Play dates without ne

[Year1Mummy]

My DD has just started year 1, she turned 5 in July. She’s had a handful of play dates with friends at their houses but I’ve always been there too.

There’s a lovely mum at school who keeps saying she’ll invite my DD over for tea as our DDs seem to have suddenly become good friends at the end of last term. We’ve never visited their house before, and I feel like my DD is too young to go to a friend’s house without me there, especially one whose house we’ve never been to and don’t know the parents well. Am I being overly protective? Is it normal for kids to go to friends houses without their parents in year 1?

It is normal where I live, all playdates without parent from start of Year One.

I didn't mind going with my daughter to playdates, but I must admit I found it so much easier to reciprocate playdates without the parent present because you can just let the kids get on with it, no need to entertain or force conversation with a parent you don't know very well. I usually get on with cleaning when my child has a playdate at ours now (just started year 2).

My daughter had a school friend whose parents insisted on coming along and after a particularly awkward couple of hours with the child's dad with whom I had absolutely nothing in common, it did make me less likely to invite them to be honest.

I had no issue, same as my parents did this with me

Do you host playdates too?

Ours were always without parents by y1.

This is normal. In reception DC wasn't invited to any nor did we host. In year 1 she was invited on a few which we reciprocated, always without parents. I wouldn't have even thought to question it tbh in my mind that's plenty old enough to go to a friend's house for a few hours without a parent (as long as child wants to, of course!).

I haven’t yet, mostly due to having a baby in April after a very difficult pregnancy for most of DD’s reception year.

Play dates are a mixture of with and without parents in Yr 1 around here. Tbh I prefer to be around as I find the kids are just left unsupervised for a couple of hours if I'm not there, and often with free access to screens. If they are without parents then it has to be a reciprocal arrangement otherwise it's just unpaid childminding.

Unattended here, but only if I believe the parents are trustworthy and responsible, no dangerous dogs, not likely to allow the children to play in the street unsupervised etc.

Sorry, but you can’t expect everyone else to host you when you’re not giving the same back!

It depends on the situation I guess, your child, the hosts etc
My little boy was invited to a birthday party (small only 4 from his class) in reception last year which I stayed for as I'd never left him alone at a house before and the hosts were lovely about it. I knew the mum anyway from times gone by. Fast forward nearly a year at the end of reception she asked if my boy wanted to go for tea and I said yes as I'd been to the house, new the family well by this point plus I trusted my son to behave himself so felt comfortable with leaving him.
I think it's a personal decision based on each circumstance!

That’s a strange response. I don’t expect everyone else to host at all. In fact, 2 of the play dates she’s been on I offered to host but the parents said it was easier for them for us to there (one has 2 other children- I said they were welcome but she would have needed to bring so much stuff the mum said it was easier to host, and the other had lots of new garden toys her daughter wanted to play in with a friend). I haven’t offered for the other couple she’s had as DD was invited by them first and I’d just had a baby and the house was a tip.

I think you might have missed the point of my question a little bit ☺️ I was wondering if parents of year 1-aged kids go along on play dates or not, as I feel a bit odd letting DD go to a house she’s never been to with parents I don’t really know.

Thanks everyone for your responses, seems to be very dependent on the situation which is good to hear- I thought I was being super overprotective! I hadn’t even though of things like dangerous dogs etc

Apologies - I don’t think my response was particularly nice. My general rule of thumb with my girls (now much older!) was that they were fine to be left once I’d met the parents. As long as everyone was comfortable and on the same page, of course!