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.

Honestly you are overthinking it .

Dc doesn’t want them there . It’s not a whole class invite .

Dc won’t care - if parents say anything you can just say he was given the option of 15 people . Your dc wasn’t on that list

Absolutely fine. Invite who you want to invite. Also you don't have to invite people who invited you to theirs. Some children have different perceptions as to who their friends are at that age and some will have whole class parties.

Just invite who you and your child are comfortable inviting and ignore others who don't share the same views as you.

Mine are grown now and a distinct memory I have is one mum telling me she had a parent (her friend) call her at 7am to ask why her kid wasn't invited to her son's party and she was told straight her son chose the guests and just because they were friends it didn't mean the kids had to be. Apparently she started to moan about how the mum should have overruled the kid and it ended with the friend being told to piss off and not call at 7am. It always stuck with me because they really were very close friends and remained so afterwards!

This. If they are haply enough to go their parties then they should be invited to your dcs. If not fine but tell them not to accept invites themselves next time.

That's fine then, it's ok to invite half the class, not ok to invite the whole class bar a few (IMO). I would not ask a teacher to hand out invites in class though unless whole class invited. I am a teacher and I hate their wee faces when I have to do that!

That's absolutely fine, don't worry. It's a problem if you only exclude 3 from the class, but in this instance it's just not a whole class party. A lot of people do whole class parties, but nobody is obligated to.

That sounds fine given you're inviting less than half the class.
My general 'rule' is just the boys, just the girls or less than half.
It can feel very hurtful to be left out of a party when you're little but you also have to respect your child's wishes so always a balancing act.

What utter bullshit, I guess your kid is one of them.
I've been to plenty parties where there's 30 screaming, ecstatic kids full of sugar going nuts but there's also a couple of kids who are just horrible,purposely hurt people and are there to ruin it for everyone, this is who OP is talking about.
Yes everyone has the kids going nuts but they don't all have 'badly behaved arrogant intolerable brats'.

I think a smaller group of 15 is fine. Where I have had to put my foot down is when my daughter wanted to invite all the girls apart from 1 or 2. That felt exclusionary to me. Some parents have all class parties and some have a smaller group and that's ok as long as it's not obvious that one child is being deliberately left out.

You don't have to have a party, OP. Tell him you are going to have a 'special day' just for him and do something he'll like. He's barely five years old, he won't remember this party, neither will the other kids, and other parents won't care. Save your time, money and stress.

It's fine to just invite your kid's chosen 10 kids. Friendships move around at this age anyway. It would be polite to decline their invitations next year though.

Just invite the children you son has asked for. The party is for him, what other people think is not important.

Sounds fine to leave them off. You're leaving off another 20 kids from your dc's class anyway if you're only inviting 10 out of 30. Not sure why leaving them off is a problem. Friendship groups change all the time among kids.

Don't invite them.
These kids are particularly nice to your child, he doesn't really like them, and if you make him invite them it is undermining his feelings.
I wouldn't give a stuff about what the other parents think- it's not their party, it's his.

I think you should invite children who invited your child, it's not nice to the child or their parents if you don't reciprocate, particularly if theirs was a paid for party not just an at home party. If they invite next year decline then you don't need to worry about inviting them back. This will be your party so you can control the situation and stop any bad behaviour if it arises.

This

I think it’s fine not to invite them and, as you say, make it clear next time round that you need to decline invitations to parties of people who don’t want to invite back.

One other suggestion: we used to go by an excellent idea that I saw somewhere, which was that a birthday party should have the same number of guests as the age of the birthday. So I’d suggest going even smaller, and then you’re even less likely to offend.

Do you have kids? Not sure you do because a 5yo is well old enough to remember their party! You might be thinking of a 2yo.

Why did your child go to their parties if he's not friends with them? You obviously can invite/leave off whoever you want especially as it's not whole class

Perhaps it's just me! I have no idea of having or attending any parties (or remembering anything else for that matter) at 4/5 years of age ... but it was a long time ago!

Absolutely not just you. I don't remember any parties from my childhood and my son doesn't remember his pretty epic 4th birthday party x

Are they the only 3 boys in the class who aren’t invited

or the 20 not invited are boys and girls

assume the other 17 not invited are girls ?

We do/invite what/who our dd (6) wants to do/invite. She has never wanted a whole class party as she isn’t friends with everyone in the class. Problem solved in my eyes - I wouldn’t invite anyone my child didn’t want there because of any sort of social pressure to do otherwise. It’s her birthday, her party.
Because of this we have stuck to small groups for the different parties she’s had.
I found that last year (classmates turning 5) there were alot of whole class parties and this year so far there hasn’t been, so I think (hope 😅!), at our school at least, some parents do one whole class party and then it’s done.

You know this will likely send a message but you're going to have to own that, if you want your DC to be free to choose. You've got a long time left at "the gates" so you'll have to decide just how much you care about this kind of thing.

As PPs said, I think it's worth telling your DC that next time one of the 3 invites them, they won't be going, as they have chosen not to socialise with them.

Your numbers mean you could definitely leave those three out, unless you are inviting all the boys (or all the girls) except them. Or leaving one out of a close group, sort of situation. If you frame it as your child is inviting the 10 (or 12 or 15) children they feel closest to in their class, does that help? Friendships change, so they may have been closer in autumn, when the other had their birthdays. Reciprocating invites is polite but OK not to if the other children had whole class parties, less so if they had small parties. But if you want to distance those children, offending their parents doesn't really matter.