What age do children independently attend parties and play dates?

[magicofthefae]

So, just wanted to know, at what age do DC go to friends parties and play dates at their friends houses, on their own? Without the need for the parent to accompany them.

I know decades ago, things might have been different, but what is the stance these days for most parents?

This was about 1999

@AlltheFs

Yeah you're right, I'm overly self conscious.

Yup I definitely don't live in the middle of nowhere. So I don't have those issues!

If its a location party more than 20 minutes from home I'll stay, as its not worth going home / coming back.
Drop and go play dates from 5, I really can't be fucked to make small talk for 2 hours.

My youngest is 12 and in his day you left them from year 1 but I was talking to my sister about this, she has a 6 year old in yr2 and she said all parents are still staying.

I’ve seen a shift in this around the 7th birthday parties. It’s now OK to drop and go. Parents stayed at the Reception and Year 1 parties.

Play dates I’d say it’s now seen as odd to stay. Age 6 it was usually OK to drop but you wouldn’t assume.

About age 5 this started to happen for dc and their friends.

What age is year 1? Primary 1 so 5yrs old??

Here parents all stayed in YR, about half of them in Y1 and a small handful in Y2. This was for parties in village halls. I’d have been shocked if a parent didn’t stay in YR as they were all whole class parties and nobody wants to wrangle 30 4-5 year olds!

Year 2 here and all parents are still staying! It's so weird! With my eldest from Year 1 onwards no parents stayed.

Mine was five but they were young for the year.

Around 9 years old at a party in any sort of activity centre trampoline/ clip and climb type thing. Bit younger for house party if the hosts specifically said ‘drop off’ otherwise parents would stay and chat.

Play dates from 3 assuming I knew the parents. Parties- probably more like year 3 as mostly in a public place where it’s not really reasonable to expect the hosts to keep an eye on everyone. Also a lot of parties were sort of parties for the parents too- drinks served etc.

My DH is year one so we have all the 6th birthdays. All the parents stay unless the invite specifies not to. So far we’ve had a couple of those where due to the nature of the venue parents couldn’t stay

My DC is year one. Not my DH. Obvs 🙄

Yes.

In the US where I live it would be kindergarten.

Kids aged 4 would be in preschool.

I never hosted or sent my DCs to a party where parents stayed from age 4 on.

In Ireland it’s all based on that first mum- she sits down we’re all there, she leaves, the rest are gone😅

I don't know if it means the same thing but mine have been going to call for their friends independently since they were about 5 or 6.

No judgement either way, but it is definitely not the norm here for 5 year olds to call round for each other. Anyone younger than yr 6 (age 10) isn’t walking about on their own.

I’ve been to a lot of primary aged birthday parties and parents almost always stayed.

Why?

I wouldn't even think the way you do, why would you think other parents are watching you? It's about the child/ren not you.

Age 4 with parents I knew fairly well, but it was a local school and everyone was local.

DC are in an indy middle school with a much wider reach now - so it’s back to staying at parties again… zzz

Tricky as I used to stay at house ones with my little girl. Glad I did as often there were male relatives walking about who had attended the party as 'extended family' and in fairness I didn't know who they were.

4/5 (reception year) for an unsupervised after school playdate, you’d probably know the parents at a minimum to the pleasantries at the school gates level
5/6 (year 1) for parties but you still get a mix- sometimes the parents want to host the other parents and lay on drinks or the location means it’s not doable to go home in the time but very often it’s a drop; never seen a parent stay when it’s been specified as a drop off so there’s clearly a group consensus in our class !

I’ve been finding it’s a mix for age 5-6. Some parents drop and run but they stick around if they’re friendly with the parents. The parents have been saying on the invite that there’s no need to stay. However it seems that class parties were limited to reception and they’ve completely fizzled out for year one.

My son is in year one and parents still stay for parties and playdates. Seems completely normal here (SE London).