Child Invited To Birthday Party Parents Expected To Pay

[Warrior96]

Hi so I know a child who has been invited to a birthday party, the child is 5. All the kids invited to the birthday party are 5-6 years old so parents will be expected to stay. The invitation asks the parents to pay for themselves. Am I being unreasonable to think this is a bit cheeky?

I’ve never known a soft play party include parents as part of the total number!

Me neither, but this one clearly does, so that's all that's relevant.

I would drop and leave my child. I am not sure parents are expected to stay.

We have one of these large soft play places near us that insists on charging for adults. Officially they allow 2 adults free with party packages ( I only found this out when I booked one), but never stopped me or anyone else just walking in with their child. And for DD's party they definitely only charged me for the kids even though about half the parents stayed.

If that's the case then fair enough.

But it is the parent's choice/problem and not something the host should have to pay to solve.

Does the invite specify the parents have to stay? If not, drop and run. 5-6 is a perfectly acceptable age to do this, and charging parents is probably the hosts roundabout way of saying "please, just go and leave us to it"

This is a parent problem not a party problem

Our local big soft play allows 1 child to stay per adult if they are under 8 at parties. Once they’re over 8 they only give 5 free adult passes (inc birthday child’s parents) for the whole party group (up to 18 kids) and each additional adult after that is £2. That said the charge is paid by the party organiser at the end of the session, parents aren’t charged to come in.

Sometimes it’s simply a numbers thing. Each venue will have a maximum safety limit of people they can have in the building due to fire regulations. Every adult that comes in prevents a paying child, so I can understand why they’d want to charge a token amount to try and cover their costs.

Not everyone can afford to be a generous host. I think rather than moralising it as "cheeky", I'd just show a bit of grace, approach it with a generosity of spirit and assume that this is the only way they can afford to give their small child the birthday that they want. You aren't forced to attend and can choose not to go and pay if you can't afford to or don't want to.

That’s odd, usually for parties 1 child gets a free adult. I wonder if she’s paying for a session but not an actual party.

This isn't at all what you were making out in your OP.

The children are paid for. There is no need for parents to stay. If they choose to stay, that's on them and they should pay for themselves.

Could you check if there's a viewing area? You probably just have to pay to actually enter the softplay. Otherwise, if you're worried I would just pay and count it as fun bonding time with your dd.

Is it Play Factore OP? If so, can totally understand why you won't leave your child. I wouldn't leave mine and they are 12, 9 and 8! It is huge, really high, and no way to keep any sort of eye on the kids at the party. Party hosts wouldn't stand a chance. I do think it's incredibly cheeky charging parents to stay given how large the place is anyway. I wonder if this would be enforced for birthday parties though. I suspect maybe it wouldn't... have you called and asked?

@Warrior96 better than finding out when you turn up that you have to pay. Everyone knows where they stand!

When DD was young, 5 was about the cut off point for whether parents stayed or dropped off. Before that we had the odd one or two parents who would leave them as young as 4. And at 5 just the occasional one who stayed with their child but most didn't. By 6 definitely everyone just dropped off and left them.

The first soft play party I hosted was drop and run. I welcomed the kids in as they arrived but made no note of who had come. Suddenly realised when it was time for cake that I had no idea who I was responsible for.

That was a heart in the mouth moment. I didn't even recognise the children. Luckily it all worked out; parents turned up, their kids recognised them and everyone was accounted for but... that was a mistake I didn't make again

Drop and leave with younger kids at a large softplay is cheeky fuckery behaviour. You are essentially enjoying free childcare for the cost of a present. 5-6 year olds are not old enough to be fully unsupervised so it's slightly reckless to leave them completely alone and it adds to the stress of the hosting parent. This is of course is assuming attendance for parents are free (not the issue raised by OP here), although even if it needs to be paid for it seems most reasonable behaviour to supervise young children.

There is also the obvious safeguarding issue. Drop and go birthdays at a home party, private venue or supervised location (museum, workshop) are not a problem because you know where the children are at all times. Large soft place locations are always open to the public so it's virtually impossible to keep track of all the children at the same time. God knows what other people could be there as well and if they might try to interact with one of the children. You are essentially allowing your young child to be roaming free in a public place with hundreds of strangers for at least 2 hours. They could also be going to bathroom fully unsupervised.

We had a softplay party with free entry, food and drink for the parents too. There were still 10 drop and goes, with around 4 kids aged 5 or below. Despite our best efforts, it was absolutely impossible to keep track of all the children at once. I managed to at least spot and accompany all the unsupervised kids to the loo so they weren't at risk of total strangers. A public softplay is really not the same thing as a school or home.

I really hate those kinds of venues, always think they are teetering on the edge of disaster so I can see why parents might want to stay. Tbh, if it was either pay to stay or not attending at all, I would lean towards declining the invitation unless it was a very good friend.

soft play parties are drop and run.

This isn’t my experience to be honest as there’s no way the host parent could keep track of them all. So you’d effectively be dropping your child unsupervised. I’m not a helicopter and am happy for DS to go into the soft play bit without me but there’s no way I’d drop him at the venue and then go home!

When my eldest turned 4 I had a soft play party for her, I had 11 or 12 kids dropped off, there was then a fire alarm and we had to go and stand outside in a busy town centre, managed to wrangle them all back inside and then when they sat down to eat I realised half way through that I didn't recognise one of the kids, she'd just decided she liked the look of the food and her poor mam was looking everywhere for her 😂

Anyway, after that I decided I wouldn't be dropping mine off at a party unless it was at someone's house

It is cheeky, but just take the value off your entry, off whatever you were going to spend on a gift.

It is a soft play and many of them charge adults. I would pay to stay. I have done them before and also pay for the sibling myself. Nothing wrong with it.

DS did this at a soft play party; not quite as dramatic but sat down and sang happy birthday to the birthday girl with great gusto. Her parents were luckily amused rather than put out!

Not really- we had a birthday party at a huge soft play with a capacoity to cordon off 5 or so areas for birthday parties and on the day they were all taken plus loads of random kids, so probably 100 or so kids on the venue. No one in their right mind would leave their child of that age.

How much? It is cheeky but I would pay as my DC loves parties.