Children's party invitations - AIBU?

[fifitot]

This morning at DD's school, all the children lined up ready to go in (reception class so all 4 and 5). 30 children in the class. This mother had a big pile of party invitations, not in envelopes, which her little daughter was handing out....to the ones invited to her party that is.

I fully understand that you can't invite all children to your child's party but FFS why get your DD to hand them out to the kids so that the ones NOT invited feel so left out! It was causing mayhem, lots of girls turning to their mums to ask what was going on, the children with invitations flapping them around to say 'ooh look what we've got!'.

Silly cow. She should have put them in envelopes at least, handed them to the mothers or asked if she could put them in book bags.

What a thoughtless, tactless woman.

YANBU very thoughtless and tactless, she should have either have handed them to the class teacher or put them in their trays, dd 3.8 years is at nursery and they have trays for the children.

Well I was obviously tactless yesterday when ds1 took in his invites for his party. He had chosen 5 out of 28 children and I just told him the name on the envelope and he found the child and handed them out. For those suggesting putting them in trays, after 8 years of working in a Reception class and finding numerous invites unopened in trays after the party, that doesn't always work. I used to help children hand out their invites and it is fair to say that while some may be a bit disappointed at not getting one, a quick cuddle and an explanation of not everyone gets to go to every party, there will be others, and the child is fine.

I actually do not think there is a fair, convenient way to hand out party invites and those not invited invariably find out in the end anyway as it is talked about by the children. I know someone suggested the internet, that is only ok if you have email addresses, which chances are you won't, same with addresses, not to mention the fact that with 28 children in a class it would be difficult to pair every child with its parent.

YANBU, when I've had parties for the DCs and not been able to invite everyone, I've made sure I got to school early and loitered about, giving the envelopes discretely to the mums! Of course kids have to learn that they can't get invited to everything, but we are talking about 4 year olds here, there's no need to rub their noses in it.

"kids do need to know that not everyone will be invited to all the parties"

Actually, the lesson my Dc learn from the sort of incident OP describes is "I'm never invited to any parties" and sometimes "The birthday child and other popular children like to remind me of that in the most public way possible" :(.

I've just done a full class party for ds. He's in Year 1, and it's a one off.

From now on, I'm going to restrict it to those kids whose parties he's been invited to, plus any extras he's formed a special bond with.

But all invites will go through the internet.

Doesn't seem like the most tactfu way to do it but children do have to learn that they won't always be invited and maybe the mum wanted to make sure that the invited children got their invites. The teachers have enough to do so how else was it suppose to have been done. Presumably the birthday child would also be talking about the party anyway so other children would find out that way.

I have three young children at Primary school
and i have learned that some parents are just
plain stupid. One can always hand out invitations in a discreet manner. I really don't give a damn tbh, i have told my dc's that they cannot be invited to everything. My dc's accept this and just get on with it.
I think the parents feel more rejected than the children.

By the way, some kids can be nasty b....es.

My dd1 had a party in a hall for her 4th birthday, I wasnt restricted by numbers so invited her whole class, I just couldnt see how to get around it without hurting feelings, dd1 was a bit miffed when she had to take in an invite to the class biter but in the end quite a few of the kids she didnt play with didnt come, but I still ended up with around 50 kids.....[type] she didnt have a party for her 5th birthday.........

'How is it HER fault that you couldn't be bothered to exlain to your child that they won't get invited to everything, and not everyone has enough money to have a party for everyone?'

FFS. I couldn't be bothered????? If people bothered to read what I actually said.......It WASN'T about my DD not being invited - I couldn't care less about that.

YABU. When I was at school, from a very young age children had parties and handed out invites. Publicly. If we weren't invited, maybe we cried, maybe we didn't care, but I am sure not many of us still dwell on it. Parents may go out of their way to be secretive discreet, but there will be the same problem when the day after the party, all the invitees are talking about it in the playground.

IME it is the parents who will dwell on this dar longer than the children.

Playing devil's advocate a bit here...but maybe the mother didn't mean to be thoughtless. As she's got a child in reception I am assuming she's new to the whole school thing, maybe didn't yet know the mothers or the children and just wanted to hand the damn things out.

I do sometimes wonder if parents are more bothered by their children not being invited than the children. Like someone else said, even if they had been given out more discreetly, the children would soon discover who was going and who wasn't. But tbh, there are soooooo many parties these days, it's not necessary to feel hard done-by. As long as you explain to your child that some parties you get invited to and some you don't, I don't really see the problem. You can't shield your child from every little (or even big) disappointment.

YANBU, there are more and less tactful ways to do things. I've found it easy enough to hover around, spot the relevant child and hand an invitation to the parent, for parties where only a few children were invited. A large proportion of invitations handed out by children invariably get lost before getting to the appropriate parent anyway and you don't get the RSVPs. Our class is reasonably organised too, so we've all got each other's postal and email addresses if necessary. Also, enough people have been good enough to hold full-class parties, often by sharing a party with another child, so that all the children get a few invitations every year.

haven't read the entire post so sorry if repeating but this was not an issue when my son was in junior school. At the start of each year Parents assoc. circulated a list with parents names/mobiles and all party invitations were done by text. 4 years on and this has worked a treat. Has proved gr8 for mums to keep in touch too. (We were advised before school started that handing out invites in school yard was not quite banned but not the done thing either..)

'What I want to know is when did the world go mad and everyone start inviting 30-odd children to birthday parties?

Luckily after mine were at that stage. I blame parents who invite the whole class for the whole problem. It never used to happen, you expected to get invited to the party of a close friend so if you had 2 close friends you expected 2 party invitations in a year-simple.

'What I want to know is when did the world go mad and everyone start inviting 30-odd children to birthday parties?

Yes I've often wondered that too. Is it a status thing - 'look how many friends I've got' or getting more presents that way. I don't know any child who is friendly with ALL the children in his/her class, so why invite them?!

I've never done a whole class party - my dds aren't keen on boys so it's either been just the girls or a smaller party with 10/12 children or so. It's enough.

If it is any consolation the stupid woman is now marked.

YANBU. It's rude at any age to invite people in front of others who are not going to be invited.

YANBU - this pops up every so often on MN, and depending on the day, can still make me weep for complete strangers DC.
DS2 hasn't yet had a b'day party this year ( his b'day was last month - we'll sort it out somehow)because there are two boys in his class he doesn't want to invite. I can't let him have a party and not invite two out of 12.

A good friend of mine had a party for 50 six-year-olds.

I just cannot imagine what they did with all the presents.