Kids bday parties?

[dez1978]

If you have a party somewhere (not at home) for your kid, and one of their friends has siblings, do you expect those siblings to come along too? Or as a parent taking your kid to a party, do you expect to take all of your kids or just the one invited? This will be our 1st year inviting a few friends and I know some of these friends have siblings. It's $30/per kid, over 10 kids. Between my kids, the cousins and the 3 friends we are right at 10. Just trying to figure out what others do.

 

[EMom]

Only if I INVITE the siblings

 

[mom to minnie&mickey]

If they are family friends then I would invite all the kids but in the case where only your child is friends only that one child, no siblings. When my kids were that age only the one invited went to the birthday party unless we knew the family personally and we were all invited. Why would siblings go who do not know the birthday child? I cannot imagine inviting/planning for one kid and getting 2 or 3 from the same family. That being said some people are clueless and might bring extra kids so maybe be prepared for that i.e. loot bags, extra places at the venue. Or, specify on the invitation that it is only for that one child.

 

[NotUrsula]

If it's a party where the parents are expected to stay, then yes, you should expect that siblings may end up coming, too, if the other parent is busy at the time. I was never in this position because my kids are far apart in age, but if I had had no one else to watch my other kids, and the hostess asked me to stay, I would have expected to pay the fee for the siblings myself. I would, of course, have called you first to be sure it was OK, and send regrets for my invited child if it wasn't.

If your experience tells you that the group you have invited is likely to show up with siblings in tow, then perhaps you would be better off adding a gentle discouragement for parents staying. This should be done on the invitation: Outline how many adults you have available to supervise (with a party of 10, I'd say at least 4) and make it a point to make the end-time firm on the invitation, and also state a specific location for picking up the children. Give 2 phone numbers for yourself and your child's other parent, and invite them to call ahead if they have questions.

It might even be helpful to prepare a short list of places of interest near the venue if any of them live further away, so that they will know what places are nearby where they might take the siblings while the invited child is at the party. I wouldn't send that with the invitation, but having it ready to offer when they tell you that they don't have a sitter might help. (Parks, bookstores, libraries, skating rinks, branches of the YMCA, etc.)

 

[Lumpy1106]

Just posting to say how glad I am that all 3 of my kids have now outgrown the b-day parties.

 

[mjkacmom]

I’ve never heard of people bringing uninvited siblings to out of the home birthday parties (which is the norm here). If my child was too young to stay without me, or I didn’t have a friend to watch him/her, and I had no one to watch my other kids, my child just wouldn’t go. Fortunately i never had that issue. There were many parties only one of my twins was invited to since they were in separate classes.

 

[NotUrsula]

I’ve never heard of people bringing uninvited siblings to out of the home birthday parties (which is the norm here). If my child was too young to stay without me, or I didn’t have a friend to watch him/her, and I had no one to watch my other kids, my child just wouldn’t go. Fortunately i never had that issue. There were many parties only one of my twins was invited to since they were in separate classes.

The rise of the helicopter style of parenting has made this much more of an issue than it once was. People are just clueless.

IME, if you fail to make it crystal clear ahead of time that parents are free to enjoy a free afternoon elsewhere because you have the supervision duties well covered, and that parents should NOT stay, then they assume they should stay, and if they arrive with siblings in the car, they will stay, too. (Many of them will just pay the fee for the venue and stay out of the party itself, but the younger the children, the harder it can be to to keep the siblings from crashing the party.)

 

[mjkacmom]

The rise of the helicopter style of parenting has made this much more of an issue than it once was. People are just clueless.

IME, if you fail to make it crystal clear ahead of time that parents are free to enjoy a free afternoon elsewhere because you have the supervision duties well covered, and that parents should NOT stay, then they assume they should stay, and if they arrive with siblings in the car, they will stay, too. (Many of them will just pay the fee for the venue and stay out of the party itself, but the younger the children, the harder it can be to to keep the siblings from crashing the party.)

There have been some parties I brought other kids to, large venues with lots of kids, but not if I needed to actively supervise a young child, and we could be in other areas away from the party.

 

[fly girl]

If you have a party somewhere (not at home) for your kid, and one of their friends has siblings, do you expect those siblings to come along too? Or as a parent taking your kid to a party, do you expect to take all of your kids or just the one invited? This will be our 1st year inviting a few friends and I know some of these friends have siblings. It's $30/per kid, over 10 kids. Between my kids, the cousins and the 3 friends we are right at 10. Just trying to figure out what others do.

I have hosted several parties for my daughter outside of the home and I have never had an instance where someone brought a sibling along that was not expressly invited. I have had parents ask me if it was ok to leave the party and return. I had no issue with that since I had help (including other parents).

