Annoying Party Guest

What to do if you have to invite a guest to your kid’s party that is annoying and rude, and generally dampens the party fun for everyone?

This situation can often arise when you have a small child and the celebration includes the whole family ~ and the annoying person is one of the VIPs of your family circle! This is a common situation, and one that you will have a hard time avoiding. So, it is all about managing the person at the party…here are some ideas for how to handle your guest:

• Do not avoid inviting this person to your party. If he is a part of your family, it will seem very odd if he doesn’t receive an invitation. Also, the person may find out through the grapevine and cause more problems without having been extended an invitation. So, invite him but plan on how to handle the person.
• Before the party, think about your relationship to this person. Would you be able to have an honest conversation expressing your concerns to this person? If you can have this conversation, be positive and state your expectations clearly. If not, is there another person who you can talk to about your concerns that will also be at the party, and will be able to help keep the fun going with this guest around? This would work well if you can’t talk with the person directly.
• If that is not going to work, then think about what makes the person annoying at the party and prepare for the party and for this person being there. Is there someone in particular who gets along well with this guest? If so, perhaps you could seat them together or have them be close by to them to keep the guest happy and surrounded by people he gets along with.
• If the person is rude to others and makes nasty comments to people, perhaps not giving the perosn the chance by providing him with a party role or job to do at the event. This way, the person ma not have the chance to make such comments as they are too busy working the party and helping out.
• If this guest would never help with the party, then you may have to keep your own eye on him to see about what is unfolding if you feel really uncomfortable. If this is going to be a full-time “job” at the party, then make sure to have other adults helping to run the party so the event continues to run smoothyl.
• At some point, you may just need to let go and let be. If this person is a part of your family and other family members are around, then they may also understand how this person is and be forgiving about the persons’ foibles. In the end, it really is not a reflection on you, it is really just someone you had to invite!

If the person is a friend within your circle of friends, the same advice applies, but it is perfectly alright not to invite a casual friend. So, in this case, you have a lot more room to decide if you will go to the trouble to invite an annoying “friend” to the party or not.