AIBU if I don't invite the whole class to a party?

[decafisnotthesame]

My son turns 5 in September, just after starting reception. He wants a small party with 10-15 friends from his nursery. About 5 of these will also be in reception with him and the others will be at different primary schools.

I’ve now heard it’s the norm to invite the whole class in reception. I suggested this to him and we’d book a soft play but he’s adamant he doesn’t want a soft play party or lots of people.

I obviously want him to enjoy his party but also don’t want him (and me!) to then be excluded from other things as we’ll be blacklisted for not inviting the other 25 kids from his class.

I should add that large, loud gatherings with lots of kids are not something he typically enjoys. But also that it would be far easier for me to just invite the whole reception class than try and contact kids parents who have already left nursery for the summer 🤦🏻‍♀️

AIBU to want to do what’s best for him or do I just need to accept that the done thing is to invite the whole class?

10 to 15 guests is perfect. You can’t invite 40 kids - the risk is they’ll all turn up (knew someone who had 42 at a party once - very stressful!).

Not everyone has the whole class, otherwise we’d all have 30 parties a year to attend and I’m certain that’s never happened to me and my kids!

We have a mix of whole class and small parties here. Whole class parties are not my bag at all and DD1 has thankfully never wanted one, she’s usually had about 10 friends (usually 5 or so from school/nursery and the rest from elsewhere). But she’s been invited to plenty and goes along.

Do whatever your son wants and don’t feel obliged to do something because you feel you should. We did host one whole class party at soft play and honestly it was pretty pointless. Felt like I’d paid a fortune for other people’s kids just to have a day out for all the interacting DD1 did with most of them. She just played with the same small group of kids we would have invited to a smaller party anyway. Skipping that step with DD2 entirely!

I ask my girl to invite who she wants. It's never the whole class :)

I only had small parties...max 6-8 of their actual friends.

We always invited 6 people - plus my two DSs who are close in age and able to enjoy the same activities. If one of them only wanted to invite 5 then the other one was allowed to invite one person too. Some of our parties were at indoor play or activity type places and they didn't mind catering for smaller groups (some had a minimum of 6). On one occasion we had a no-show, and since the place and food were already paid for we asked if the brother of one of the guests would like to stay too. If he hadn't been able to, we would have just sucked up the cost - which was still a lot less than paying for about 30 people, some of whom my DS didn't even like!

Thanks again to everyone who has responded. It's been so helpful to get so many different perspectives.

I think the comment "you'd be very unreasonable to make your son feel uncomfortable because you're worried about what people think" is absolute right and thank you for putting it like this. And combined with someone saying that people would be very petty to exclude him from future parties just because they weren't invited to his has helped make the decision in favour of the small gathering he wants.

I'll of course be tactful with invites and as it's just 5ish from the reception class I hope I don't cause anyone any offence.

Our experience in reception has been about 90% whole class, joint parties. Anywhere from 2-5 kids. A couple where it was just girls/selection of kids etc

The whole class, joint parties made organisation easier and costs down. It was generally Soft Play and Pizza!