Not to invite the whole class for DD's birthday party?

[Primafacie]

DD is in year 1. There are approximately 45 pupils in her year (across 2 forms), all of whom she knows. Since the beginning of the year, most parties have been whole-class invites (though not whole-year), although there has been at least one exception where a girl invited 8 or so girls to her party.

DD wants to invite girls from both classes, as well as some outside friends, to her party. So we'd be inviting 6 girls from her class, 4 from the other class, and about 10 other kids. Some of the girls who would not be receiving an invite are girls whose birthdays DD attended.

So, fire away. Is it okay not to invite the whole class? AIBU not to invite girls who did invite DD to their own parties?

Ta.

[Failedspinster]

Hmm. In my view, it's perfectly ok not to invite the whole class, but I would return invite girls who have already asked DD to their parties - to me that would just be polite.

[HSMMaCM]

If the parties she was invited to were whole class parties then I wouldn't worry about inviting them back. You should be fine as you are only inviting a small number from school.

[Fudgeface123]

I don't get inviting the whole class just in case a few of the little darlings feel left out...tough, that's life.

I would invite the girls whose parties your daughter went to though

[Primafacie]

The girls I wouldn't be inviting back all had whole-class parties. Many had joint parties, so there were two or three birthday girls. If I invite all of them back, that would be about 9 girls, to which I must add the other girls DD really wants to invite, so I'd have to invite at least 14 girls out of 21. I don't want to exclude only 7 girls, so we'd have to invite the whole class, plus the other 14 kids or so.

We're trying to have the party at home, so I'm a bit wary of inviting 35+ kids total!

But I do get that not returning invitations could be perceived as rude.

[HSMMaCM]

I think it might be rude not to invite back someone who had a small party and invited your dd as a speci friend, but the whole class parties didn't think about who they were inviting, they just invited everybody. Even the small parties could be excised though, as friendships change all the time at that age. (I would invite small party hosts only)

[CheeseBuster]

I think you should just invite the children that your dd want at her birthday.

[GooseyLoosey]

If they all had whole class parties - no problem, especially if your dd is just having a small party.

[ASunnyTiger]

Ditto CheeseBuster.

[Footlight]

Work out how many kids you can afford/are prepared to have. Tell her she can have that many friends and help her choose who they are based who she is most friendly with and just invite them.

It is not relevant who invited her to their party. She took a present and said thankyou presumably? That really is enough.

[Primafacie]

Ok thanks all, that's really helpful! I think my invitation methodology passes the mn test!

[formerbabe]

Its fine to invite a handful from the class...I think the problems only start when people invite the whole class but leave out one or two.

[rookietherednosedreindeer]

I think you should invite who you want, but if she is genuinely getting invites from all 45 and if it's DCs that she isn't particularly friendly with that have a cost per head i.e. soft play, then you might want to think about encouraging her not to accept all invites.

[Primafacie]

Fair points Rookie; she is not getting invites from all 45, they are mostly (but not exclusively) from the girls in her class, not the other form. And she does not attend every party, we do decline some.

[rookietherednosedreindeer]

Aha - so it isn't full class party invites at all ! I still think what you are proposing is fine, apart from if say there were 8 girls in the class and you were inviting 6 of them.

I've only been aware of that situation once. One of DS's classmates was having a tubing party so I know the max invite is 10 and there are 12 boys in the class, and by embarassingly overhearing a conversation and thinking I had misplaced an invite or forgotten about something, I discovered that DS was one of the 2 not invited.
But I was fine with it even so as DS and the boy aren't friends and although I invite him to all of DS's parties as I generally do all the boys in his class plus extras, he has always turned down the invite. I'd be a bit more if he had accepted and turned up to DS's party.

[Aeroflotgirl]

Yanbu invite those girls your dd prefers. There is no rule you have to invite the whole class

[Primafacie]

Sorry Rookie, I think perhaps we are talking at cross purposes when referring to "full class party invites"? When I'm talking about "whole class", I mean DD's own group (i.e. the 21 girls in her classroom - it's a girl-only school). Let's call that Group A. The other 22 girls are in the "other group" - let's call that Group B.

Most parties are "whole class" parties, i.e. 21 girls from Group A are invited, but not the 22 girls from Group B. If they were (A+B), that would make it "whole year". I'm not aware that anyone has had a "whole year" party where A+B were invited.

DD has some friends in both classes, so would be inviting 6 girls from Group A and 4 from Group B.

[We3KingyofOblomovAre]

invite the girls she wants.
even though she went to their parties, it was an all class invite, so you don't necessarily need to invite them back, if you are having a smaller party.

it only gets nasty if you invite whole class, but leave out 1 or 2, which is totally not the case here.

[Siennasun]

Why can't she just invite who she wants? Genuine question.

And why should she turn down invitations to parties she wants to go to because she might not invite the party child to a future party? Also genuine question.

Before coming on mn I thought you went to a party, took a present for birthday child and left with cake and a party bag, not an obligation to reciprocate every invitation you accept.

What if your DC doesn't have a party at all? Are they not supposed to go to anyone else's?

DS hasn't even started school yet and I'm already feeling stressed about primary party politics.

[ASunnyTiger]

What if your DC doesn't have a party at all? Are they not supposed to go to anyone else's?

We never had parties, my parents didn't have the money for it. It would have been a shame for my parents to have stopped us going to others' (especially if they tried to coerce us into declining it ourselves) just because we couldn't reciprocate. Besides that I think it teaches a bad lesson, it's not about what you can get from other people, invitations should be from the heart because you genuinely want the person there with no obligation to reciprocate. Granted I know some people would argue this to the death.

[Gatehouse77]

YANBU. Just because other people choose to do whole class parties does not mean you should! I never have and whilst mine were at primary we went with the friend per year. I.e. 6 years=6 friends.

Don't bow to peer pressure if it's something that you can't afford, can't face the stress of (and it's likely to be) or goes against your families values.

[Primafacie]

Thank you again :)

It's reassuring to see others are on the same wavelength.

[MidniteScribbler]

I tend to use the rule of thumb of either 50% or less of the class (or of the boys/girls) or you invite everyone. It's really horrible when parents leave out just one or two of the class.

[springalong]

Midnite - I do agree with your rule of thumb mostly. However if class is boy heavy or girl heavy you can get situations where a small number are left out eg 6 out of 25.

[MrsPigling]

I've got 4 dc, combined age now 45 - that's lots of parties. We've never had a whole class party, only ever a few friends at home.

[SarahCraine]

It's ok not to invite the whole class, but you must return the favor by inviting those who invited your DD too. Another option is asking your kid if who amongst in the class she wants to be at her party. It's going to be her special day. So, it is very important that she's comfortable at the party, with her closest friends around.