Class parties - some not invited

[Totallywingingitmum]

my dc is in reception class. Since September there have been a few class parties that she hasn’t been invited to. I’m also aware she has gone to parties that others haven’t been invited to.

AIBU to think this is unfair? You either invite the whole class or none at all. Or if you are going to have a party perhaps just invite a very small number so it’s clearly an intimate event.

I can’t help but wonder why she hasn’t been invited? It makes me sad! I also feel uncomfortable knowing a parent has allowed their child to deliberately leave some children out. Children (and parents) talk and news of a party is bound to get round.

I understand parties can cost a lot or there could be a max number of children allowed but if I were organising a party for my daughter I’d ensure the whole class was included and nobody left out.

My DD and DS1 had a birthday only a few days apart but one a year older than the other. I used to tell them they could invite 8 friends each so there were 18 in all and they'd invite 2 cousins so get 20. They each had about 30 in their class. Entirely up to them who they picked if one DC could not attend I let them invite another DC instead. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Also if a DC is bullied by another DC it's perfectly fine not to invite them to their party.

I see your point. We are about to send invites for my kid’s bday and he is absolutely again still inviting 2 of the kids (he just doesn’t like playing with them) to the point he says if they come he doesn’t want to be at his own bday. Reception age too…

Ive never heard of a whole class party. Then again I live in the city and my DD has had a party every year for as long as I can remember and she invites whoever she wants to invite (no more than 10, unless she has a friendship group of more than 10) - plus I will invite parents that I know. Plus I will usually have friends and family. It’s a lot to manage.

Her school was a 3 form class so that’s 90 children to think about. I wouldn’t just invite 30 odd people unless I hired a hall and was doing a big do.

I would only be upset if my DD wasn’t invited by someone she clearly plus with - I always made the effort to reach out to parents I didn’t know in her friendship circle.

Im personally not that keen on random bday parties and my DD doesn’t care either.

I often have found the bigger the party, the more popular the mum/parents. And it becomes less about the children and more about playground politics. Just my observation.

It's ok to only invite the children your child plays with, and vice versa. 30 children to a say, a soft play party is a) far too much and b) far too expensive.

It was equally awful for the SEN children!

You make it sound like your child was more upset!

@kisstheblarney have a day off.

Of course it was awful for the children with SEN. I am a primary school teacher and spend my life advocating for children with special needs.

The difference was, I wasn't mopping their tears at home every few months when the party invitations went out, another poor set of parents were.

So what was the relevance of mentioning the others had SEN?

It's surely just three upset children?

I’m afraid this is school life. Your kid will come home upset they’ve not been invited to a party. But I think you’re unreasonable, parents don’t have to do all or nothing. Why invite kids your child doesn’t get along with?

The thing I found upsetting was people who were always invited and came to my kids party but NEVER invited them to their party in return. A few years of that with certain kids parents.

Thank you for spending so much time breaking it down 🙄

It doesn't work like that though. The other families might just hold smaller parties.

My 6 year old son doesn't like big parties, he prefers to have a party with 4 or 5 children so if I plan a party for him it means that we book a small party.

In shocking news all children like different things.

In one case in particular they didn't have small parties. I'd know they were happening and lots were invited. It was every year. We stopped doing big class parties anyway in the end. We'd spend the money on a small bowling party or cinema for very close friends and the extra money saved on a family day out to celebrate.

Fortunately party politics is a very short time. It seems a big deal at the time, but as they get older it just fades away.

O can remember the hurt of DD being the only child in the class not invited to a party... but the reason was so ridiculous its hilarious looking back. DD was fortunately oblivious. (She wasn't invited as the mother disliked DHs job!)

We had it constantly with DD2 - either whole class, or whole set of girls invited apart from her. It was deliberate, it was targeted, it came from the mothers who disliked me as I wasn't part of the clique who'd moved up from nursery together. DD2 is phenomenally resilient and also incredibly kind - I'm biased of course, but she is an incredibly sweet natured young girl who wouldn't hurt a fly, so it definitely wasn't a case of leaving a bully or the child in the class who struggled with behaviour out either.

In the end, the kids made some friendships with DD2 - which were consistently blocked by a core group of the mums and other kids picked up on the vibes from the parents and it started overspilling into bullying of DD2.

We're no longer at that school for various reasons - but it was absolutely foul behaviour from a particularly awful cohort of parents (there was also a punch up at one birthday party apparently when someone looked at someone else's fella). I've always been very cheerful and "oh yes, it feels sad when you're not invited - that's OK to feel like that, but parties are expensive and you can't invite everyone, or you can't squish everyone into the place the party's happening" but what DD2 went through was vile.

As others have said if just a few children are not invited out of the whole class that seems unfair and not very kind. However if a parent has a budget for e.g. 20 kids that’s a legitimate thing. I would personally prefer to have a smaller party in that circumstance precisely for the reasons you’ve said but that’s just my preference and there’s nothing wrong with doing it tbf.

You’ll probably find that by year 2 the class party is a thing of the past - by then most kids are either inviting all the girls or all the boys, or having a smaller party of 8-10 kids. So never fear, it’ll be over soon!

Having a class of 30 and inviting only 20 is perfectly fine. It's not a class party. And frankly, many places that host parties have a limit of 20/25, so I can see how that makes perfect sense.

That said, I wouldn't expect parents in term 1 of reception to even know who the hell is in the class to send it all the correct invites. My youngest has his birthday in the spring term and only had 13 in his class, and I still forgot 2 of them when doing invites! I managed to figure out the mistake and get them an invite swiftly, but when asking him who is in his class, he just forgot those 2. He was 4, so I wouldn't expect him to be able to remember everyone - especially if I couldn't even remember everyone. We have no class whatsapp or class list and teachers obviously can give no details due to GDPR, so it's purely up to kid's rattling off names. He's older now, but honestly, I still have no idea the names of the kids in his class and I doubt he does either, so no idea what we'll do this year when we have to do invites as it's a bigger class now, so some will be forgotten. I don't even know how many are in the class anymore so can't even send in blank invites.

It's so difficult, my DD recently had her birthday party (pre school nursery) I really struggled with who we should/shouldn't invite. She's quite shy and only really plays with a few friends but kept mentioning other names she wanted to her party. In the end I put my foot down to the kids she actually plays with/speaks about regularly because i thought it was unfair to have the 'extras' that she just knows of in case we were leaving others out. We went with just 6 kids out of a class of 30 (even 2 of them were ones i felt we had to because she'd been invited to theirs) You're right it is hurtful to learn of a class party your child hasn't been invited to. Who knew the stress these sort of things would cause haha

Leaving a few children out isn't very kind. But no need to invite the whole class.

When my DD started school I had no idea that these sort of parties happened, I never had a party as a child. I was truly amazed when we got the first invite, very glad my DDs birthday was much further into the school year so I knew a party was expected. I'm pretty sure she wasn't invited to them all, but it was very nice to be invited when she was.

The party may have a limited number and the birthday child may want to include children from outside school- from clubs, old nursery friends, cousins etc. School classes are so large now that it is not always possible to accommodate everyone.

General rule; the whole class, or less than 50%.

Otherwise it's not fair

when my DC were small we invited exactly who they wanted to invite (unless we were doing A Thing where numbers were restricted) and if one of the left out ones mother's complained about it as you are, OP, i'd have laughed in their face.

You can't go around telling people how to have their DCs parties.

You sound horrible.

At 5, they're generally friends with everyone and anyone