To invite all the boys but 2 to birthday party?

34 replies

Doubtfyre · 06/03/2024 20:53

Please can you help me with party etiquette! First time party for 5 year old... if I could go back in time I'd have done things differently. I made the mistake of asking him who he wanted to invite, and kept asking him to make sure. He wanted all the boys, then changed his mind and wanted 8 of the 11 boys, plus two girls. Now he wants one more boy, which means two boys won't be invited. Is this bad form? Do kids know at that age? I felt like all the boys but 3 was perhaps okay, but leaving 2 out doesn't feel right!

Thank you, this stuff really stresses me out!

OP posts:

tryingtohelp82 · 06/03/2024 21:04

Bad form. Someone did this to my boy and it was awful for him seeing everyone else get one apart from one other. Either make it all the boys or half and under

tryingtohelp82 · 06/03/2024 21:05

FancyBiscuitsLevel · 06/03/2024 21:02

So is this a class of 30 children, so whole class would be 29 plus your ds. He’s inviting a selection of children, 10, plus him, meaning 2/3 of the class aren’t invited. You might increase to 11 plus ds.

id say as long as it’s less than half the class it’s ok, above that you have to go whole class party. You are still below half the class, just there’s an imbalance between the sexes.

at this age they won’t think “he’s invited all but 2 of the boys” but “he’s invited some of the boys and girls but not me”.

don’t give out invites at school gate, you’ll be fine.

They notice.

Trainstrike · 06/03/2024 21:06

It's not all except for 2 children though is it, it's except 2 boys specifically, so more likely our of 30? Not sure why we need to differentiate by the boy numbers in that case.

RosaBaby2 · 06/03/2024 21:06

My almost 6 year old would forget who he had chosen by next week or change his mind 18 million times.
Glad to see you're inviting the..

SD1978 · 06/03/2024 21:06

It's a shit thing to invite most is the boys and exclude 2-3. They are 5 and you're excluding them. Either do a smaller party or invite them all.

FancyBiscuitsLevel · 06/03/2024 21:08

Well hang on, with these two extra boys and then the girls as well, are you now inviting more than half the class ? Or less than half the class?

if it’s more than half the class you should move on to invite everyone.

if you are inviting a mixture of some of the girls and some of the boys, it doesn’t need to be all of the boys.

Original poster

Doubtfyre · 06/03/2024 21:12

Thanks all for the comments. It's a class of 30, so just to clarify we're not inviting the whole class bar 2, it was that he wanted boys only...except 2. And the party remains less than half!

I wasn't planning on doing paper invites, just WhatsApp, so as silly as it sounds I just wasn't sure if the boys left out would really know?!

But I do think after reading what you've all said that I should definitely invite them!

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Onelifeonly · 06/03/2024 21:14

As the parent who had an unpopular child, I know it hurts. At that age I used to ask for their list, then add the other children I felt should come. Either because they had invited my child or because I had a relationship with the parent. As long as they have fun, kids don't mind much at that age. Even when a bit older, around 8 or 9 +, I'd still add certain children for strategic reasons. Once at secondary, where you don't necessarily know the child or their parents, I allowed a free reign with limits only on numbers. Party size went down then anyway to 5 to 7 (until teen parties start......)

Autienotnautie · 06/03/2024 21:33

Rule of thumb invite no more than 50% otherwise invite all.

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