Party Invites causing upset

[Horseskeepmesane]

Hi, first post!

non judgey, non cliquey mum here who is just confused by Year,1 party invites.

my son is literally the kindest, mild mannered boy, can be quieter with others he isn’t familiar with.

party invites in his class seen to be the biggest issue I do NOT understand

i see chunks of invites being handed out, my son does get them sometimes, but there are also many times when he doesn’t get them, from parents of kids I know he plays with???

what is going on? I’m very happy and chatty at the pick up and drop offs, no issues I can think of, never had any behaviour issues mentioned from school. Why do some kids seem to get invited to all parties? Is it to do with the parents being ‘pushy’ about climbing the social ladder with other parents? I know this sounds petty, but it isn’t. It’s getting under my skin, and upset for my lovely son.

I used to feel like this myself. There’s a few parties my DD was missed out of. Same situation gets on with everyone and very kind hearted.made a point of inviting whole class to birthday as well. Now I’m just of the mind set it saves me on gifts if she doesn’t go. I agree on the other posts parties are usually per head so people just like to keep costs down. Im not nothing to do another party for DD. Will prob just take her and cousin out.

I think there are a lot less whole class oarties now and children are just inviting their friends. My Year 1 child hasn't had many invites this year, and he only wanted 4 children from his class at his party.

When I said WhatsApp/text I didn’t mean in established class/parent groups. As it’s normally small friendship group parties the parent of birthday kid normally knows the friends parents (or their numbers anyway) from play dates etc. A ‘Sally’s Birthday’ group is just set up before the event inviting attendees with details. That’s what happens round my way anyway.

We only ever had home parties (not halls) so I never was able to ask the entire class.
However there were only 13 girls in DD's class and a few times I did insist she asked all of them, but was still too many for the space we had really. We did it a couple of times - but as she got older I was happy to reduce the numbers to 8 or so which did mean a few got left out, some whose mums I really liked, but she liked the child less. That's life unfortunately.

You're doing well if he gets invited to any parties at all, OP.

You say your son is mild mannered and quiet. Nothing wrong with this at all but the quieter kids aren't usually the most popular or 'noticed'.

I found with my girls:

Dd1 was invited to almost every party in her form and a few in the other form while they were having large parties. However when they went down to small numbers it was 1-2 parties a year. She had one very best friend but was in the other form, and was generally known for being nice so I think was on most people's list, but only top on one. There also weren't many girls in her form so all the girls was a common theme.

Dd2 was only invited to about 3-5 parties a year but it didn't go down when people went to smaller parties. I think she was top of those but at the bottom of the other lists as she didn't do much outside her small group.

Since my eldest started school I have done “all the girls” parties. They’re quite small classes so maybe 10-12 girls in the class. It has served me very well. Teaches the girls about kindness and not leaving anyone out, without the big numbers.

The only thing that I think should be the standard when it comes to party invites at school is that they should be given to the child's teacher/TA and placed inside the invited child's bag, rather than being given in front of children that aren't invited.

After once being given a stash of invitations twenty years ago by a parent only to find that she’d invited everyone in the class but two, as a teacher I don’t want any part of it. I haven’t got a class TA, and I don’t have the time to go through book bags stashing invitations without any pupils seeing. My head teacher agrees this isn’t a good use of our time and says it’s up to parents to get their invitations to class mates on the playground before or after school or via parents/via text etc

To the OP-I found with my own children that people invited those whose children’s parties they’d already been to-so a reciprocal invite. What sort of party did your child have in reception/year 1?

I would have invited the whole class if the cost of the party was just hire of a hall, and entertainer, making own sandwiches and cake, but if it was at a soft play where its something like £15 per kid and they have limitations then I'd go for the kids my kids liked best. Although some parents will invite the kids of the parents they know best which I found hurtful and cliquey.

I can remember this well, DS2 used to get very upset that he was never invited to parties, DS1 used to get invited but hide the invites because he didn’t want to go to parties! You just can’t win with kids.

Presumably it’s usually down to space and/or cost, but still very upsetting for children (and their parents!) who are habitually left out.

It’s decades ago now, but until she was 9 or 10, my dd1 insisted on inviting the whole class, plus a few other friends, to her birthday parties. We were living abroad at the time and being able to hold parties out of doors meant it wasn’t a problem.

But I still sometimes think with a pang of the little boy of maybe 8 who said, ‘Thank you for inviting me to your party, Susie* - nobody else does.’ 😥
*not her real name.

My DS is one of the popular kids at the moment. But I believe in making sure he invites everyone.

