to be shell shocked by birthday party with 6 invited 8 year olds?

[jasper]

I have 3 primary school aged kids and have a relaxed view of parenting so am used to considering my kids might well come across as not the most disciplined in the world.

Last night dd (8) had a party at our house with 6 invited classmates.

IT WAS CHAOS!

from the moment they arrived the 6 guests wreaked havvoc, shrieking and yelling, banging the piano lid ( repeatedly being asked not to)and generally behaving in a very bold and loud manner.

One boy just roared at the top of his voice for 2 hours.The rest were not much better.

Within a few min of arriving one little girl went round all the balloons bursting them with a sharp pencil.

I would be mortified if I thought my kids did this in other folks' houses.Maybe thay do???

As I mentioned I thought my own standards were not that high , but this behaviour is not acceptable in our house - far from it.

Anyway is this normal behaviour when a bunch of 8 year olds get together?

I don't see this behaviour with my DCs or their friends, and would go into "teacher mode" if I did (though I'm not a teacher). Maybe I'm lucky!

No, that sounds horrible. My ds is 9 and I would be horrified if he behaved like that.

I had my DD's party last weekend (9) they were kept entertained from when they arrived (4.30) until when they left (8pm) with bath bomb, bubble bath making etc and then a film, foot spa and manicure.

They still managed to break my very expensive vintage leather sofa (like a Swedish Chesterfield) and trash my house.

One girl, whenever asked to stop talking (screaming/shouting) so I could explain about the chemicals/perfumes/colours we were using and not to put fingers in mouth etc put her hands on her hips and said, "How dare you? How very dare you?" I thought she was joking at first, but realised she was serious. In the end I asked her if she spoke to her teacher like that, she said no. So I told her that I didn't expect her to speak to me (or any of my friends who were helping) like it either. I didn't ask if she spoke to her mother like that, as I guess the answer would be 'yes'.

Hats off to you for having a sleepover with so many I'm thankful that I didn't give in to DD's demands for a mass sleepover!

Marmaduke - what a madam!

what mad mazza said

when I've held a party in the house it has always had a pretty rigid structure otherwise they would all run about screaming. Give 'em an inch etc etc

Oh yes, the voice, like with dogs

"I thought it was only "good/nice" kids who were invited. Half of them turned out to be hitherto undiscovered hideous little brats.
"
Everyone is always horrified by the behaviour of other children en masse when they visit. Loads and loads and loads of posts about it. Which strongly suggests that a lot of otherwise calm, gentle, polite and generaly well-behaved children behave like savages once crowd-chemistry and over-excitement kick in!

I am actually starting to believe that if another person's child is so out of control that they are refusing to obey the most safety commands, then their parents should be called and the child removed. You'd only need to do it once, but the reputation would last a looong time.

I have a reputation among my children's friends for being strict. I am a trained teacher, and treat other people's children as I would my own, extending the same duty of care and reproach for bad behaviour as I would to my own. I have never had any problems with anyone else's child in my house.

I've never invited all dd's friends for a party in my house and now I'm thankful, I regularly have a house full but they're not all the same age and would never wreck the house, that is unacceptable. I did go to an all girls 8th birthday party at a soft play place and it was awful, they were all hitting each other and the mum of the party didn't know what to do, all the parents except me had left their dd's I would have rang them to come and get them but the mum hadn't taken their numbers (which would have been a nightmare if one had seriously injured themselves)

Sleepovers are a no until dd1 is 12 at least and then it will be one or two close friends at most, now I've read this thread I really mean it!

Oh, and I think it perfectly acceptable for anybody to say to a visiting brat "We do NOT do X in our house!" in the most assertive possible way. I also use "Do you realise that you are being very rude?", which usually seem to work on the 6-12 age bracket.

Jasper, what kind of party was it? Apart from chaos? Did you have any activities set out for them?
Maybe they just thought they would "liven up the place".
I won't even allow 3yr olds to have a party in the confines of the house. They have to go in the garden.
Parties should never be in a house, just hire a soft play or a hall and then it will be much more relaxing.
If i had kids like that playing riot i would ring their parents and tell them the party is cancelled and get them to listen to the racket over the phone!
Sleepovers should only be for one special friend at a time.

