Is it ok to host a birthday party but only ask a few of the kids to sleep over?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woah, I guess Monday morning is a good time to get a ton of responses in a very short time.

Thanks to all the helpful replies, I came on here with a genuine concern seeking people's opinions, and now I have a clearer sense of what's acceptable.

To everyone else who responded with totally uncalled for aggression, describing my daughter as 'rude' and 'mean' -- even though she's trying her best to compromise with me and with her wider group of friends -- try being a bit kinder in your assumptions next time. Most children really are neither rude or mean, [b]they're still learning how society works[/b].

Well, apparently you, the parent, are still learning how society works too. That is why we are shocked.

+1.

So those types of responses aren’t mean, rude and cruel?! You are actually *bullying* a mom who came to an anonymous board to ask for advice?

No they have not been mean, cruel or bullying.

On one hand those who are defending doing this say we are raising "snowflakes" and not everyone can get a medal and yet you come on and tell us that we are bullying this mom when she asked us our opinion. Surely, you can find the irony in this right? We are telling you it is rude. No one wants to be on the B list. I would rather not have my kid at your party than be insulted. The few examples that are ok are where the party is at another venue and one or two sleep over but, no one knows. It isn't great but, it is better than hiding the sleeping bags and telling everyone to lie.

Just have your dd invite her 6 friends for a birthday sleepover. if you think you are doing any B list kids a favor..trust me you are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That is incredibly rude and mean girl type behavior.

She can have a party and one girl sleeps over, no big deal.

Or she can have a party and all the girls sleep over. Wonderful.

But having a party where just over half the girls sleep over? Rude and mean.

It's not rude or mean. It's highly unlikely that a teen is equally close to 11 friends. Also, having 11 kids sleep over is a lot. I don't view this as mean girl behavior. Also, before you start saying that's likely because I was a mean girl or that my girls are likely mean girls, I wasn't, and my DD would likely be one of the excluded girls because she's shy and introverted. Labeling everything mean girl type behavior is counterproductive. I guess OP should just not inclythe extra five girls in any part of the evening because of people like you.

We just had more than 11 sleep over and it was fine . But we darn sure did not Exclude any of the total invited guests.
anyone who did not want to sleepover was not made fun of either .

[Anonymous]

Extremely rude and hurtful. Exclusion at its worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is arguing that the friction of not being invited to the sleepover is the lesser of the two evils, because 5 kids in the wider circle will be really upset if they're not invited to anything at all. We're new to the US and I'm not sure what the etiquette on this should be. Thanks.

Your daughter thinks the other 5 girls she doesn't like as much will be grateful to be included at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just did this on Friday night.
My DD had 25 13 year old boys & girls over; they played games like spooky truth or dare on the trampoline, they played air hockey & ping pong, capture the flag, medusa, hide & seek (we have a huge back & front yard) & then she had 5 of the girls stay over.

They're all really sweet girls, so nobody mentioned that they were staying over to anyone else at the party & nobody posted it to social media. There were no hurt feelings & everyone had a great time.

You're very naive to think word won't get out. It probably already has and it certainly will by the end of the week.

It didn’t get out... these girls would never tell anyone outside of those who stayed over because they wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Try not to generalize every group of kids with blanket statements, they’re not all the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just did this on Friday night.
My DD had 25 13 year old boys & girls over; they played games like spooky truth or dare on the trampoline, they played air hockey & ping pong, capture the flag, medusa, hide & seek (we have a huge back & front yard) & then she had 5 of the girls stay over.

They're all really sweet girls, so nobody mentioned that they were staying over to anyone else at the party & nobody posted it to social media. There were no hurt feelings & everyone had a great time.

You're very naive to think word won't get out. It probably already has and it certainly will by the end of the week.

It didn’t get out... these girls would never tell anyone outside of those who stayed over because they wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Try not to generalize every group of kids with blanket statements, they’re not all the same.

Although, I should preface this by saying that the initial party didn’t end until 11pm & after all of the running around they did, the girls were exhausted & asleep by 1am (after binge watching 2 hours of Switched at Birth). So there really wasn’t anything to brag about anyway, as all they did was truly SLEEP over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Unless she wants to be known as a mean girl and lose those friends who get sent home.

I'm pretty sure the people doing the "mean girl" labeling will be the parents who can't handle the fact that their kids weren't invited to everything, not the girls who are probably more emotionally well adjusted than their parents. Based on the responses on this thread, I'm sure there will be a lot of mean girl labeling when OP's daughter has the party/sleepover and decides to completely exclude the extra five girls she wanted to invite to the party. I'm constantly astounded by the number parents who don't understand the importance of teaching their kids resilience and that it's ok not to be included in everything. You're basically saying that an appropriate response to not being invited to the sleepover segment would be to no longer be friends with OP's daughter. How emotionally discfunctional is that? That's basically saying, if I can't be your best friend, I don't want to be your friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Unless she wants to be known as a mean girl and lose those friends who get sent home.

