Child's party.. Only invited the children who invited my child (she invited whole class last year)

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Due to covid restrictions bring lifted last year around the time of dc1s birthday & he had missed out on so much socially I invited all 31 in his class.. He has recieved 10 invited this year since his bday from his classmates.. Is it acceptable to just invite these 10? He's perfectly happy with this & it suits our budget better..

You do you, obviously. But I do think it's a bit sad that you're keeping track in this way tbh. There are many reasons why a child might not have their own party in any given year, and to think those children will be excluded from their classmates parties as a result is sad. In saying that, you can invite whoever you choose. Generally parents ask their own child who they want to attend though and young children are unlikely to view it the way you do.

Set the amount of kids you want to invite and have your son pick friends he wants to come up to that amount.

Birthday parties aren't a tit for tat affair so don't set your invite list based on whose party your son was invited to and don't expect an invite to the parties of all the children you invite.

I find this quite sad, these children may come from homes where their parents are low income, have disabled parents etc so never hold parties for their children.

My DD went to school with several children from deprived backgrounds, I could probably count on two hands how many parties she went to throughout her whole primary years because her friend's parents could not afford them. We still invited them, otherwise DD would have barely any friends at her party.

Let your son invite his friends even if he never went to their parties.

^ this!

Just ask him who he wants to invite, most children aren't that fussed on whole class parties and would rather the children they actually get along with to go. I don't think it's bad to change the status quo a bit and not invite everyone for the sake of it, but keeping tabs and only inviting those who invited him seems a bit petty, sorry.

im not sure I would stick to that as a hard and fast rule. There will be some children who haven't had their birthdays yet, there will be some who couldn't have a party for what ever reason. I wouldn't discount anyone from the invite list because they hadn't invited DC. If there were places to fill however, I would suggest someone who'd invited DC previously if DC didn't have any other suggestions.

What everyone else said.
Parties should simply be 'darling, who do you want to invite to your party', not ' darling, you can only have Bob, sue etc etc because they invited you'

I agree with most of the others. Just tell him how many people he's allowed to invite and ask him who he wants there.

Invite the people he actually plays with.

I do think whole class parties can be a good thing, as then children who wouldn't have a close friendship group can still be invited. The children who struggle with social communication might not otherwise be invited to a party throughout their school years. DS's birthday parties through infant school were all class parties, as I didn't know who had been kind to him nor who considered him a friend at all. We invited DS's best friend with LD and GDD every time, he never actually got to attend but maybe having the invitations meant something to the little boy?

Hiring a community centre and entertainer plus doing the catering yourself means you don't have to count heads like soft play parties. But I guess when children are a little older they want only their special friends to come rather than any old classmate, but at that point you restrict numbers and have who your child wants to invite. It doesn't matter if they've had parties and not invited your dc, and it doesn't matter if they haven't held a party at all, not everyone is lucky enough to get to have one.

Twattish. Do you have other spreadsheets too?

As a low income family I never had birthday parties for mine. I did let them invite a couple friends each for something like a Halloween party instead as could just do one party then not four.

I'd just invite best friends.

I would never host a full class party however I also wouldn’t just invite the children who’s party my child had attended. I would invite the children my child actually plays with.

Fine to have a smaller party. Really weird that you are keeping a tally of who invited your ds. Just invite a smaller group of his friends, that he chooses fgs.

Is this not penalising kids who haven’t had parties? Mine only get a party every second year, I’m glad their friends haven’t dumped them for this crime!

Agree with this !

I think your title is misleading. It sounds like you are not inviting kids because they didn’t have a party/didn’t invite your son. But it sounds like you are just having a smaller party this year. Which is fine.

Daughter, sorry.

Invite friends that mean something, not a tit for tat reciprocal arrangement.

We held a minimal party for DS1 outdoors last December because of the risk that indoor plans plans could have been disrupted by new Covid mesures at any moment based on the events of the previous year. Other DS has a spring birthday so was prohibited from having a birthday party for two years. Frustratingly there was doubt over the venue he wanted relocating around that time so we couldn't book and other circimstances have taken over since.

Both DSs have girl heavy classes, so by the time we draw up a list and get to 8 or 9, we may as well invite the full 11 or 12 in the class.

My only grudge over the years has been the coincidence that people who have pissed around flip-flopping until 2 hours to go or turning up without RSVPing have been people who never invited DS to anything, but it's the messing around that pisses me off not the reciprocation.

agree with everyone else - smaller parties are find. The general rule I went with my kids was either whole class party or all the girls/boys or less than half the class or boy/girl group. That way you didn’t end up inviting 9/10 of the girls and leaving one out.

the problem with only inviting the 10 that invited you to thiers is
children 1-5 - still friends with all good

child ren 6-7 had whole class parties and actually you son doesn’t ever really speak to them at school

child 8 - they were friends 10 months ago but no me this child is excluding yours from playtime and being mean

child 9 - has moved away

child 10 - only invited yours as you invited them last year

meanwhile

child 11 has only moved into the class so hasn’t had a birthday yet

child 12 has parents who don’t do parties but do a family day trip instead but is really good friends

child 13 is extremely poor so can’t afford thier own party

so you method gives your son only half the people at his own party who he is good friends with and potentially leaves out some he really enjoys spending time with.

younare thinking with your adult head because in adulthood yes we can invite thoses eg to our wedding that only invited us to ours as because we are adults we have control over who we interact with and know those people didn’t invite us because they didn’t want to. Children like your son are at the mercy of thier parents decisions so will miss out through no fault of their own.

let your child choose who he wants. It’s often one of the only things they get control over! And is a good learning curve on deciding who to invite.
NB I do sometimes intervene if the guest list is going to leave out someone eg only one boy not invited etc

We went from a class party in Reception to just 13 girls in Y1 and 3 of them were not from her school.

I never kept track on who invited DD, friendships are not that fixed during Infant years and lots of parents still did "all girls" or similar so we went with the ones DD played with when we did the invitations. Two of her school friends never did parties but they played together a lot and for me excluding her because of circumstances they weren't responsible for would hardly be fair.

Or maybe OP just wants to ensure everyone who invited her son to their parties gets an invitation from her son?

There’s nothing wrong with reciprocating an invitation.

Inviting 10 is absolutely fine as long as that’s not specifically leaving one or two kids out just because they didn’t have a party.

One parent once invited all the girls who’d invited her kid to a party in DS’s year group. Left out the one girl who didn’t have a party because they couldn’t afford it. The kids were pretty oblivious as they were young but the adults all noticed. People judged and it’s still remembered years later.

Agreed @JustLyra

You invite the kids to your party that your son wants at his party.

Don’t keep score on party invites. It’s petty.

Same as everyone else.
It's fine to have a smaller party, but just ask your child to pick the 10 people he wants.

There are all sorts of reasons he won't have been invited to others' parties

• they couldn't afford (or chose not) to have one


• he'd had a minor falling out with the child the week before invites went out but they are now best buddies again


• the other child was limited for numbers and had to choose between equally good friends


• the parent (depending on the child's age) picked children they knew to invite