Play date for 12 7 yr olds?

[Sova]

My DC wants a play date and gave me a list of 12 children… we have a big garden so I’m actually considering it. Would it be rude to send a msg to parents saying it’s drop off only?
When I’ve organised play dates before, parents would stay and it inevitably meant that I had to look after the kids and to entertain the parents as well and also hard to get rid of them at the end!

12 children at once is more like a party :)

It's not remotely rude to say drop off only - at 7, parents really shouldn't need to stay except for particular circumstances. Do you want to supervise 12 on yoru own though, or are there other adults about?

However, I'd question whether this is sensible to do - wouldn't you be better simply having them 3 at a time and spreading them out? Or even 1 a week for 12 weeks?

Indeed this would be more sensible:)
I’ll sleep on it I think. I just don’t have time to host several play dates and found this one date that would work and trying to include everyone that has ever invited my DC.

I'd say 4 kids at a time is a max, I'd recommend you do 3 play dates

12 kids it’s really a party
fair play, but you will have to entertain/coordinate/referee - otherwise you’ll have 12 excited kids running havoc on your house
and cater for snacks, if not light tea for 12
on the other side… sounds like 2/3 hours hard work and then you’re done!

You are all convincing me. I think I’ll probably revise the ‘guest list’ and maybe do two and also will have to another play date for the second DC so that’s a lot of play dates. And I think I’ll say drop off only and no siblings due to the number of kids, just don’t want to come across rude. I’m happy to entertain the kids and feed them, just don’t want to have to entertain the adults at the same time

I think there's a shift toward drop and go at 7, it's not rude at all, just growing up!

Say something like

"Johnny would like to invite Susan to our house for a playdate on x date. If she's like to come, you can drop her off at 2pm, they can play for a couple of hours and I'll give them all an ice cream. Pick her up about 4pm. Let me know if that works for you"

Thanks. I’ll try that:)

I wouldn't want to be responsible for 12 7yr olds in my garden. I wouldn't want the parents to stay but they'd be better to.

I used to work with kids so I’m comfortable with looking after a larger group of them. What I found in the past though is that the problem starts when I start chatting with parents and then there is a bit of chaos but if I was just to focus on kids it would be fine. But I also found that parents would just come in, even when I said it’s ok just to drop off. perhaps with the intention of ‘helping put’ when actually I end up making coffees and trying to keep them happy on top of looking af tree r the kids so it actually adds work. And when a child is upset or misbehaves they don’t seem to always handle it as you’d expect, for instance have heard mum say ‘ oh Johnny, don’t do thaaaaat’ when her child hit another one on the eye or spit at someone. So in a way I know if I’m by myself it would be better as I’d keep a closer eye on the kids, these incidents would less likely to happen and would just manage their behaviour better, eg say if this happens again, I’ll ring your mum to take you home!

im also worried about excluding kids not to upset anyone although my DC wanted to exclude 2, but they are 6 of them sat at the same table at school so they’d feel very left out. And I’d be tempted to exclude one as displays difficult behaviour but I’m close friends with the mum!