to think this attitude to child's birthday party is a sad reflection of the times

[balletclassonfriday]

A colleague of mine is organising a birthday party for her daughter who will be 9 soon. She is planning on having it at home with party games and a magician (a friend's DH whose doing it for free} and a birthday tea. However, apparently around half of the children from school invited have said they can't come. Some of them told my colleague's daughter yesterday that the reason they're not coming is because it sounds 'babyish' and 'boring' and they only like parties at bowling alleys or where they get to see a movie and have McDonald's.

My colleague is really upset. She can't afford that kind of party and thought 8 and 9 year olds would be happy with games and pizza and birthday cake.

AIBU to be a bit shocked at the attitude of these kids?

At 9 DC tend to amuse themselves at parties. Maybe put some music on?

I have 3 kids (7, 9 and 11) - My 9 yo DD would love to be invited to a home to see a magician. Yes maybe she is into slightly younger things - but, I would expect her friends would also go - as most of them have good manners and will go to their friends party whatever the party child has chosen. - My 11 year old would also be happy - as long as the act was age appropriate which I'm sure it would be. Slight of hand magic and close up magic can be amazing. - I hope the birthday child still has a good time. At least they will be surrounded with friends and not just kids going for the free event.

Okay now you’ve said it’s a workshop on ‘how’ to do tricks, that makes it sound more interesting. Depending on what sort of tricks they actually were, and how complex (obviously not too for 9 year olds), I would say even my 14 year old and his mates would even be interested if it was things they could learn easily and be able to do at home, but looked really affective.

That sounds so much more fun than when you say have a ‘magician’, that’s going to show tricks they’ve probably seen a few times before.

Those kids sound very rude and not typical. My kids would've liked that party at 9.

It doesn’t sound babyish to me. My son is coming up for 10 and loves magic tricks, he’s constantly watching magicians on YouTube.

Should add.....my kids always want pass the parcel (even the 11 year old!) - and Pizza is always acceptable as a bday tea.

Corney, the point is how would your DS feel if everyone turned down an invitation to his party?
Surely sometimes you accept something you don't particularly want to do out of consideration?

Apparently the invitation specified 'magician's workshop' with some blurb about learning the 'tricks of the trade' as my colleague wanted to make it sound exciting as she knows a lot of parties are held at venues nowadays.

I have an 11 year old niece who I think would love the sound of that.

murder mystery - it is a while ago (and we did have good names, which made it sound cool, but I can't remember them!):

kids arrive, then loud noise in the other room, they go in and find teddy face down on the floor (blood and gore optional) and a note -

Ted was knocked down trying to protect the party bags from the terrible Bad Bear (I think we had a photo of bear in sunglasses and hat). You must find Bad Bear, and find the party bags.
You first clue is in the kitchen....

then there was a series of activites all based around really messy food games (at dds request, and we did warn parents before hand)
the clues were all scrabble tiles, for some games they had to nominate someone to play, for some they had to pick the shortest straw, for some they all played the games were:

hands in bowls od cold tinned spaghetti, to find the tiles
mound of flour with tile on top, pick it up in teeth
ice cubes with tile frozen in, you had to melt the ice cube
water balloons filled with coloured water, burst against the garden wall, and find the tile
alphabet cereal, spell out all the names of all the kids and release the tile
jelly in the bath (don;t ask)
It was November, so while I managed to do 2 of them outside, most had to be indoors

anyway, in the end they had a pile of tiles and they had to unscramble it to find where Bad Bear had hidden the party bags. The hidden word was playhouse, and the party bags were in a bag labelled 'swag' in the playhouse.

The party bags had very cool little bad ass teddies in, and the usual sweets etc.

We did a similar one with 007, but all a little older and more mature. They were issued with moustahces and dark glasses as they arrived (and instructed to come as 007) There are some great spy games on pintrest, eg red wool lines criss crossing down the corridor which are the 'lasers' get through without breaking the laser and setting off the alarm to find the clue. More a mix of active games and brain puzzles. Find all the answers, put them together and find the treasure. Treasure is connected to the theme in some way.

Hope that helps.

Great British Bake Off #1 was the best party I ever did

V rude but maybe the children haven’t understood the magician thing. There’s a world of difference between a grown up type workshop and a kids party magician

If magicians are babyish for 9 year olds why do they have them at weddings and black tie dos then?!!!

How come they have done so well on BGT recently?

It depends on the style of tricks.

I agree OP - those kids are rude. It is even sadder that many posters on here think that a DVD or Minecraft etc is a better alternative!

I just find it very sad. I find the pp idea of an iPad party equally depressing.

Magic workshop sounds brilliant for that age group, im sure they'll enjoy the party.

My daughters, aged 11 and 9, and their similar aged cousins would love that party!
I just don’t understand how it’s babyish?! Magic can be tailored to all ages.
We live in a large diverse city so maybe that helps - in that there is so much diversity that anything goes. My daughters and her friends still play with dolls etc. Yet they are emotionally mature, independent and adventurous.

Extremely sad.

Very sad, back in the 80s parties like that were the norm for 9-10 year olds. Jelly, ice cream, party games. Sign of the times. Have the party, and those who matter will come .

Realistically, the party isn't that age appropriate. Magicians are kind of for younger kids, maybe 8 at the upper end.

I know people look back sentimentally to simpler times but realistically kids that age will be used to multi user gaming parties etc.

Magic is for any age, people want kids to grow up so fast now, they are only 9 not 19!

errrr - my 9 year old isn't!! And now the OP has explained the workshop aspect it sounds entirely age appropriate.

that was to AfterSchool

Is it "Queen bee" & her minions who have been so nasty, Op?

They don't sound like friends at all, do they?

I think they will love it. Just go ahead and enjoy it!

You are lucky to even get replies - some parents are so rude that they don't even bother to tell you they aren't coming.

"I know people look back sentimentally to simpler times but realistically kids that age will be used to multi user gaming parties etc."

Wtf?

@Lydiaatthebarre and ilovemylurcher:

• yes I did read the OP
• it’s not all the kids who are turning down the invitation, as per the OP, it’s about half
• I agree that it is rude of the kids to say they don’t want to come because it sounds babyish. But declining the invitation is not, in and of itself, rude.

www.mydomaine.com/how-to-decline-an-invitation/slide3

I am late 50s, that is the kind of parties we all had at 9 years old, although without the magician. Yes kids grow up quicker now in some ways, and not in other ways.

I did a jewellery making party for my daughter when she was 9.

Girls will sit and make stuff and then it's a gift to take home too. I sourced the beads and fixings from The Range and it was a successful party for 6.

I was on a tight budget then.