When do people stop inviting the whole class to birthday parties and how does that go?

[Anonymous]

I never invited my kids' whole class to parties, and never all-boys or all-girls. Usually a handful of school friends (boys and girls, few enough that it wasn't like all girls except two or something) and a few neighbor friends (boys and girls).

[Anonymous]

It’s funny because I feel like whole class parties kind of went by the wayside during the pandemic in our area. When my DS was in the 3s class at preschool, we probably had a birthday invite every other week. In the past year since parties started resuming each of my kids has had a handful of invites but it was clear the whole class wasn’t invited for most (my oldest is in 1st, younger one is now in preschool). And I’m sure there were some my kids werent invited to as well.

It actually kind of makes me wonder what to do for my preschooler as we were planning to have a party this year. I don’t know many of the parents and would like to invite the whole class but it just doesn’t seem like a thing anymore. Maybe due to ongoing covid concerns?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never invited my kids' whole class to parties, and never all-boys or all-girls. Usually a handful of school friends (boys and girls, few enough that it wasn't like all girls except two or something) and a few neighbor friends (boys and girls).

+1. When my child was in that sweet spot of birthdays between about ages 4-10 we usually ended up inviting about 10-12 kids. Always a mix of school and neighborhood friends, and often a mix of boys and girls depending on the year. In most cases, they kids also spanned homerooms so it was never even close to inviting a whole classroom.

The point of all-class or all of one sex is to avoid exclusion of one or two kids, who most likely will find out about the party and be hurt. You can easily avoid that by considering the construct of the list of guests you do invite. Similarly, I'd try to avoid inviting all but one child from the sport team or scout troop or something, but generally it can work out without inviting 25 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a 2nd grade boy and Kindergarten girl this year. Last year when my son was in 1st grade, he was invited to 3 whole class bday parties and 4-5 other parties that were a smaller group of kids invited (like 5-6 kids from the class, but never all the boys in the class). Before that, there were no bday parties when he was in K due to the pandemic. The parties he was invited to in pre-k from his classmates were all whole class parties.

My daughter last year in pre-K also all the parties were for the whole class but this year in K she's been to 2 parties that were just a small group of friends so I think it just depends on the specific group of kids!

Personally, I haven't and wouldn't host a whole class party. My kids invite only their closest friends. I want to be inclusive and hate to leave kids out or make them sad but at the same time I just can't handle the stress of a whole class party and they're overwhelming and not fun for my kids (both of whom are more introverted type kids who don't like large groups) either so we don't do them. We just emphasize strongly to our kids not to talk about their bday party at school/around other kids...I'm sure sometimes they do--they're kids and kids talk. But we try to make sure they understand that someone may get hurt feelings if they hear it and I think my kids are sensitive enough to understand that for the most part.

For your younger child in K, do you just ask her which 4-5 friends she wants to invite? For my kid I think that would change by the day or he would just randomly list some kids from the bus. Do you use whatever list she gives you?

I almost posted here a few weeks ago with this question, because I didn't know how much to "trust" my DD's list given that it changed every day. In the end, I went with all the girls in her class, plus one boy. I'd have preferred a better mix of genders based on actual relationships but it was hard to get a solid answer from her so, I'll admit, I did this way because it was easiest and least likely to cause hurt feelings.

[Anonymous]

Where are people having parties for winter bdays that can accommodate 20+ kids? I actually want to invite the whole class but my preliminary searches for my kinder DD's January bday is coming up dry...

[Anonymous]

We invited the whole class till probably 3rd or 4th grade? We also invited the neighborhood kids (everyone got an invite, people chose to come or not come - it did not matter), and the kids of our friends.

By MS, my kids had one special party with their close friends, one family dinner in a restaurant (we have a large family), and several small celebrations with different groups of friends. Usually, the birthday celebrations continued for a week or so.