This just makes me feel so thankful - we had 7 friends (plus my ds) last year at our house for his 7th birthday, and are having the same frinds here this year.

I had one friend (parent of one of the guests) to help. She is a trained teacher, and was absolutely FAB with helping (hope you read this my friend you know who you are! )

I have to say they were all pretty well behaved. I did have lots of games organised, as well as tea. They are all very well known to me though (know all their parents quite well) and it was a mix of 5 boys and 3 girls. If they had trashed the house/ been really rude etc, I would just not have invited them again this year. But ds said it was the best party he had had, and his friends all seemed to enjoy it too.

These kids sound awful and very rude. However it is possible to hold parties at home without total disaster.

I have nearly all my kids' parties at home. I limit numbers, but invite the parents and siblings too, and lay on nibbles and wine/beer for the grown ups. The idea is that this is more of a whole family experience and stops children becoming too feral.

We take the children off to the dining room where we do organised games with them, or run a disco depending on age and coolness level required (DH used to be a p/t DJ and has appropriate accessories).

I make home made pizza slices and serve them school canteen style to the kids at half time. They really seem to like this.

Haven't had any real nutters, but if I did I would probably sort them out fairly pronto as I used to be a teacher. I would have no compunction about sending them home if they were too rude and stroppy. I don't do sleepover parties because these are too hard to cope with and everyone gets tired and grumpy.

We have parties at home with loads of kids, and so far no problems. Fingers crossed, as I've got 30 coming on Wednesday!

I would never be brave enough to have 30, gooogly!

I think it was about that age (possibly a little older) when my DB had a 'board games' party with about 6 or 7 guests and my DM had to physically restrain my father when he caught the child who had already trashed both sofa and bean bags (it was the 70s ) cheating at Monopoly.

I had 30-ish 6 & 7 yos last weekend (in a village hall) - 'tis now over 11 months until I need to do that again

After my brother's 8th birthday party my mum NEVER had a children's party in our house again...

WE hvae had parties for whole class at primary

my advice for you would get a whistle like a football reffereee one

it works brilliantly to shut the little darlings up

No they sound naughty, did you provide Fruit Shoots ? If so it's your own fault, I would have threatened to call their parents if they didn't calm down.

LOL @ cheating at monopoly.

Duchess I am a particularly strict parent of well behaved children, the party was planned like a military advance. 30 minute making labels for bottles and glitter bubble bath. Pass the parcel (whilst I cleared up and prepared next task). Hand wash, pull crackers, Eat pizza. Next 2 tasks (lip gloss and bath bombs) settle for film. deliver popcorn and chocolate fondue. Start foot spa and manicures - city lawyer friend set timeline (in 6 min chargable timeslots lol). Should have been a doddle, at no time were the children left unsupervised or unentertained - I obviously have higher expectations due to my own children's behaviour.

The rude madam was eventually removed from the activities to sit quietly with my fierce city lawyer friend (single no kids, very high behaviour expectations) whilst I and my teacher friend continued the 'make' with the sensible children.

I repeatedly asked the sofa breaking child to not climb/jump on it. I said, "X I'm sure you do not jump on the furniture at your home and I can assure you we do not do it here. Sit down nicely." I also got quite a bit crosser too. But I was manicuring nails in rotation sitting with my back to the girls as they were watching a film, so each girl having nails painted could see the film over my shoulder.

Had I noticed the sofa was broken before the end of the film I would have turned the film off.

I considered sending the rude madam home, but didn't wish to ruin my DD's party.

I can also vouch for the whistle working well. Basically, any more than 4 children in the house and you need to treat them like dogs for the duration of the party.

Ripeberry it was fairly organised as follows .

First half hour - crafts making party hats / crowns.|Got off to a bad start with Cheeky Boy roaring (you cannot imagine the volume ) and yelling for no reason at all and girls banging piano keys despite me closing lid and asking them not to.

Followed by organised games with ten minute breaks in between to run around garden / play on trampoline.

Treasure Hunt.

Party tea followed by Pinatta and birthday cake.

Don't get me wrong- it was all a great success and good fun but I was astonished at how bold and unrully the visiting kids were.