Plan To Have a Safe and Fun Piñata at Your Party.

Having a piñata at your next celebration can turn out to be great, or a great disaster. It really depends on the host that is in charge. I understand that people can associate piñatas with dangerously blinded swinging chaos, but I disagree. A piñata is just like anything else, with the proper adult supervision and direction a piñata can be safe and tremendously fun at any celebration. As the party host, it becomes their responsibility to ensure that the piñata game is a success and no one gets hurt.

First off I always like to make sure I tell the participants that there are plenty of goodies to go around, no need to be a goodie hog. Even though kids are competitive to grab the candy, I encourage them to look to the kid next to them, and if they have a lot less, then share. This helps the kids to gauge how much on average their bag should be filled. Ultimately the participants want two things…to get a turn to swing at the piñata and get a good amount of goodies from the piñata. With that in mind you can plan for everyone to have both. Here are a couple tips to help implement piñata safety at your next celebration.

1. As the kids are gathering around to participate, DO tell everyone that will be taking a turn to keep two hands on the stick at all times while swinging. This helps keep the stick from flying out and hitting someone. *Especially if there are kids present that play baseball, they may be more apt to releasing the bat after they make contact with the piñata. Make sure you explain and demonstrate the importance of this rule.


2. For Safety it is a Great idea to have the “swinging zone” marked off with bright colored tape, or if playing on grass use jump ropes to create a large circle outline around where the piñata hangs. This way participants have a visual queue of were they should stand to be in a safe distance. Instruct that only one person should be in the swinging zone at all times. Form another colorful tape line where all other participants should wait (have kids line up birthday child first, of course, then all others from youngest to oldest). It is important to keep the excited eager participants away from the “swinging zone” while there is someone inside swinging. Rather than stop the game every other turn and ask everyone to take three steps back, you can direct them with a colorful tape line and ask that they always stay behind it.


3. Assign a flat number of swings that you allow everyone to take. If the kids are younger then five I usually give them 3 or 4 swings, but the older kids I give them no more than 2. This way it makes it fair, everyone gets a turn to swing at the piñata. So there is no confusion of when to stop swinging you can create an audible queue by encouraging fellow party goers to count the hitters swings aloud.


4. DO think about the items that are being stuffed into the piñata. Don’t put anything that is breakable, or that could potentially fly out with poky parts that are dangerous while airborne. Even some times the Big Mix goodie filler bags contain those mini plastic magnifying glasses, careful those could break into little shards of plastic. Besides, those goodie bags usually are filled with more or less useless plastic toys. Instead of opting to buy the generic mix filler bag, try to be creative with your fillers. Find fun things that coordinate to your theme or colors. Think more than just candy, look for items like fruit snacks, fruit roll-ups, band-aids, stickers, bookmarks and other practical useful things kids actually make use of.