To let her open gifts at party?

[Gertruude]

Posting here for traffic really as I'm unsure as to whether this is an etiquette thing or just personal preference.

My DD is having a party for her 4th birthday soon. We've been to three of her friends party's this year & 2/3 took gifts & said thank you but didn't open them in front of guests, they took them home. Personally I found this strange as 1) it's nice for ppl to see their gifts opened/enjoyed 2) it feels cruel to make a child wait so long as they're so excited about opening them.

Am I missing an etiquette thing if I let my DD open her gifts at the party? Of course, we do a lot of prep on how to graciously receive a gift so she's polite & grateful when she opens them!

TiA

Not only is it boring for the other children and they'll want to play with the stuff, there's the inequality that lots have mentioned but there's also the embarrassment of duplicates (embarrassment for the giver). Children are also judgemental, so far better to do it at home.

Not least because it's actually a very good thing for your child to have to learn to wait a little while.

In Australia it’s traditional for everyone to gather around and watch the birthday child open the gifts. This usually happens after the cake and the cards are read aloud and everything. I find it weird and rude. I’m quite glad there’s no pressure to do this.

Open at home at home after party. Send out personal thank-you cards or texts, thanking for each specific gift or what child will buy with money.

Ok deffo will wait until after - thank you everyone for your responses. Spoken to DD about this and she's fine to wait. I will definitely send thank you cards despite never having received one from other parents, I think it's important to do it.

When it’s quite a small party at home, I’ve always let mine open them (assuming the children all get along well and won’t start fighting/ breaking the new things). A big soft play/ swimming/ church hall affair usually there’s too many and they get put in a bag to open later at home.
Reminds me of my wedding reception, I was 20 and thought you were supposed to open and thank people as they handed them to you! I eventually got swamped and couldn’t keep up so stopped opening. What a wally.

I personally think it's rude to collect gifts and not to open them. Even more do without a thank you afterwards.Large events may be the exception, as it isn't practical to open them there.

In your situation, I'd open after the party, but allow the cousins and their parents to stay for that part.

As a pp says, if friends’ parents may not realise some other children are relatives and there is a visible discrepancy between the amounts spent on gifts, it could be awkward for everyone.

I think opening gifts at a party is awful and reinforces the whole grabby aspect of birthdays Christmas, etc.

Always open at home. If there a lot of kids and a lot of presents all being opened at once it will be very difficult to remember who bought what and impossible for the thank you cards.

I've never seen them opened at the party either and I would foresee chaos - lost gift tags, and all the other DCs bored out of their minds.

Definitely open them later. The chaos that ensues if you open gifts with a group of even well behaved children is horrific. Some children want to ‘help’ open the gifts “Mrs Sea, Mrs Sea can i help party girl, ooo, me too, can I help, please please” some less well behaved children just decide to dive in and open them anyway, the cards all get separated so you have no idea who gave what for thank you cards later, and then even if you can manage the opening nicely, some children decide that they want to play with the gifts right now and start opening the actual boxes. Its horrific if that happens as everything gets spread to the winds, some gets broken by rough dc, the party child can end up in tears as they see this happening.

My stance now is party child receives the gifts and thanks giver. Then I immediately stash the gift put of sight (big blue ikea bags are great for this). Any guest requests to open gifts or ‘help’ are responded to by a very firm ‘no thank you in our family we always take everything home to open there’. Plus a close eye kept on hoverers. (One party a invited dc was ripping open corners of wrapping paper of gifts on the table to see what had been given) But I am in the US in a community with a great many of very entitled children who are never told no by their parents. One parent even handed over the gift to my dc with the statement that their dc wanted to open it and play with it at the party as they wanted to decide if they wanted one themselves (if so, they would buy themselves a nice new one on the way home from the party). Happily I was able to play the ‘well I’m British card, and that not how we do it, so sorry!’

i wouldnt. your child is 4 and children can be a bit accidentally rude at times. they may innocently declare "ive already got this" or ive seen small children go "Oh" and toss it to one side. or get more excited over some than others as naturally some will be more their taste.

i was at one party where they opened them and some parents had regifted (things they already had double of / werent suitable). other parents have realised their gift was being regifted.

it may embarrass some people or children as well if they havnt been able to afford as much as others.

Another vote for open at home for all the reasons stated previously.

It's REALLY not fun for children to watch another child opening presents. I think it would be in quite bad taste to do it at the party.

It's boring for the other kids, and there'll always be one who has a tantrum over not being able to open any.
Also the presents then get played with spoiled by the other kids.

No everyone opens after here. Theres way too much going on at the party to spend time opening presents. Plus it's pretty crap if one child brings something swanky and another something from the pound shop then opened infront of everyone. Kids can be mean