To think that parents should send a quick individual thank you after kids birthday parties?

The last big party DS2 had, I missed half of because DS1 had an epic meltdown. DS1 and I finally arrived shortly before food was served after missing the vast majority of the main activity. Only DH was there with DS2 because it's a tad expensive to import family to watch 30 children bouncing around for an hour.
When we got home, I missed much of DS2's excited, frenzied unwrapping because of dealing with DS1 and the aftermath of his meltdown (dignosis was about 7m later) so I had no idea who'd given what.

Everyone was thanked in person and by text after, but not detailed individualised undying gratitude.
Getting either of my dyslexic DCs to write 30 thank you cards/ notes was out of the question. At that stage, they were still struggling with writing their names accurately.

I'd held a party (that I mostly missed) given party bags, and thanked people. I'd done quite enough without giving personalised thanks to massage other parents' egos.

Sometimes I feel like all the standards we were raised with have just been chucked away.

Whatsapp didn't exist when I was young nor texting. People used to give out invites then too where's now that tends to come via Whatsapp.

I used to do the individual messages but no one else did so I stopped but I do feel a bit guilty for not doing it.

But what’s the difference? You want thanks for your present and they have thanked you for it. You say thanks for the thoughtfulness of bringing a present. If they love it or hate it they will still say thanks as most people aren’t rude.

Fairly standard practice at my DDs school to send a quick thanks for coming to the party and for the lovely gift. DD really likes her insert gift... kind of message. If we didn't get that though wouldn't be particularly gutted as I know how crazy birthdays can be.

I used to make my children (now in their 20s) write to thank everyone who gave them a present. At 6 the letters were short, but they were all individually hand written.

That stopped when they left primary as they didn't have parties in the same way and just thanked their friends in person. I still made them write letters to family members and family friends though.

I think if someone has gone to the effort to choose a present for you they deserve a personalised thank you.

And on opening gifts at a party - it's fallen out of favor at children's parties in particular not just to avoid embarrassing anyone but because the parties are usually short, children aren't particularly interested in watching gift opening, and if there are more than a few guests it becomes a ridiculously boring waste of a large chunk of party time. Spending 30 minutes of a 2 hour party making all your guests sit silently and watch as you open gifts is just not the most considerate hosting and feels crassly materialistic to a lot of parents today.

We often give cash but it's not a very English thing to do (not English either)

I just do a photo with said presents & a thank you on the specific chat. That's the norm around here.

Sorry, but I've had this on mumsnet so much before. There are lots of adults on here who don't seem to have any other adults supporting them. That's really tough. I don't think it's anything exceptional to have family at your child's birthday party.

Thank you. I think its lovely you have so many people around you to support. But it's unusual in my circle to have lots of adults at parties. They may have lots of family but they are scattered around the country rather than living on the doorstep.

It's interesting that no one has commented specifically on me mentioning that my exh didn't bother coming to his child's party. It's much more important for women to send individual thank you messages.

But they’ve thanked you for the present? Why do you need them to say it again? You only send a card or message if the present was sent to you and you can’t thank them in person.

We follow the same rules I was raised with - you either need to thank the giver in person, send a note or call. For particularly generous gifts (not the type of thing you'd give for a classmate's birthday... picking out a book for the specific recipient is pretty bare minimum) you need to write the formal note in addition to thanking in person or calling. So for a larger class party or similar a group message thanking everyone for coming is completely fine as long as each attendee has been thanked in person, especially because the birthday child's family has treated everyone to a party already. Honestly I don't think more of mums who send individual texts.

I don't care if the thank you comes before opening the gift. What difference does that make? If they have any manners at all they're going to say thank you no matter what's inside.

Personally I think that 'burden' of getting the kids to write 20+ thank you post-party cards would fall to the mum, and in this day and age when mums are already bearing the brunt of the mental load and working full time or looking after kids, it's another job that they don't need the added guilt of doing.

This is why I think a lovely personal text/audio to each person in nice and enough.

I'm sure someone on here will know a dad who sits and writes thank you cards eith their kids after a kids' party, but I don't know a single one.

Exactly!
It’s not hard.

Thank you on receipt in person and then a thank you in the birthday WhatsApp it’s what we and everyone I know does

So they don’t say thank you when you give them a present? That’s really odd and at odds to most British who I find say thank you every other sentence!!

I agree OP, I always wrote a text to each parent a couple of days later, to say thank you, and mention the gift they gave. When kids were older they would write, or text themselves.
I know a lot of people don't do this, and I wouldn't necessarily expect a written thank you back, especially if cash not a chosen present. I know people are busy, I was just brought up to do notes / texts to each person.

Open gifts after party. Make list of who gave what. Write thank you notes for everyone.

'Hi! Just to say thanks so much for the gel pens, little Timmy loves them. See you on Monday'. The purpose being simply to acknowledge that a gift has been chosen and bought, nothing more!

This is exactly what we do. We also thank them for coming to the party etc.

I agree with you