AIBU to leave these children off the party invites?

[receptionmummy]

First DC summer born so first experience of arranging a birthday party for classmates etc. this might be a silly question to worry about but I’m interested in the etiquette around birthday parties at this age (reception / turning 5).

My child is in reception and their birthday is in June. We’ve been talking about what kind of party they would like. They have consistently said a list of around 15 children which sometimes fluctuates, but they have consistently said no to certain names. These are 3 particular children who can be fairly dominating / sometimes fight and with whom my child has had some arguments and upsets with at times, although also does play with them sometimes at school too. These 3 children have all had their birthday parties already this year and all invited my child. One of them only invited a smallish group but still my child was included.

Recently we’ve been present at parties where we’ve seen how these 3 children act and interact with other children / our child and have come away feeling we are relieved our child is choosing to separate themselves from these friendships, as they can be quite unpleasant and violent in their actions and language given they are only little. We haven’t actively pushed our child to move away from them but they seem to have come to this decision themselves after various upsets and dramas and have said “ I don’t want to be friends with x, y & z”.

For context, a lot of the kids in the class have invited the whole class to their parties, and about half of them have had a smaller group of around 15-20.

I’m obviously going to support my child and if they consistently say no to inviting certain children we will not invite them.

However I don’t think the 3 children’s mums have the first clue that my child doesn’t really want to socialise with their children, and they are very friendly and I see them around a lot - at various kids parties! They don’t tend to bat an eyelid on their children’s behaviour.

How do we go about not inviting these 3 children, and only having a chosen group of around 15, whilst not upsetting these children or their parents who have invited our child to their parties already this year (at places like soft play centres and trampolining at not inconsiderable expense)?

I don’t think we are now obligated to return the invite but just wanted to see what the general consensus is over the best way to manage.

Why don't you ask your child who he wants to invite?

I could have written this myself OP as I'm currently in the same boat.

DC1 keeps being physically hurt by another child and there's around three in the (very small) class that are troublemakers. Their 5th birthday is also in June and we've decided against a party - however with that said, if we were planning on doing a party, I'd have no qualms with only inviting a select few.

My excuse would be that we have friends with kids outside of the school and we were limited with numbers. Which isn't exactly a lie.

We've been to other fifth birthday parties where the whole class has been invited and it's not enjoyable as we end up having to watch these kids like hawks. The last one we went to the child who has been physically attacking my DC was fighting with another child on the bouncy castle out of view of his DM!

Do you mean you’d only be leaving these 3 children out, and inviting everyone else? That wouldn’t sit well with me, it seems mean. I’d either invite the whole class, or just invite a small group.

You're not obliged to reciprocate invitations (what's the worst that could happen, they don't invite your son next year?), and if it's 15 or so kids invited it's not like you are singling out a minority and excluding them.

Set up a WhatsApp group with the parents of kids you do want to invite, share details of where and when the party is, job done. Or if your school is more an "invitations in envelopes in bookbags" sort of school then do that.

My rule is: if you are invited to a friend's party AND you choose to go- then that friend gets invited to your party (unless major fallout/force majeure).
You can explain this to your child so he knows that next time don't go to a party if you're not ready to invite back. It's just rude and hurtsome. So you don't really like these boys but they do play together sometimes and your son did go to their birthday parties. I would say def invite or feelings will be hurt and rightfully so.

You're not inviting the whole class so it's fine.

I think it would only be fair to decline future invites from these kids though.

Your child liked these other three enough to want to go to their parties when the other parents were paying. Maybe don’t invite them but tell your child not to expect to be invited to their parties next year.

As long as you aren't inviting 25 children and leaving 3 out, or all of the boys except 1 or similar, its fine to just invite a smaller group. Especially if your child is choosing.

So are you only inviting half the class (presuming it’s a class of 30) and not just these three children being left out? If so then that’s fine.
As an aside though, I don’t think your child should have accepted their party invites if they dislike them enough not to invite them to their party too. It’s kind of a double standard situation to me.

Maybe read the OP before commenting. This nonsense happens on every thread, it baffles me.

Did you read the post? We did!

As others have said if your DC wad happy to go to their parties then you should, in this case invite the DC to your DS party.

But for future reference no, you certainly don't have to invite anyone to your DC's party, no one should feel obliged to invite a DC to their own DC's party if they don't get on.

So to clarify, we would be inviting about 15 kids out of a class of 30. Actually only about 10 are from our child’s actual class.

Agree that it needs to be a smallish group (10 or so) or a whole class invite.

You can't invite everyone barring 3 children (I don't think this is your intention though)

I never did whole class parties
but…. It never meant just excluding 3 children. More like 15-20 children

given only 3, I would invite but assure my child that I will be keeping a VERY close eye on them and if I get a whiff of nastiness…. There’ll be an end to it immediately

Huh? So why focus on just 3

so 15 not being invited

that is fine.

I am confused about the relevance of just the 3 now. Your Op is not at all clear

”to clarify”. 😆

this is completely different picture to that presented in your Op

Yes that’s what I’m thinking. I think that my child only recently starting feeling / expressing that they don’t want to be friends with these 3 kids, after a spike in incidents. They all had their parties last Autumn when they were still relatively new.

My rule was always that we'd invite a minority or the whole class, so out of a class of 30 I'd invite no more than 10-12 or the whole 30. I wouldn't exclude someone who had invited my child to their party though, so on that basis I'd probably invite them.

I wouldn't assume my child would get and invite to a party just because they invited that child to theirs, it is not the UN

I would want a child to have the party they want even if it didn't include my child, children cope better than parents

It’s your child’s party and you are the one paying for it. You get to decide who comes. This isn’t a family wedding and you’re not inviting Auntie Sheila.

Invite who you and your child would like. It’s not that deep or serious.

Invitations aren’t reciprocal. If someone invites the whole damned class they aren’t entitled to attend the other 29 kid’s parties.

Your child invites whom they want. Other children invite the kids they want. It’s not a tit for tat transaction.

You say you were invited to these parties, did your child go? I generally think it's fine to invite who you want to parties..but also I wouldn't accept an invitation to a party where I wasn't planning to reciprocate. And I say that to my kids, that they can only go to the party if they're happy to invite the kid back in return (as otherwise they'd just be thinking about the activity, not if they actually like the other child)

Since your child went to their party, I would personally invite them. That said, when my DD had a party last year, we invited the whole class of 30 and only 16 rsvp to say they’ll come and 2 didn’t turn up. We didn’t have to pick and choose.

It’s awkward that your child went to their parties. But if these were in Autumn I can understand things will have moved on since then especially in reception.

I think not inviting these 3 kids is fine as you are only inviting 10 from the class. Yes it will send a message that your child isn’t that keen on the 3, but that’s true so 🤷‍♀️