We didn't celebrate birthdays with gifts after ES. The celebrations were the gifts. My kids got to treat their friends to dinner, movie, some event etc. Then we, the parents, gave something substantial to our kids as a present. Our relatives also gave them cash gifts.

My DS did the same for his HS graduation. He had a whole bunch of outings, events and dinners planned with different groups of friends, in addition to attending the graduation parties of other friends. Then, we took him on a 10 day vacation abroad as a gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are people having parties for winter bdays that can accommodate 20+ kids? I actually want to invite the whole class but my preliminary searches for my kinder DD's January bday is coming up dry...

You have to start early! Gymnastics studios are good. Also any sort of bounce house or something!

[Anonymous]

I would say by fourth grade. By middle school, our DDs were asking 3-4 kids only. And that was a movie and ice cream.

[Anonymous]

Bowling, laser tag, mini golf (inside), bounce house, climbing (skyzone, trampolines, Summit), kids gym, paint ball, swim pool (inside, like Kids First, Goldfish), etc. there are tons of places…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s funny because I feel like whole class parties kind of went by the wayside during the pandemic in our area. When my DS was in the 3s class at preschool, we probably had a birthday invite every other week. In the past year since parties started resuming each of my kids has had a handful of invites but it was clear the whole class wasn’t invited for most (my oldest is in 1st, younger one is now in preschool). And I’m sure there were some my kids werent invited to as well.

It actually kind of makes me wonder what to do for my preschooler as we were planning to have a party this year. I don’t know many of the parents and would like to invite the whole class but it just doesn’t seem like a thing anymore. Maybe due to ongoing covid concerns?

I've found it just takes that first parent to invite the whole class and then the dam breaks so to speak.

[Anonymous]

We have had more whole class parties for our son than for our daughter. Just from observing my kids at their friends, I'd say this is because the girls tend to form tighter bonds to their friends earlier than boys do. My daughter had 2 little BFFs in pre-K that she remains close to years later. My son was more of the type to just play with everyone and have a new friend every day. I'm sure a lot of it is just their personalities also but I've seen similar w/ other kids I know: the boys all play together in a pack and the girls are more likely to make close friends.

[Anonymous]

We stopped inviting whole class after third grade bc the kids traded classes all day by 4th grade and mixed with others. So, there was no longer ‘just 1 class’.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are people having parties for winter bdays that can accommodate 20+ kids? I actually want to invite the whole class but my preliminary searches for my kinder DD's January bday is coming up dry...

Zava Zone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people in K just invite all the boys or all the girls. There are no hurt feelings in that case.

I dislike this because it just reinforces the idea of same-sex friendships which I think is negative in the longterm. I'd rather my kid be left out of some parties as the invitation lists shrink then have a culture where kids are told that friendships are always supposed to be same-sex. It just doesn't reflect how friendships/relationships work in adulthood and contributes to misogyny by teaching boys, in particular, that they don't need to be friendly with girls or treat them as equals.

I have a girl and she gravitates to female friendships but she has made friends with a number of boys in early elementary and we nurture those friendships too and would totally invite those boys to her birthday. They might choose not to come or they might come and decide to leave early if they aren't into the same stuff DD is into (unicorns and mermaids) which is totally okay. But I wouldn't just exclude them because they are boys.

Not really about excluding the opposite sex as much as it’s focusing on the kids your kid is most likely to have a real friendship with outside of school. My kid most often plays with the girls on class at recess and has play dates and such with the girls in class, but not the boys even if she likes them at school well enough. So they’re perfectly fine and we aren’t excluding them for being boys but if we don’t want to do the whole class, it makes more sense to just invite the girls .

[Anonymous]

Starting in K, I let my kids pick who to invite (for the most part). We stopped the all class parties after preschool.

If they somehow left out a name I’d heard several times, I just asked, “what about Larlo?”

Early on, it was a mix of boys and girls. My oldest has moved on to just boys, and my youngest’s crew is about 50/50.