Birthday party etiquette

[Anonymous]

Unless you hang out with the birthday child regularly, I don’t see why a child or parent should expect an invitation. If you don’t hang out outside of school, don’t do play dates, you should not expect an invitation where not everyone was invited. Just because you share the same sex does not qualify one to be invited.

Watch when parties become even smaller and birthdays only invite a handful of close friends and you get cut. As you get older, kids make more friends and can’t invite even all their friends. Covid made these situations worse.

I had a small party for my 3 children. My oldest child invited 3 friends. Previous birthday parties had 10-20 kids so there are a lot of kids we had previously invited that we did not invited. Middle child had 5 boys from his class. We only invited kids from his class. He has friends from other classes and other activities that we did not invite due to covid. I also only invited 3 girls to my daughter’s birthday. I normally would have invited many more kids and I still would not have invited the whole class or all of the same sex. I would have invited more real friends though that my kid is friends with.

[Anonymous]

I've never been popular. My kid isn't extremely popular
I don't know why everyone has to be invited to everything. I'm all for inclusion when possible but sometimes it's not possible. I had a party at one of the kids places once and could only invite 10 kids total. 5 of the kids invited were family so the other 5 were friends. I asked my kid who to invite. One of the Mom's of a kid that my kid knows contacted me upset. I didn't respond. I also didn't appreciate whoever told her about the party. I don't mention parties unless I'm sure the other person is invited. It's since blown over and my kid was invited to that other kids party but it wasn't a slight it was a space issue. I refuse to exclude cousins for friends.

[Anonymous]

Also what type of message are you sending to a kid by asking them to invite a person they don't enjoy being around? I don't spend my weekends or free time with people I don't care for.

[Anonymous]

OP, do you invite your most annoying coworker over to your house for dinner?

Why not?

What’s wrong with showing grace? Inclusivity? Kindness?

[Anonymous]

There is no etiquette to whom you must invite to a birthday. It isn't a school party, kids can and should invite who they want.

Now if your son is feeling left out, do your best to foster friendships outside of school. Also, how did he know? If invitations are being passed out at school and parties discussed, I would send a note to the teacher. I know our (private) school has a policy that party invitations are not to be brought and passed out at school and parties outside of school aren't to be talked about if everyone isn't invited. The teachers go over this with the students at the beginning of the year so it is clear. A large public school probably can't control this and doesn't care to, but if your child is at a smaller private school, I think it is appropriate to ask about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no etiquette to whom you must invite to a birthday. It isn't a school party, kids can and should invite who they want.

Now if your son is feeling left out, do your best to foster friendships outside of school. Also, how did he know? If invitations are being passed out at school and parties discussed, I would send a note to the teacher. I know our (private) school has a policy that party invitations are not to be brought and passed out at school and parties outside of school aren't to be talked about if everyone isn't invited. The teachers go over this with the students at the beginning of the year so it is clear. A large public school probably can't control this and doesn't care to, but if your child is at a smaller private school, I think it is appropriate to ask about.

Who does paper invitations?

Everything is online now.

I say this as someone who used to pay someone to design my party invitations and actually mailed them a decade ago.

I can’t remember the last paper party invitation we received and I have 3 kids. Maybe when my oldest was in kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no etiquette to whom you must invite to a birthday. It isn't a school party, kids can and should invite who they want.

Now if your son is feeling left out, do your best to foster friendships outside of school. Also, how did he know? If invitations are being passed out at school and parties discussed, I would send a note to the teacher. I know our (private) school has a policy that party invitations are not to be brought and passed out at school and parties outside of school aren't to be talked about if everyone isn't invited. The teachers go over this with the students at the beginning of the year so it is clear. A large public school probably can't control this and doesn't care to, but if your child is at a smaller private school, I think it is appropriate to ask about.

Who does paper invitations?

Everything is online now.

I say this as someone who used to pay someone to design my party invitations and actually mailed them a decade ago.

I can’t remember the last paper party invitation we received and I have 3 kids. Maybe when my oldest was in kindergarten.

Not the pp but I still do paper invites. DD has always liked small parties less than 8 kids and all were her friends in and out of school. So I knew the parents and were able to mail them to the kids. I would never send paper invites to school cause I know it can cause problems. But DD did get a cute paper invite from a school friend that she had done herself with notecards. I thought that was sweet.

[Anonymous]

I really don't get inviting kids your child isn't friends with or may even not like. Our 3rd grade class has 22 kids why would I invite all of them especially knowing there are at least 3 my child actively dislikes because they are mean to her. Some of them she's fine with but doesn't really talk to. But there are kids in other classes she's super close with.

I think you invite who your kid likes. If some kids get left out so be it. I know my kid has been left out of some parties, but I also know DD wasn't actually friends with those kids. She didn't think it was a big deal and neither did I.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no etiquette to whom you must invite to a birthday. It isn't a school party, kids can and should invite who they want.