I was at a party once when a older sibling did attend, but not as a birthday guest. That parent paid for the sibling to enjoy the laser tag and trampoline park. I think the host offered pizza and cake, but the parent declined knowing it was a odd situation. The host was gracious and really if he did have food it would've been fine as there was plenty to go around.

 

[dez1978]

I have hosted several parties for my daughter outside of the home and I have never had an instance where someone brought a sibling along that was not expressly invited. I have had parents ask me if it was ok to leave the party and return. I had no issue with that since I had help (including other parents).

I was at a party once when a older sibling did attend, but not as a birthday guest. That parent paid for the sibling to enjoy the laser tag and trampoline park. I think the host offered pizza and cake, but the parent declined knowing it was a odd situation. The host was gracious and really if he did have food it would've been fine as there was plenty to go around.

This is more what I was thinking. I had to do this once at a party at a rec center. I asked before if it was ok and I paid for my child to attend separately like we’d have paid for him if we wouldn’t have been part of the party.

but then every year I get invites from a friend that says something like you are invited to this party here and it’s 14.99 per child if you want to come. So they expect everyone to pay to attend a party they were invited to. This seems super tacky to me.

 

[WorldWacky]

Yeah…that IS super tacky.

 

[WorldWacky]

Even with twins, I never assumed or just brought the other one along. It’s rude. The kid on the invitation is the one who is INVITED, not the whole family. I had plenty of instances where people would pay separately for their other children to play at the venue. You could add something to the invitation like this:
If you’re not dropping off and would like you enjoy the (zoo, farm, water park) with any siblings, it’s $24.95 for admission. You can come back to the party room to pick up Johnny at 2:00pm.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Wasn't this brought up in a different thread a bit ago? Where it was regional/growing up differences. Some the whole family joined others that would have been utterly rude?

https://www.disboards.com/threads/wwyd-not-enough-loot-bags.3860858/#post-63552416 I think it was covered in 6 pages so certainly not legendary for the CB but yeah it was already talked about.

 

[dez1978]

Wasn't this brought up in a different thread a bit ago? Where it was regional/growing up differences. Some the whole family joined others that would have been utterly rude?

https://www.disboards.com/threads/wwyd-not-enough-loot-bags.3860858/#post-63552416 I think it was covered in 6 pages so certainly not legendary for the CB but yeah it was already talked about.

I haven't jumped into that thread yet. But the title reminded me why I don't do loot bags.

 

[neverlandsky]

I've seen it all. If the invites haven't gone out, nix the friends. Keep it family only at places charging fees. Have friends over to house or local park for celebration where siblings popping in won't matter. Always make at least 5 extra loot bags.

 

[kymom99]

I had a party for my sons birthday years ago at a bowling alley. I had 2 friends who brought their kids. We also invited 2 of my sons friends from school. I picked the boys up myself and took them home. Worked out great.
One time I had my grandkids for an extended time while their parents were on vacation. The youngest was invited to a birthday party at a venue. Her mom checked with the host mom to see if I could just drop off and come back. They said it was fine. Otherwise she would have declined the invite. I would have had to bring the other 2 kids because there was no one else to watch them. Not an option.

 

[kymom99]

I've seen it all. If the invites haven't gone out, nix the friends. Keep it family only at places charging fees. Have friends over to house or local park for celebration where siblings popping in won't matter. Always make at least 5 extra loot bags.

I tend to agree. One reason is kids tend to not show up, leaving the host to pay for no shows.

 

[dez1978]

I've seen it all. If the invites haven't gone out, nix the friends. Keep it family only at places charging fees. Have friends over to house or local park for celebration where siblings popping in won't matter. Always make at least 5 extra loot bags.

I make zero loot bags lol. Then no one is left out. It's in March so here it could be 20 and snow or 75 and sunny so no parks. And my house is too small. In the past we've always kept it to family. But he's 7 and starting to notice that his brother gets invited to go places with friends and he never does. Well, we never invite people anywhere either. So maybe thats why. We are in a small area where most people have known each other their whole lives, but we have only been here about 10 years so we aren't in that group. So I have to start somewhere. I just wondered what the norm was for things like this.

 

[Orion Nebula]

I would only invite my sons friends. Not family of friends, friends of friends or anyone else he doesn't have a direct relationship with.

 

[anniemae]

My kids are past this stage, but when they were young I never brought the sibling along with the invited guest. The only time I did was if the host specified that siblings were welcomed to attend.

When I had parties for my kids, I never did a venue because I had heard horror stories from friends about people bringing siblings without warning so the per person counts were off and/or dropping young kids off and leaving. (I think parents are expected to stay when the kids are really young. Plus some venues were 30-40 mins away and it would not be worth it to go home.). I always did the parties at home or at a park. When they got older, they could pick a few friends and we would go to dinner and to the movie theater.