Liability Waivers and Toddler Birthday Parties - Toddlers - Families ...

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

If your toddler participates in any organized activity, such as day care or baby fun activity centers, you are probably used to signing a waiver before your child can participate. After all, minor bumps and bruises can be a part of a child's life, and most healthy toddlers have a banged knee at one point or another.

But what if you have to sign a liability waiver just for your toddler to attend a friend's birthday party in someone's home? You have to agree to hold the host family harmless if something should happen to your little one.

Why a liability waiver? Will the party include live lions or toddler-eating snakes. The idea of liability waivers and toddlers makes me picture a hostile living room where the birthday balloons are filled with poison gas and the toddlers have to navigate barbed wire just to get to the birthday cake.

Unfortunately, many "normal" families are now including liability waivers in with their birthday party invitations. It can turn a fun and friendly interaction to a legal contract that is just, well, weird.

So how do you react if you get one and don't want to sign it? Perhaps ask the host if there are specific dangers that the family is concerned about. Maybe there is a pool in the home or peanuts being served. Whatever the case, toddlers shouldn't be left alone unsupervised at any birthday party anyway. Parents should be welcome and encouraged to stay for as long as their child will be there. Ultimately, parents should be responsible for their own children anyway.

If you are presented with a liability waiver for a home-based birthday party, you don't have to sign it of course. I would imagine that most hosts would back down. If not, you might want to introduce your toddler to some new little friends.

Have you ever encountered this situation? Tell us about it!

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