My five year old was abandoned at an organised party

[KattyB]

My husband took our five year old boy to a birthday party for two of his school friends in the local sports hall yesterday and when he came back to collect him, (five minutes late) all of his friends and their parents had left. There was another party going on afterwards, but my child was, well, abandoned. Not only that, but he actually managed to get outside the hall and was ?waiting for daddy? in the car park.

To say that I am angry is a little bit of an understatement and what could have happened doesn?t bear thinking about.

Don?t know the mums at all well and don?t have their phone numbers ?. Should I 'throw the book' at the venue???? What would you do?

I have left my son at a party when he was 5, and I don't see why it is a major issue.

If I was the OP (although looks like she has been scared off) I would be having a quiet (not accusing) chat with the party parents. Anything could have caused this incident from thinking the child had been picked up to the child leaving the building freely. Without speaking to the party parents you won't know, and it may be something you need to discuss with your DS - stranger danger that kind of thing.

Poor katty what a shock for you and your dh to find out what the party hosts did to your dc, He was abandoned. He should never have been left on his own there was an almighty cock up.

I would phone the venue just to get their phone numbers explaining what happened so that they could close any loopholes there re: security and then ring both sets of parents up and really tell them what they've put you through.

More than likely they would be mortified!

Can we have an update please? OP, have you spoken to the hosts?
I think it would be really good to know whether this was a genuine mistake by the hosts, or if they intentionally left your DC in a public place, knowing your DH would "be along in a minute" (cringe!)
Please do update us!

There was a thread a few months back.

Child dropped off for Saturday language lesson at school. Parent late picking up. Parent wanting to get teacher sacked for leaving child alone (teacher had gone to get her lunch). Child had got into school playground, which was where parent found child. Balance of opinion firmly on the side of the teacher.

There is fault on both sides, here. Unbelievable that anyone would leave their child (of any age) with someone without the proper exchange of contact details. Unbelievable that anyone would just abandon a 5 year old child like this in some random venue without knowing what has happened to the parent.

To answer something that diddl said, further up the thread - the party hosts gave the party bag to the OP's son, not to the dp, if I read the thread correctly.

As I said in my earlier post, I never handed over a party bag until the child was with the collecting parent (or with the adult who was taking them home - and I knew in advance if someone was collecting someone else's child for them), and this, to me, meant that I handed over the responsibility for the child back to the parent. I stayed until all the children were collected.

OK, I have a new theory, which slightly questions DH's version of events...

All children leave except OP's
Hosts have somewhere to go so have been clearing up throughout, just a little more fetching and carrying to do
They all go into the car park including OPs DC
They tell OPs DC to wait at the door in case OP arrives to collect but they can see DC at all times, they are just loading up the boot.
OPs DH arrives and gives them the nod (or at least they think he does) as he sees DC at the door.
They presume all is OK and so drive off

That is the only plausible explanation given both OPs DH and DCs version of events. It's pretty rude and unkind to the child who must have felt so abandoned but it is a slightly better explanation than they just drove off.
No adult would (could, surely?) drive off leaving a 5yo, it's just outrageous.

hocuspontas I don't think there's a legal limit, I said that they are MY ratios, i.e. never more than 1:4 for under 8's 1:6 for under 8's. And I want those ratios because neither me nor my friends are childcare experts.

I am amazed at parents who imagine they can successfully care for more children with no training whatsoever (I am of course referring to other peoples children and not large families)

Do people really think 5 minutes is very late??

I wouldn't even call it late!!

I hope it has just been a terrible misunderstanding. IMO if I invite a child to my child's party and allow their parents to leave, then that child is in MY care until said parent returns. It would make no difference to me whether that parent was 5 or 50 minutes late I just wouldn't leave them alone!!

soverylucky The OP says it was 5 minutes so why are you calling her and her DH a liar?! We have to assume that what we are told is fact, not declare that it can't possibly be true and make up our own new facts, just because we can't quite imagine something happening.

Don't leave your DC in the care of someone you don't know well.

Don't leave your DC without establishing that the host will take responsibility for them.

Don't leave your DC without establishing there is a good enough ratio of supervising adults to DCs.

Arrive 5 minutes early, not late.

Well soverylucky, several posters, me included, have shared their experience of parties being done and cleared exactly at the scheduled time. Do you doubt us too?

And again, what difference would it have made in this situation if the OP had the hosts contact nr?

Exactly svl, who knows what the boy might have said to the party parents, or may have been in the toilet at the point that the party was packing up etc.

I do not believe for one minute that the party parents left the child sobbing in the car park whilst they loaded up their car with the presents and drove off whistling.

Reading the original post again I see it was two sets of children therefore 2 sets of parents, could very well be that they hadn't set clear instructions about who was looking after who hence why the child managed to escape.

However no real harm done, if OPs DH was indeed only 5 mins late then a 5 year old was left in a car park at a sports hall for 5 minutes. The DS appears to be unscathed and hopefully the OP has learnt some valuable tips about exchanging mobile telephone numbers and making sure one is on time to pick up from parties.

who knows what the boy might have said to the party parents, or may have been in the toilet at the point that the party was packing up

None of that matters. He was a 5 year old boy and it was the host's responsibility to make sure that he was accounted for.

And I love the way that you hope that the OP learns lessons about timekeeping etc and thus excuse the fact that the hosts didn't appear to know their arses from their elbows.

Also just skimmed pagew 1-5.

It is OP's DH's fault for being late?? What the actual fuck are you on? Even if 5 years late or if they dropped off and ran away to Mexico, it matters not, under no circumstances do you leave a 5 year old alone.Are these posters who think it acceptable to blame OP's DH so cold? If you saw a 5yo in the street alone would you cruise on by saying "chuh his parents ought kept a better eye on him".

You wait, you call, you take kid home, you take kid to your home, you call police/ss if no sign.

soverylucky they didn't need to clean up, it was in a play centre type place! Your time ends, you walk to the door, hand a party bag to each child and you all leave. There is a few of them near me and everyone is out the door by 2 mins past!

YABU. I've never been to a party where the kids are called out to meet parents one by one like at preschool at the end.
I doubt your child was left on purpose - he probably just got swept out with the masses of parents and kids leaving the venue. This happened because your dh was late which can happen but if your not confident that your child will know what to do in that situation then they're not mature enough to be left imo. You can't expect 2 mums to be able to constantly watch 30 kids.

I am also doubtful that it was 5 mins late and there was no sign of anyone. The majority of the 30 kids quaffing juice would likely have needed the loo, presents would need to be collected, people would need to say goodbye. No way would they have been out in 5 mins whether they had to tidy or not.