Birthday party etiquette

[HAF1119]

I will preface this with saying I'm an over thinker - I don't want to do the wrong thing! Trivial issue but my son will be 5 soon and is in a class of 30. When it comes to his birthday he has 4 x non class friends he would want - and we have the option of a 15 or 20 child party.

I was going with 15 - so invite 10 from class - plus him 11 in total - doesn't feel like we are leaving too many out. In talking to him about who to invite he named 14 from his class. He has 'close friends' and then others in his class he does clubs with which we've used for childcare, but he seems to have bonds with those children which I wasn't massively expecting - I thought him naming 10 he wanted was a stretch but he said 14 pretty easily along with nice things about them all

I'm still thinking a 15 child party is better so that 10 from class are invited instead of 15? If we invited 14 or 15 then including my child 15 or 16 would attend and 14 or 15 not (depends if we just waste one space as he named 14 not 15 - but I do know a mum of one he didn't name pretty well so could just add one to bulk the numbers) And I've always seen that if you don't have a class party then you should invite less than half the class. Also if 2 or 3 turn it down I'm then thinking we'd end up inviting an even higher ration of children to replace those spaces. Am I over thinking this and should just go for the 20 and have all the children he wants there? Or cut it back to the 15 so it doesn't become a smaller minority 'left out'?

At 5 either just have a tea party at home for half a dozen of his best friends or have a crazy full on crazy class party.

At my children’s primary in reception and year 1 everyone did crazy full class parties then the numbers got smaller after this.

I get what you mean and originally we planned for a full class party in hall - but our son mentioned what he would like for the party - checked the options for that and the numbers are 15 or 20. We're happy to do what he wants as it's something he's really interested in and it's fun enough. Based on what you're saying maybe 15 is better than the 20?

At that age you invite all class or all of the same sex as your child. Now is not the time for narrowing down potential friendships.

At age 5 you need to invite the whole class or do very small max 6 people for example. It’s not fair to invite 10 only. We did whole class invited from nursery - year 1 I think that’s pretty standard. My youngest we even had to tell him that he couldn’t have the venue he wanted as they didn’t do above 15 which would mean we couldn’t have invited the whole class.

Actually I’ve never done class parties. Always just got them to choose 10-15 friends.

I think inviting 10 or 14 out of a class of 30 is fine.
It's when you are excluding 1 or 2 children that there is an issue.
Give the invites to the teacher so that they can be distributed quietly and have a little chat with him about being sensitive to how other children might feel. No "you're not coming to my party" etc

Is it an activity that you can either book 15 or 20 for? If yes then I’d either do 15 from the class and something separate for the 4 non class friends or just go for 20. You’re still inviting only half the class, so it’s not as if you’re only leaving a small group out.

Other option we sometimes have is all boy / all girl invites. Then it doesn’t feel personal to anyone left out

Thanks - in terms of the invites I have the numbers for a parent of all the children - so wouldn't do invites at school at all. And I'd have a word about not talking about it at the school

Boy/girl split isn't an option for us. Son has one male best friend then majority of others are female

Inviting 15 out of 30 is fine. You’re not just leaving a few out, it’s half the class.

don't penny pinch or micro manage. go with the 20 and chill

Where we are the trend isn't for all class parties or all girls/ boys at all. In reception it tended to be 15-20 children usually made up of majority school friends plus a few nursery/ outside of school friends.

Remember OP that there might be a few who can't attend and if they rsvp you can invite others in their place. I would just invite who your child wants

Half the class is fine. It’s not like leaving out just two or three of them.

Half the class is fine. If you only invite 15 in total and a few can’t come you might wish you’d gone for the bigger number.

Ok thanks all! Think we'll go for the 20 :)

Please do not give the invitations to the teacher to give out. It is not their responsibility to do this, especially since it is not a whole class party.

Do make it clear if it is a drop and run.

Do make it clear that siblings are not invited if this is the case

I disagree with this unless it's a very small class.

I think a good guideline is:

Half or less of the whole class OR the full class
Half or less of the girls/boys OR all of them

So it doesn't need to be all of the girls, all of the boys or all of the class. But don't invite more than half as that's when it's a bit more awkward. Ideally try to leave more out than are invited.

Likewise, try to avoid splitting up a close small friendship group of your child's to avoid any potential playground upsets.

I would go with 15 or less. Means it is much less obvious who those 'left out' are.

And yes, don't ask the teacher/Ta to hand out invitations. Infact, quite rightly, many schools don't allow this unless every child is invited. Even then they prefer not to.

Child hands them out themselves before or after school. Preferably at the end of the day so that, again, it's less obvious who didn't get an invitation.

It’s fine - plenty of people don’t ask the whole class.

personally I’d let him ask his 15 from class and have a 20 kid party. You don’t want him to narrow friendships at that point.

I would either-

Invite all or invite less than half. So yes ten is fine.

I was a teacher until last year and had absolutely no issue with quietly slipping invites into book bags. Much better than the birthday child coming into the classroom with a handful and excitedly handing them out to the invited children while the rest look on.

Haha I'll probably keep going back and forth between the two options for a while :) I'll also ask who he'd like to come again a couple of times - if it ends up with 10 it's probably what I'm most happy with just so there's 19 not and 10 invited. But if he does keep reeling off the 14 then I will go with that and just not worry about it!

I think most parents are on a class WhatsApp group now so they have all the parents numbers so parents can be messaged individually or a party group set up. No invitations need to be handed out at school. This is how it's been done since my youngest started school 5 years ago.

I think you should go with the 20. Then he will have everyone he mentioned. If you send out the invites and 5 can't come you can cut it back to 15. It's half of the class group so I think that's OK.