Leaving children at party etiquette

[Mumofthreemonkeychildren]

We had our child’s 6th birthday party and two of the parents just dropped their children off and came back a few hours later to pick them up. It may not have been so bad if I had met the people and their child before but I didn’t even have a clue who their kids were and all of a sudden I have been given the responsibility of not only hosting a party for 15 kids, looking after my own 3 children, aged 6, 2 and 6 months but now another two people’s children. To top it off one of the kids was really badly behaved and upset the other kids and then also when the parents collected their children they left without saying goodbye and didn’t even thank me for the party or looking after their children. I just don’t get why someone would leave their kids with someone they’ve never met, they could be leaving them with peodophiles or they could be abducted by someone else If I wasn’t paying attention to them or get lost and hurt and I’d be the one held responsible for it... am I being unreasonable to think that 6 is too young to leave your child at a party with someone you’ve never met before?

Round here dc are left at parties from year one onwards. When dtds were 6 we made sure we had enough help and specifically asked a couple of parents to stay to ensure we had enough adults. Staying is a nightmare if you have other dc.

theonlyKevin - but do most 6 year olds want their parents there? Really? Or do they want to enjoy the freedom to relax and play with their friends without mum/dad hovering?

Obviously if children are particularly shy or nervous or have SN it is different (including my own SN DS who I had to stay with until much older as he found parties stressful) but in my experience (I have done a lot of parties) the majority of children love the chance to have a bit of independence and freedom away from school and home. They can be a bit cheeky, nobody is nagging them to eat their veg.
I hosted a party once where a dad stayed and spent the whole party barking orders at his poor daughter, I felt quite sorry for her.

I would host the parents though. Whether they expected it or not. I'm nice like that

This very clearly varies from region to region. Round my way, if you stayed at a 6 year old party, you'd definitely be the only parent there. It wouldn't be remotely 'ill-mannered' (😂) to leave, it would be expected.

@namechangedtoday15

"Really?  You invited 15 children (presumably from your DD's Y1 class as she's 6) and you've never met the parents or children? In almost 18 months at school? Why?"

Why the irrelevant and ridiculous condescension? Does it make you feel good?

Maybe she works, and doesn't do drop-off or pick up. Maybe she has a childminder. Maybe her DP does the school run.

Your point was what exactly?

It's absolutely fine in my opinion to bring siblings to a soft play which is open to the general public and pay their entry.

Whatever the norm is in your school, what you describe isn't at ours Bumsex so there you go, I would expect if a parent didn't know me from Adam they would say hello and leave a number.

The drop & go starts around Yr 2, and the parents usually did check. I say they are welcome to bugger off or stay & have a coffee which some actually like to do.

I never got this right. I dumped and run when the parent wanted me to stay and i imposed myself on parents who didnt want me there, its a minefield op. However I do think parents should be mindful of their childs behavioural needs at parties and act accordingly.

I think you only have to ask either on drop off or before you accept the invite via text.

What I don't think you should do is assume one or the other with parents you don't as yet know.

You then don't have to accept the invitation if either option is that much of an issue to you.

YANBU. Shocked that folk will leave young children (3 or 4 sometimes!) with complete strangers they've never met before.

Ds Is 7 this month and he's only just been to his first party where parents have left and that's because it wads a private hire mini cinema party so no space. It's not the time thing here to drop and run even in year 2

At my son's 4th birthday party, a mum dropped her daughter off, asked me to show her the food we were serving, pointed out all the things she was allergic to and then left! I followed that little girl around for the whole 2.5 hours. *
*
And we had asked for allergy info on the invite and she never gave me any - my kids have allergies so I'm super careful about it if I know.

After that we started specifying on the invite if drop off or not (ok at our place but we ask parents to stay if party is at a public place and kids are under 8)

That happened to me at my daughter's 4th birthday party. It was in a hall and with about 40 kids. I didn't know the parents from adam.
They turned up to her 5th or 6th with all of their children expecting them to join in. Didn't ask! Just told me "the siblings want to join in"

realistically, it's not just about managing toilet breaks, is it. By age 5 -6, so Year 1 and 2, kids are completely independent with bathroom issues. It's more that the dropped kids will be the least behaved, and will be the ones hurting someone else, teasing, running around and trying to damage the decoration or anything else, emptying the content of their glass everywhere so an adult will have to mop, trying to take all the food and needing to be stopped and leave some to the others.

At 5 -6, children generally don't really care if their parents are there or not- mine didn't. They are still too young to be embarrassed by that.

What is rude is denying any responsibility for your child and expect other parents to take care of them, assuming either that other parents stay and can offer free childcare, or that the host is Mary Poppins and can take care of 40 kids.

it's a child birthday party, not a pre-school.

At the very very least ask, but not in a way that a polite host won't dare telling you not to be rude and stay to look after your child, who needs it! It would be lovely if the dropped kid was the lovely one, polite, cheerful and a pleasure to have around. In real life, it really is not!

We always stayed at reception parties as it was a good way to get to know the other parents but from year 1 we would of been okay to drop and go if we had other commitments however still stay on occasion. However by then we knew the parents, we would always ask beforehand and they had our number incase of problems. Eldest DS is 9 now and would be embarrassed if I stayed!

I agree that the ones who drop and run normally have the naughtiest kids! The ones who stay tend to have the kids who would have been no trouble anyway!

I am lucky I have never had it with my own kids, but worst than the drop and run parents are the ones who don't come to pick up their kids on time. I know of kids who had been left behind for several hours - which is bad enough at a house party, but a nightmare in a venue. Some people have no shame, thankfully they are rare.

@AhNowTed Actually it's a valid question. It was a strange situation to suggest that as a parent you don't know the children you're inviting to your child's party and have never met the parents. Even as you suggest she doesn't do drop off (which is fine) the fact that her daughter has never been to another child's party, ever had a play date, never been into school to watch an assembly / play / been to a PTA event - anything school related where she would have met other parents / children sounds odd far fetched.

My 4 year old son was invited to a classmates 5th party last weekend i went and assume id stay and when i got there, there were a lot of children and only 1 other parent, I stayed and mentioned to the other parent that I thought all the parents would be staying and she thought the same as me, our children have only been in school since September, I'd never spoken to the birthday child's mum before so had no idea who they were, I'd never of thought to just leave him there as it was I ended up helping out as a lot of the kids recognised me and asked me for drinks, where the toilet was, help with the food ect as there were around 30 4/5 year olds being looked after by about 3 adults in a community hall with a bouncy castle ect x I don't think yabu because even in a year's time I can't see me wanting to leave my son. What if something happened and I could of been there to prevent it!

It’s the norm to drop them off where I live - but we are a small village and all know each other. Sometimes parents stay - which is also fine. I think it’s rude of parents not to at least thank you afterwards

No actually it isn't that odd. We have a 2 form entry that's 60 kids with a fair bit of movement. There are lots of kids I'm not overly familiar with or their parents and some of those will be asked this year as DS has started new friendships as kids that age do.

Just because you don't experience something personally if dosent mean if never happens

Why is 2 form entry relevant? surely you only invite the children from your class, not the whole year? Or are the two classes mixed?

If the kids make friends from the same age group at after-school clubs , why wouldn't you invite them to the party? It's not unusual here to mix the classes for big group parties.

They all socialise.