Leaving reception age child at class party

[blanketbag]

AIBU to think that leaving a reception age child at a class party is not acceptable?

There's no asking another parent to watch them, they're just dropped off and left. Happens at both soft play type parties and village hall type parties.

I would say about 7 is more normal. If you're leaving a younger child, you need to ask another parent who is staying to be in loco parentis (and not the host who has enough to do).

DD is year 2, and here all parents still stay! Very unusual to drop and run.

I remember a parent dropping her just turned 4 year old at a soft play party. She had recently decided to go vegan and shouted it to the host as she left. The poor child was left in tears at food time because she was being told she wasn’t allowed the burgers etc by the host mum.

I have a reception age child and every invite we’ve had has said parents welcome to stay or to drop. Most stay but it’s definitely to socialise with the other parents, not to supervise the kids.

My kids are now teens.

At reception age we left the kids and as the host I was always happy for parents to leave the kids.

They ar eleft at school, all day with (shock horror) just 1 or 2 adults between the whole class. Guess what? They manage just fine.

My rule was if my kid is happy, I'm happy to leave them.
As to parents dropping and leaving at our house etc. the only parent who stayed was one whose child had allergies, I was fine with that.

My house is big enough for a decent party for 10 or so kids. Not big enough for 10 + parents and siblings (grrr) too.

Some of the parties my DD has been to have said you can just drop off but from what I’ve seen only children who know the host parent really well do this and i wouldn’t with my DD for all the reasons you say

Around us, these kind of parties start at 5th or 6th birthday and parents are not expected to stay - unless their child has specific issues that means they need more help, or they are friends with the hosting parents, in which case they will probably hang around to have a drink and help with the wrangling. But the assumption is that by 5/6 most children are used to going to school, and therefore reasonably able to deal with 2 hours at a birthday party.

Crikey, my DDs are quite reception age yet but around here staying is the norm. A friend of mine asked me to help out at her daughter’s 5th birthday. She put on the invite that it was drop and go style. We are both teachers at these childrens’ school. We still got stuck with seven helicopter mums who drove us batty faffing over their children.

Surely if they leave you get out of the awkward small talk about holidays and judgy questions about whether the cake is gluten/dairy/sugar free?

Thanks for the responses. Seems to be a bit of a mixed bag. I suppose all I know is that I don't want to be responsible for two other children on top of my own three and hosting a party for 20 odd others, so will just make that clear.

* At the reception parties I've been to this year there seems to be a strong correlation between the most, ahem, boisterous and least independent children, and parents who drop and run.*

^Yes! The same in my experience

@AmbushedByCake

At the reception parties I've been to this year there seems to be a strong correlation between the most, ahem, boisterous and least independent children, and parents who drop and run.

This reminds me of someone who was outraged that her reception aged DS had not got a high enough "mark" for "relationships" at the end of year 1 (those standardised things they do at that point with I think just 3 options - working towards required level, meets required level, exceeds required level). He got the "working towards". She felt that as he 1. loves other children 2. is quite confident and happy to go and play with other children that therefore he deserved to be meeting or exceeding the required level.

Completely oblivious that HE might be happy and confident but that he crashes into other children's games, grabs their toys, insists on everything being done his way etc and generally causes chaos for all the other children in his vicinity. "Confidence" was NOT the issue.

4/5 is too young to me to leave a child in the care of strangers. I would stay even if I just sat away from the group. But most parties I have been to parents stick around until about the age of 7/8

It’s too young to be left

My DTs are reception age. At their soft play party in January, all parents stayed, but I think we're getting to the stage where parents are going to want to drop and run.

It was the norm to leave them when mine were small, but it was in the 90s so things have changed. We either had small parties with kids we knew, or got the parents that we were friends with and grandparents to help out.
Things have changed a lot around safety I think. I came across a child's party at bowling the other day and it was packed with kids and parents.