DC invited away by friends family

[Treebere]

If your DC is invited on holiday by their friends family, would you expect or offer to pay for some or all of it? I would offer to pay all, though wouldn’t expect to. I would send DC with plenty of spending money to pay for everyone to have a meal and for their own spending and I’d later send a thank you ‘something’ to the parents. Is this OTT?

They do sound a bit thankless but I wouldn’t have expected a child to pay for dinner nor a follow up thank you gift. Better would have been to set expectations up front when you invited them and said we’ll cover all food travel and accommodation but could you send £100 for activities (or whatever would be reasonable based on your research) plus pocket money for spending on souvenirs e.g. if they want something from a gift shop.

I think if you’re inviting someone on holiday you should expect to cover all of the costs. If someone invited one of my children and wanted money for it I could afford it, but it would probably be out of our family holiday budget. It’s awful that they haven’t been more grateful, but any expectations of money should have been discussed upfront.

I would expect the parents inviting to cover all costs, including activities, of things we were doing together. I would only expect them to pay for souvenirs/personal purchases. I think you should have said no to all the children if you couldn't afford the extra activity, rather than text the parents

I would expect a thank you afterwards, though!

How old are the children?

I am guessing this was perhaps a caravan type holiday where if you only have one child and he invited a friend, the price for the van would not have been any different, so the additional costs only come from food and activities.

I think you needed to be clear at the start what you wanted the friend to pay for, especially as it sounds like you don't know the family well.
The offer could have been Fred would love to bring Sam on holiday with us, happy to cover food and accommodation but would you be able to provide money for activities, these cost around X amount.

It's hard to say whether the friend will have had enough money to cover the costs and it may be that he didn't expect to have to pay for things (friend might have said we are taking you, his own parents may not have understood either and assumed you would pay, were embarrassed about the financial situation and rather than saying they couldn't afford it said to check with the child so he could then say he didn't have enough spending money for the activity).

Maybe next time you should allow the boys to choose the activities beforehand and discuss the price. Maybe point out to your own child the cost and ask them if they have enough money to pay for it (if they then grumble about paying for it, then you can understand the friends reluctance).

If I brought another child on a family holiday I would treat them as part of the family and they would pay for nothing. They would go home with the same amount of money they came with.

That being said, if someone else took my child I would offer to cover all costs and send them with plenty of spending money.

We've done both taking and being taken.

It depends....we took DD's friend abroad. The parents paid for the flights, but not towards the room (as we had a spare bed). The parents paid for a meal out for us all one evening. We've taken another child to Centre Parcs, where there were no extra travel costs or accomodation costs, but I asked the parents to pay for the activities.
I think being up front is key. Ie.
"Would James like to come with us for a week to Italy in the Summer? Flights are around £200."

When my children have been taken, I've always insisted on paying for their share if there are any extra costs

You should have discussed costs in advance. Sounds like they sent the budget with the child (which is probably a bit naive on their part but if you hadn’t said anything about costs what were they supposed to do). Terrible to text them while you’re away and ask them to pay you extra! No wonder they haven’t said anything afterwards.

I think also that a lot of kids would be quite shy and awkward about the money side of things.

My parents used to send me with money and tell me to treat my hosts but I would find it absolutely excruciating to do and the host parents would say "oh don't be silly" and then I wouldn't know what to do.

I think it would have been best to have discussed this beforehand and agreed that any extra costs are repaid - so activities and meals out / treats. They should have given you the money.
You know for next time - you can’t rely on getting the money off the child. You could work it out now and let them know how much they owe you but it will affect the relationship if they weren’t aware they needed to reimburse you.
So I’d suck it up and use it as a lesson to be clearer over costs, at least your child benefited from having a friend join them on holiday.

If we take a friend for DD we pay for everything except for souvenirs/personal spends.

We took DD’s friend to Centre Parc’s last October- Accommodation and travel would be the same regardless, swimming free. We ordered a food shop, not much more to feed one extra child and told them to choose one activity per day and we booked those in advance. The girls got a Lego set each in the toy shop with their spending money and paid for one ice cream when out a walk themselves - DH and I paid for all other ice creams, Starbucks etc.

If I'm taking our kid's friends along with us on a trip that's my choice and I pay everything. The benefit is that the kids have company making the trip more fun for them.

If you couldn't afford for them to do the activity twice you should have said no amd given them an alternative plan, contacting the parents was very odd.

First paragraph nails it.

You offer, you pay.

Asking for activity costs while away, bizarre. Just say no if it's not something you are willing to pay for.

Ouch! I'm cringing a bit for you OP! You messaged them whilst on holiday to ask them to pay for your days out! How embarrassing! If the activity was above your budget, you should have just told the boys "No!" rather than sending out begging messages.

Presumably you invited the boy to keep your son company? It wasn't a charitable endeavour?

Of course you should have received a thank you message.