What i've clocked is that he has a few besties, but is actually friend with a lot of kids. If I asked him for a list of names I'd get all the besties, and he may forget another child he does like and play with. So I adopt the invite all if it is a birthday party approach. Because he has a brain like a sieve (and I suspect so do a lot of primary school aged children).

DS had a whole class party once and it cost a fortune. After that it was invite 10 kids you want to and I had a party at the house. Then after that it was invite 5 friends and we would go bowling, laster tag and take them out for dinner when he was a teenager.

That is, I think some quieter children who are liked are sometimes missed out because they are quieter. That seems a bit sad to me

Venues around here if large limited to 30 (Introduced in covid and still kept on). DD wants 90 (year one and two ) coming.... Help. Last year the teacher took the invite s and gave them out with discussion with my DD and the register...mn told me off for this but teacher happy to do it...this year DD older so going by the ones she says and any that invited her to a party this year. I don't know all the children or parents. You say your D's is quiet that might be why be not high on party list and on DD list only the boys I know she plays be on as it mostly be girls. DD been left out of various parties too. Honestly it doesn't matter.

DD got left out of a whole class party once when they were about 7. I wasn't aware of any problem between her and the birthday girl - other parents couldn't understand it either. I wasn't going to lower myself by asking the mother though! Think it upset me far more than it did DD though tbh

Other than that there were plenty of smaller parties she didn't get invited to, which was fine

“Is it to do with the parents being ‘pushy’ about climbing the social ladder with other parents?”

This is such an odd thing to jump in with.
You have a quiet child.
Many parties limit numbers.
There’s your answer.

I have a shy child this age. Half their invites are friends they have made themself naturally, say 5. The other half are in a social network I’ve built through socialising with parents I like.

I wouldn’t do a whole class party for this child, they’d hate it.
Am I pushy? Maybe. Are these cliques? I’d say they are now friends.
I have no family support so a network is extremely helpful- eg strike days I have offers to have my child. I also have other people’s children over a lot.
My child benefits through lots of extra practise at socialising and increased confidence.

I try to plug the gaps for all my children though eg tennis lessons age 6 for one with poor hand eye coordination (still plays and loves it). Maths tuition from year 3 for another (happily goes and is way more confident).
I view it in the same way as if my child needed physio- see a need and work on it.

I have found at nursery, DS gets invited to fewer than the children with a SAHM. DH and I both work FT so it's drop and run, friendly but but much more than a quick hello. Other mums go for coffee/yoga/walks with their babies so of course they invite each others children to parties.
I have also found some where mums are over the moon he can go, and say their child will be so pleased, they talk about DS all the time he's their best friend and I've never heard him mention that child 🤷‍♀️. DS plays well with other children but will sometimes take himself off to do what he wants, even at the soft play parties, whereas some just run around in a pack. I'm ok with that.

I don't really understand them either. I sometimes see invites to to kids who really are not friends of the birthday child when the kids friends are not invited. It just seems odd. I think sometimes parents do invite there mum friends kids in younger years but as they get older that stops. Dc1 didn't get invited to a party of a kid he thought was a friend (he had invited him to his party) ironically it turned out there parties were on the same day and very close time wise and all the kids went to dc1 party. The other party was arrange after dc1 party though the mum must have known this when she arranged it as he had been invited. We had a huge party for dc1 (think 3 bouncy castles etc) so the kids all spoke about it for ages. It seemed a shame but why arrange a party at basically the same time as another huge kids party is on in the same class.

how many kids have you being inviting to his parties? some of those invites you see are children of parent friends but others are recipricol invites. plus some parents ask their kids who to invite and you will be surprised who their kids says - sometimes they might name kids who they don't seem to play with. i would not take year 1 party invites (or not) to heart.

That is a very shitty thing to do from the other mum. If she knew a party had already been arranged for a child in the same year, arranging a party on the same day was pathetic. The other children in the year would have to choose which one to go to. The nice parents would have kept their obligation and go to the invite they first accepted or show up to both for a time. Why couldn't the other mum arrange it for the week after? She will look immature for doing this.

I think sometimes it is social climbing because my son now an adult , was socially awkward and only had around 2 to 3 friends he WAS invited to every damn party for kids he didn’t play with !
I took him and at the time I did notice it was the same clique of mums I don’t know why they wanted to invite us thou it was weird ! Everyone was super friendly trying to make friends with me but I just wasn’t interested so in the end we stopped going he hated the parties and would play on his own !
I don’t like it when mums or parents engineer things it’s not natural ! Kids learn by coping in situations themselves , I wouldn’t worry about it too much have a weekend free off no obligations x x x x

When my youngest was at nursery I only invited the children of the parents I knew because he just couldn't/ wouldn't tell me who he played with. There could have been friends we didn't invite but I just didn't know who they were at each given time!