To ask about children’s party etiquette?

[Merryoldgoat]

My son wants a whole class party in Jan when he turns 6.

This will be his first party inviting school friends and is quite a big deal as he has HFA and it’s taken him a whole school year to make proper friends.

The year is 2 form, so 60 kids in total. I was planning to just invite all the kids in his class but there is a set of twins so I’d obviously invite both of them. One twin is in his class and the other is in the other.

Can I invite just one kid from the other class? I honestly don’t know how these things work as he’s my oldest child, not NT and things have changed massively since I was a kid. I’m assuming parents won’t think I’m excluding their child?

I'd just stick to inviting his class. Twins don't have to do everything together.

Invite whoever you want - you’re paying for it x

Hi
I have twins in separate classes in Y2 and they are pretty much always invited to separate parties, there’s certainly no expectation from me that they will always be invited to the same things, they are just like any other sibling. In fact I prefer it when they aren’t invited as usually the one whose class it isn’t spends the entire party clinging to me

That said I don’t think it’s a problem to invite one out of a class

Invite his friends, regardless of which class they're in and don't invite the ones who aren't his friends whether they're in his class or not.

Also, I have twin sisters and they were delighted when they got to go somewhere by themselves!

I'd invite both twins, I'd also get a list of names from your DS. My DS is the same age and his year group is 2 form entry, last year his class was made up of different children so he has friends in both. I'm not sure if that was the right thing to do but we'll see. No way could I accommodate both classes and the alternative was no school friends at his party.

Yes to your class and to the boy he is friendly with in the other class. I am a mother of twins, nice when they both invited as they both love parties but not fussed and totally understand if one is invited over the other. Perhaps run it by the twin mum. Remember someone will get sick on the day and not everyone will be able to make it.

Invite his class, but nothing wrong with inviting the twin if you want to.

I have twins. They’ve been invited to separate parties since they were 4yo and started school. There’s no need to invite the one he doesn’t know/isn’t in class with.

However yes, you can invite just one person from the other class.

Thanks for the replies.

He’s adamant he wants ‘the whole class’ - he’s not really able to give me a list of names of particular friends - he only has 2 close friends.

It sounds like it’s ok to just invite the twin in his class so I’ll probably do that then.

Inviting just his class, his class plus twin, or 25ish kids from across the two classes (unless you invite all but 1-2 boys, or all but 1-2 from one class) are all fine.

Talk to the mother of the twins. Most mothers of twins that I know have been quite keen for them to have separate parties to go to. Makes it tricky when your child actually likes both of them and wants them both there.

should if a child is friends with both of mine and wants them both at their party that’s not a problem for us at all.

We just don’t want anyone to be obliged to invite a child they don’t know/don’t play with just because they are a twin.

You are right though in that we have always valued opportunities for the children to have individual experiences. We try very hard to avoid them ever being “the Twins”.

Some twin parents do feel differently of course, we came up against it ourselves when a mother insisted that both her twins were invited to one of our parties. The child not originally invited was dreadfully behaved and horrible to my DD. As a result we stopped inviting either of them which was a shame.