we are the first to have a party, how ti keep offence to a minimum ?

[crje]

Our dd4 will be 5 in 10 days. She has just started school in a class of 29 children, 50/50 gender split.
She was in playschool with 8 of them. Her birthday is the 15th and she wants her first playcentre party.
Have to limit no's due to cost & venue to 15 places.

Is it Better to ask playschool friends plus 5 new friends , all the girls or the first 14 names she gives me ???

She won't mind either way.

Um, am I just happily oblivious? I have never assumed my girls would get an invitation anywhere, and would always realise ppl have space / cash restrictions. Just invite who you want! (Ok, maybe invite who your daughter wants, with a view to including a few ppl where the parents are your friends) But give out invitations quietly and don't make a song and dance of it.

It doesn't have to be done. Two of Dd's friends have never had parties and they are 12. Some have had a few of them, some have them every year. It IS a bit of a minefield though. We've only had one huge party that we did jointly with friends. It was chaos and dd hated it.

In your situation I think I'd have the playgroup friends and possibly a few from class that dd wants. I never did the "only girls" thing because lots of Dd's friends have always been boys.

We had a similar situation with DD's birthday when she started school last year.

We invited 5 of her nursery friends and then 10 from her new class - a couple of kids who she had named already and those whos parents I had talked to at the school gate.

I really wouldnt overthink it or worry too much. There will be plenty of parties this year - some she will be invited to, some not, some the whole class will go to. You (and she) dont know all the children in her class yet, so nobody will hold it against you(or her!) of theyre mot invited this time, I'm sure.

Also agree the 'only girls' thing is odd. DD's best friends are boys. At this age they really dont discriminate by gender.

herecomesthesciencebint that is awful for your ds. I know our school Dont allow invitations in the class .
Probably a good policy but a bit tricky to hand out as I know few parents.
Im just worried a random jumble will leave out an individual iykwim
If I can get all the girls names ill

go with all girls.
She has 3 teen brothers so not short on male company.

I'd invite more school friends. Based on teachers advice of who she plays with and her advice of who she likes.

Unless you are very good friends with the play school mums, and thus initiate play dates with old nursery friends, then she'll hardly ever see old friends.

The girls and boys in her class will be friends, seeing each other every day, for the next 7 years.

And invite right up until the last minute. People with an ounce of common sense will understand why.

we had this situation with DD, we had a party with friends from out of school in the end as I couldn't work out how to decide which children could come, a few other parents did the same but literally everyone who had a party in reception year had a whole class party except 1, who only invited children she actually liked (5 kids) and the poor mum had weeks of other mums bitching about her.

All girls definitely. Even if it is sexist, it is the only way you won't offend someone

The notion of sexism (or come to that racism, homophobia, and all the other forms of prejudice) don't apply to social life. Socially you mix with who you choose to mix with.

Never mind 'correctness'. Half of the invitees won't reply to your invitation and there will be no shows, anyway.

You are paying so you choose whom to invite and just keep it at that number. When a parent arrives at your door with a sibling, just assume that he/she was not brought to attend and close the door before he/she has a chance to get a foot over your doorstep.

If I were to have a party, it would be back to sandwiches and jelly with a cake and tail on donkey, pass the parcel and musical chairs (I loved that). None of this commercialisation. Rant over.

You are all daft to follow the sheep. It will be a lovely change for the children to be together and not rolling about separately in a softplay area. I bet hardly any of them know what musical chairs is anyway!

happyagainoneday im not having the party at home as there are three teen boys here and im not sure parents would be happy to leave their 4-5 yr old girls here. Might be massively overthinking that but who knows.

Am delighted to have the party somewhere they do the work & clean up.

All the girls - far less troublesome re: choices.

At reception age, I don't think the parents will leave. Specially at the start of reception...

Lots go girls in sons class last year had girl only parties - lots of punk and fairy wings

I think it's perfectly reasonable not to have a party every year - friend of mine has 4 DC, she does 2 parties one year and the other 2 the following year. They're all used to it and ok with it (they're also all quite close together though, the oldest one is 6)

This close to the start of the year, I'd definitely be inviting old friends - so playgroup friends - and some new ones. And depending on whether or not any of the playgroup friends were boys, would have an impact on whether any of the new friends were boys too.

DS1 has had 2 big parties so far, for his 5th and 6th birthdays - the first one was just before he started school, so it was all his friends from playgroup; the second one was at the end of his first year at school, so mostly children from his class but still a few from playgroup. He invited all the boys and half the girls from his class - I had his class photo available so I could make sure he wasn't accidentally excluding one boy or anything like that - and the non-school children were a fair mix between sexes as well.

This year though, he wants to have a different kind of party and I'll be limiting the numbers far more, I think - but it is likely to still be mixed, not just boys, because his best friend is a girl.

2nd thread on here today about Reception parties, where I'm going to say I think it's really weird to separate girls and boys .

All my dc have always been friendly with both girls and boys. Why on earth not just ask the birthday child which of their friends they want to come ?

This party thing is so stressful. We are just doing the invites for DD1's party and have limited to 14 classmates. Her sister will also be 'invited' ad will the children of my two closest friends (5 dc between them and we see them often). There are over 30 in the class and there is no way I could ever invite the whole class!

We do have another friend who wr used to see a lot but who moved 40 miles away. The first party post move was a sporty party for her ds. My other friends' dc were invited but not my dd as "it is for boys only" to quote my friend. She decided to text me, to make sure I fully appreciated why dd was not allowed to come. I don't expect her living a way away to invite us, but she did make rather a big deal about the whole "only boys allowed because it's sport" thing.

I have deliberated and agonised, but I'm not going to be inviting this family. It is very difficult sometimes!

How narrowminded of your moved-away friend, manchester! Are girls not allowed to do sport in her mind then?

I expect ManchesterMummys friend does not think mud is for girls, thumbwitch. I expect her own daughter (if there is one) is dressed in pink and not allowed to visit farms.

Let's hope she doesn't have a daughter then, eh Happy!