Now if your son is feeling left out, do your best to foster friendships outside of school. Also, how did he know? If invitations are being passed out at school and parties discussed, I would send a note to the teacher. I know our (private) school has a policy that party invitations are not to be brought and passed out at school and parties outside of school aren't to be talked about if everyone isn't invited. The teachers go over this with the students at the beginning of the year so it is clear. A large public school probably can't control this and doesn't care to, but if your child is at a smaller private school, I think it is appropriate to ask about.

Our public school has the policy if you don’t invite the whole class you can’t send invites to school. They also don’t put out a directory. So we invited the whole class this year because I didn’t have contact information for several kids my DD likes and talks about. This was earlier in the year when things were better COVID wise. I am also sympathetic to people feeling left out in the age of social media. I still remember a friend being SO upset that her son was one of the only boys not included in a special activity that was purchased from a school fundraiser (and posted heavily on the school’s social media). I don’t know what we will do in the future but we have tried to instill the value of not talking about parties unless you know the other person was invited. It’s good manners anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also what type of message are you sending to a kid by asking them to invite a person they don't enjoy being around? I don't spend my weekends or free time with people I don't care for.

To the birthday kid: You always have to be a doormat to everyone else, even on your birthday
To the brat: You can be a jerk with no consequences and you are entitled to people's attention and time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no etiquette to whom you must invite to a birthday. It isn't a school party, kids can and should invite who they want.

Now if your son is feeling left out, do your best to foster friendships outside of school. Also, how did he know? If invitations are being passed out at school and parties discussed, I would send a note to the teacher. I know our (private) school has a policy that party invitations are not to be brought and passed out at school and parties outside of school aren't to be talked about if everyone isn't invited. The teachers go over this with the students at the beginning of the year so it is clear. A large public school probably can't control this and doesn't care to, but if your child is at a smaller private school, I think it is appropriate to ask about.

Who does paper invitations?

Everything is online now.

I say this as someone who used to pay someone to design my party invitations and actually mailed them a decade ago.

I can’t remember the last paper party invitation we received and I have 3 kids. Maybe when my oldest was in kindergarten.

Not the pp but I still do paper invites. DD has always liked small parties less than 8 kids and all were her friends in and out of school. So I knew the parents and were able to mail them to the kids. I would never send paper invites to school cause I know it can cause problems. But DD did get a cute paper invite from a school friend that she had done herself with notecards. I thought that was sweet.

Do you follow up to make sure they are actually brought home? My oldest is in high school and I can remember 1 or 2 from him only, when he was in preschool. We didn’t have a directory so we did paper invites too when we had a preschool party. But my younger kids never got any. All have been online or lost and never made it home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I definitely don’t think my kid was mean to this kid. My kid does have adhd and you can tell and this kid has always been extremely mature and self regulating so I’m sure he just thinks my kid is annoying. I do think kids should be able to invite who they want. But I would personally tell my kid either just ask half the boys or all the boys. These kids have been at school together since they were two. Just feels ick. Maybe not wrong but just ick

That’s an adult overlay. Your adhd child might be prone to blurting out hurtful comments without thinking about it. Impulsiveness and lack of judgment is part of adhd. The other child may have interpreted what your son said or did as mean.

If they’ve been to school together since 2, then take it as feedback that your son’s social skills may need improvement.

I had a kid show up to my son’s 7th birthday and say mean things to him throughout the party. His mother, who was there, was oblivious and too busy chatting to keep an eye on her out-of-control son. Neither parent or child was ever invited to another party of ours again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Basically they invited 6 of the 8 boys. I know it wasn’t a mix up bc one of the other boys asked the birthday boy why he hadn’t invited ds and he said it never occurred to him. That’s understandable from an 8 yo boy but not from an adult. Agree I think half the boys would be acceptable - or half the whole class. But leaving out 2 feels crappy. And yes they have been invited to our parties - pre Covid when we had them

Pre-Covid means it was almost two years ago. Friendships change a lot at that age in two years.

DP. Also, not to pile on, but you haven’t hosted a party yourself in 2 years but expect to be invited to everyone else’s parties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2 out of 8.

2 out of 8 is not bad.

It maybe they have a limit of 6 or so. My kid is in a small school with 7 boys in hois class. I really wanted to invite just 4 kids (5 including mine since it was during COVID but decided to invite all 6. It worked out ok numbers wise as 1 kid wasn't able to make it so we just had 7 kids including mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A kid in my 8 yo’s class invited all the boys in the class to his birthday except mine and one other boy. I kind of think this is crappy of the mom. Am I being unfair?

Our school has a directory but not all the kids are in the directory as some families opt out. When I'm sending out evites, I use the directory. If a kid is missing that my child likes, I will contact the teacher and ask them to pass my contact info along. They are not allowed to give me the other families. Half the time I get a response and half the time I don't.