I'm pretty sure the people doing the "mean girl" labeling will be the parents who can't handle the fact that their kids weren't invited to everything, not the girls who are probably more emotionally well adjusted than their parents. Based on the responses on this thread, I'm sure there will be a lot of mean girl labeling when OP's daughter has the party/sleepover and decides to completely exclude the extra five girls she wanted to invite to the party. I'm constantly astounded by the number parents who don't understand the importance of teaching their kids resilience and that it's ok not to be included in everything. You're basically saying that an appropriate response to not being invited to the sleepover segment would be to no longer be friends with OP's daughter. How emotionally discfunctional is that? That's basically saying, if I can't be your best friend, I don't want to be your friend.

No, it’s saying if you don’t treat others decently, I don't want to be your friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD's friend did this. DD was invited to the 1st party but not the sleepover. And that's ok. You can't be best friends to everybody. If you're so sheltered how are you going to learn to cope when you go out to the real world?

We cope by being friends with people who treat us well and moving on from people who don’t.

+1

This. I am not going to teach my daughter that she should do whatever she wants, and not to care about the totally foreseeable hurt feelings she will cause, because everyone else should just suck it up and not expect to be coddled. I want her to be a considerate person who takes other people's feelings into account when making decisions, not just her own. I always tell her that she doesn't have to be friends with everyone, but she does have to be kind. She doesn't have to invite everyone to her party, but creating an A-list and a B-list is just unnecessary. This isn't about "best friends," it's about excluding five kids out of a group of eleven.

And she's learning that sometimes she'll be excluded, that sometimes other people aren't considerate, etc. People like you make sure of it! But I don't want her to *be* that kind of person. And she's learning how to cope with that, how to be resilient, and how to choose friends wisely. Which are important. But so is learning to be kind, inclusive, and thoughtful.

All of this. But also, I don't want my child to think this is acceptable and how friends treat each other. We have to teach them confidence and what to accept from friends now or they will let themselves be walked all over by future romantic partners since they won't be able to let go or not be attracted to those who don't treat them well.

[Anonymous]

Why not just do the sleepover the weekend after (or before, whichever as long as it's not occurring right after the party)? That's what I would suggest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD's friend did this. DD was invited to the 1st party but not the sleepover. And that's ok. You can't be best friends to everybody. If you're so sheltered how are you going to learn to cope when you go out to the real world?

We cope by being friends with people who treat us well and moving on from people who don’t.

+1

This. I am not going to teach my daughter that she should do whatever she wants, and not to care about the totally foreseeable hurt feelings she will cause, because everyone else should just suck it up and not expect to be coddled. I want her to be a considerate person who takes other people's feelings into account when making decisions, not just her own. I always tell her that she doesn't have to be friends with everyone, but she does have to be kind. She doesn't have to invite everyone to her party, but creating an A-list and a B-list is just unnecessary. This isn't about "best friends," it's about excluding five kids out of a group of eleven.

And she's learning that sometimes she'll be excluded, that sometimes other people aren't considerate, etc. People like you make sure of it! But I don't want her to *be* that kind of person. And she's learning how to cope with that, how to be resilient, and how to choose friends wisely. Which are important. But so is learning to be kind, inclusive, and thoughtful.

All of this. But also, I don't want my child to think this is acceptable and how friends treat each other. We have to teach them confidence and what to accept from friends now or they will let themselves be walked all over by future romantic partners since they won't be able to let go or not be attracted to those who don't treat them well.

New Poster. Fwiw, I grew up during a time when things like this were considered normal or at least not questioned (80s and 90s) and it was always understood that the girl's best friend was going to sleep over after whatever event all the kids were at. Birthday parties, other parties, school events, concerts, etc. I never thought it was "mean girl" behavior because I knew that girl wasn't my best friend and in fact I already had other plans to sleep over at MY best friend's house (or vice versa).

I question the effectiveness of this type of social engineering that moms try to do nowadays. Kids still know who their "best friend" is. It's good to have a best friend. It teaches you how to develop and sustain intimacy with another person before sex comes into the picture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD's friend did this. DD was invited to the 1st party but not the sleepover. And that's ok. You can't be best friends to everybody. If you're so sheltered how are you going to learn to cope when you go out to the real world?

We cope by being friends with people who treat us well and moving on from people who don’t.

