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?

No adults stayed at parties in the 70’s/80’s but parties tended to start at 5 or 6 years and involved maybe only up to 8 or 10 children (and pass the parcel and jelly). I’ve never really got the whole adults have to stay thing.

If it's just you and DH and you had your two other children with you, was anyone bouncing with the kids? Had you booked a party package type thing with X number of staff assigned just to watch the party guests who had like tabard things or something? Or had you just paid general admission for them?

I have three children (all grown now) with large age gaps between, so I’ve been through this.

Some years, acceptable to have age 4 and above left at party by parents. Some it started in reception with only one clingy child having parent remain.

With one daughter, somehow it became the norm with that year group, mums hung around for glass of wine upon collection at end of party.

Big bit of advice, don’t invite more children than you can supervise and that should include drafting in your husband etc to help. We always had either friends or au pair on hand to help us supervise our children’s parties to have sufficient adult/child ratio.

In all those years, I can’t recall anyone asking if it were ok to drop and leave as it was the acceptable thing to do.

Wow by age 6 most of our class invitations asked parents to drop and go! It’s very difficult if you have other siblings and your partner works weekends, you have to drop and go!

I think the ops point is that the parents don’t know here- it’s very different if you know the parents beforehand/have been to the house etc. But this was a public place and the parents were just leaving their kids with strangers. That’s not great parenting really - you wouldn’t normally do it in any other sphere.

Her not here

The trampoline thing makes a big difference most / all parents drop at house/Hall parties from school age here but stay at soft play / trampoline etc parties - where you might need to extract an over excited child.

At our primary, it tended to be parents would drop and run from reception if the party was in a house or hired hall (they’d always leave a contact number, and most would check it was ok to leave before doing so)

If the party was in a soft play , then about half the parents would stay - but would just sit in the cafe chatting - certainly not supervising any kids!

I think if you are hosting a party, you need to make it clear in the invitation that you need parents to stay and supervise, If you require them to do so.

Not saying thank you us just plain rude though

IME people started dropping their kids a d leaving them at parties from when they were about 5 or 6.

Standard where I live from 5 onwards. But there's also a rule that you only invite as many kids as the age of the birthday child. Which I didn't know, so had 8 kids dumped on us on DD's 5th birthday. One parent stayed with her kid (so 10 kids total) as she's a friend of mine. It was fine, tbh, but I won't make that mistake again! And all the parents thanked us, it's bang out of order that parent didn't, OP.

I'd expect parents to drop and leave at age 6, and only stay if that particular child had separation/anxiety issues.
Yanbu about the bad behaviour though, and not saying thank you.

I always drop and run. But I make a point of speaking to the parents first and asking if it’s ok.

I then make sure my dd thanks both parents and child before we leave

It is annoying if the parents were meant to stay but I'll be honest the thought of paedophiles doesn't really cross my mind when dropping off at parties

You were not given the responsibility of hosting a party. It was surely your choice. YABU.

Totally bad manners from the parents of these children here, although more the lack of communication and thank you rather than leaving their kids, I would say that’s standard at they age.

I would expect anyone hosting a party to have adequate supervision in place unless I was specifically requested to stay and supervise my child. I wouldn’t say that two of you with 15 kids and two much younger ones of your own is appropriate. Although I understand that you didn’t realize you would be responsible for all the children! As you say, lesson learned for next time.

Parents stop at 6 year olds parties where I live, unless its at someones home. It would be considered rude to just bugger off and leave the host to look after 15-20 kids in a village hall or softplay.

I assumed the general etiquette was to stay unless specifically asked not to.

Tbh trampoline places are generally really well staffed and staff blowing whistles for rule violations etc. I’m surprised one child was alowed to be misbehaving. They’d be sent off the trampolines by staff in the centres near me.

Quite normal here. If at someone's house no parent stays, elsewhere it's a mix usually, depends a lot on if it's a long drive away and not worth going home/elsewhere.

It’s typical to leave them at that age but rude not to ask first if it’s ok

Normal to leave IMHO.

Just to add, if you arrange a party I would have thought that you arrange all aspects including roping in a couple of parents,relations or teenagers to help supervise. Even if parents stay I would class them as guests too( although most would help) .

Here it's normal to leave at that age, and it should be the hosts responsibilty to ensure there is enough adult supervision beforehand.

If parents are required to stay they should also be treated as guests, and be offered refreshments (a cup of tea and the leftover party food at the very least).

I’ve said it on a thread like this before but I’ll say it again.

When I was a child all children were left at parties, it was not expected for parents to stay and probably would have been weird tbh. A lot of parties were held in people’s homes with party games and such, there simply wouldn’t have been space for everyone’s parents as well! We also loved the independence from our parents for a while.

I’m not spending a portion of my weekend at someone else’s kids birthday party so yes, I leave my DC. I also have other DC and don’t always have childcare so unless they want to accept my other children as part of the party then...

It’s absolutely fine and imo NORMAL to leave children at a party. Maybe not under four but once they’re reception age it’s fine.

My lg is 5.5 and I haven’t left her at a party yet and I intend on doing so ever if it’s at s public place. I always pay in for my son (3) and sit somewhere away from the party. At a friends house maybe. But it just so happened that at the last party in a house she didn’t want me to leave so I didn’t. I helped out the other Mum (who was happy for me to do so)

Don’t intend *