+1

This. I am not going to teach my daughter that she should do whatever she wants, and not to care about the totally foreseeable hurt feelings she will cause, because everyone else should just suck it up and not expect to be coddled. I want her to be a considerate person who takes other people's feelings into account when making decisions, not just her own. I always tell her that she doesn't have to be friends with everyone, but she does have to be kind. She doesn't have to invite everyone to her party, but creating an A-list and a B-list is just unnecessary. This isn't about "best friends," it's about excluding five kids out of a group of eleven.

And she's learning that sometimes she'll be excluded, that sometimes other people aren't considerate, etc. People like you make sure of it! But I don't want her to *be* that kind of person. And she's learning how to cope with that, how to be resilient, and how to choose friends wisely. Which are important. But so is learning to be kind, inclusive, and thoughtful.

All of this. But also, I don't want my child to think this is acceptable and how friends treat each other. We have to teach them confidence and what to accept from friends now or they will let themselves be walked all over by future romantic partners since they won't be able to let go or not be attracted to those who don't treat them well.

New Poster. Fwiw, I grew up during a time when things like this were considered normal or at least not questioned (80s and 90s) and it was always understood that the girl's best friend was going to sleep over after whatever event all the kids were at. Birthday parties, other parties, school events, concerts, etc. I never thought it was "mean girl" behavior because I knew that girl wasn't my best friend and in fact I already had other plans to sleep over at MY best friend's house (or vice versa).

I question the effectiveness of this type of social engineering that moms try to do nowadays. Kids still know who their "best friend" is. It's good to have a best friend. It teaches you how to develop and sustain intimacy with another person before sex comes into the picture.

But op isnt talking about having one or two "besties" sleep over. She's talking about 5 or 6 girls out of 11. That's half the party! That's just a very different scenario than having a single BFF stay after everyone else leaves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD's friend did this. DD was invited to the 1st party but not the sleepover. And that's ok. You can't be best friends to everybody. If you're so sheltered how are you going to learn to cope when you go out to the real world?

We cope by being friends with people who treat us well and moving on from people who don’t.

+1

This. I am not going to teach my daughter that she should do whatever she wants, and not to care about the totally foreseeable hurt feelings she will cause, because everyone else should just suck it up and not expect to be coddled. I want her to be a considerate person who takes other people's feelings into account when making decisions, not just her own. I always tell her that she doesn't have to be friends with everyone, but she does have to be kind. She doesn't have to invite everyone to her party, but creating an A-list and a B-list is just unnecessary. This isn't about "best friends," it's about excluding five kids out of a group of eleven.

And she's learning that sometimes she'll be excluded, that sometimes other people aren't considerate, etc. People like you make sure of it! But I don't want her to *be* that kind of person. And she's learning how to cope with that, how to be resilient, and how to choose friends wisely. Which are important. But so is learning to be kind, inclusive, and thoughtful.

All of this. But also, I don't want my child to think this is acceptable and how friends treat each other. We have to teach them confidence and what to accept from friends now or they will let themselves be walked all over by future romantic partners since they won't be able to let go or not be attracted to those who don't treat them well.

New Poster. Fwiw, I grew up during a time when things like this were considered normal or at least not questioned (80s and 90s) and it was always understood that the girl's best friend was going to sleep over after whatever event all the kids were at. Birthday parties, other parties, school events, concerts, etc. I never thought it was "mean girl" behavior because I knew that girl wasn't my best friend and in fact I already had other plans to sleep over at MY best friend's house (or vice versa).

I question the effectiveness of this type of social engineering that moms try to do nowadays. Kids still know who their "best friend" is. It's good to have a best friend. It teaches you how to develop and sustain intimacy with another person before sex comes into the picture.

But op isnt talking about having one or two "besties" sleep over. She's talking about 5 or 6 girls out of 11. That's half the party! That's just a very different scenario than having a single BFF stay after everyone else leaves.

I was talking about the people who say it's all or none, of which there were quite a few.

[Anonymous]

I will be in the minority. When our kids where in middle school, it was common to have some kids to stay for the after party sleepover. Nobody kept it a secret. It wasn't a big deal. It was, typically, two to five who would stay after a bigger party. Sleepovers were too common (at least once a week) to be considered something special.

[Anonymous]

I will add to the minority voice. We had a larger party a year or two ago and 3 stayed over afterwards for a sleepover. We were discreet and the girls did not spread it around. DD didn't lose friends or anything along those lines.

I saw no reason to have another event on an entirely different day when everyone was free that day. I also saw no reason to invite 12 girls (or whatever the number was) for the sake of being "nice." My DD isn't invited to everything and that's fine.

Everyone at the larger party was included, treated well, and had a good time. If that's not nice enough for you, I can live with that.