Another birthday question

The girls are in different K classes this year and even though their birthday is a few months away, I figured I'd start planning. We won't be having a HUGE party this year like we did last year with inviting everyone in both classes. I figured I would let them decide if they wanted to pick 10 friends from each class or do just girls from each class. My problem is I feel bad. :blush: I hate the idea of them going to school and talking about the party and having the kids not invited get upset. Am I over thinking this? How do you guys handle the number of kids? They each have 22/23 kids in the class. They have a handful of friends outside of school that will be going too, so we're looking at a total of 25 kids. Those of you with kids in different classes, what do you do when it comes to birthday parties?


I'd rather not do a party at all but with baby sister turning one and having a bash I don't think the girls would be too happy.

 

I'm dealing with this right now... I need to get invites out next week and I'm still going back and forth. Sorry no helpful advice, just empathy.

 

We just had a 6th birthday party for our boys. My boys always talk about the same 2-3 kids that they play with. Every now and then, I hear different names, but generally, they play with the same 2-3 kids. I allowed each boy to invite those 3 friends. Then we had a couple extra boys they are friends with outside of the classroom.

We have had a lot of conversations about how to treat others, mostly because my DD is very intuitive and notices lots of things that happen in the classroom and outside. So, we have talked about the fact that talking about the party shouldn't happen at school because we don't want the kids that aren't invited to hear about it and have hurt feelings. That's asking a lot of 5/6 year olds, but they can do it. We even role played how to handle themselves if the invited friend brings up the topic, or if, despite our best efforts, a child not invited finds out.

For us, we simply cannot afford to invite all of the students in their classes. Nor do we have space to accomodate that many children, especially during the winter and outide parties aren't possible.

 

Last year I had my girls each pick 5 -6 friends in their class to invite. I didn't count the kids who are neighborhood kids who I was making my girls invite even if they didn't want them. I did evite for the invitations since they could not go out in school since I was not inviting the whole class. we will probably do something similar this year.

 

Hi:

Last year (5th birthday), they each invited 6 friends and we had a joint party. This year (6th birthday), mine wanted separate boy/girl parties. My son is inviting 5 friends from his class to his party. My daughter is inviting 7 from her class.

So far, my kids have been to both "big" parties (all the class) and "little" parties (5-6 kids). They much prefer the smaller parties (as do I)!

Good luck!

Meg

 

For us it was no big deal. Aaron picked who he wanted to invite (it was only 2-3 kids because he was new at the school and he had an early birthday so there weren't great friendships by the time his birthday rolled around) and we sent invites to their home. Our school has a "only send invites to school if you invite the whole class" rule so we had to send them to the kids homes.

It really was no big deal. I dont think they talk about the parties as much as we think they do.

 

Mine are in the same class and we invited all the girls. I felt sort of bad about that, because I hate the whole boys vs. girls dynamic, but other girls had done it before us, and it was the only way to keep the numbers down.

I had offered to have a smaller party at a nicer place (i.e., the climbing gym or gymnastics place, rather than the pool) if they would each invite only 4-5 friends, but they wanted to invite everyone, plus several friends from preschool who are in different elementaries. We had about 25 guests total.

Just as Irene said, in our school, you can't send invites to school unless you're inviting the whole class or at least all the girls/boys. If it's smaller, you have to distribute invites outside of school, which is tough especially at the beginning of the year when you may not have contact info for everyone. So that was another argument in favor of inviting all the girls.

I'm still going to try again next year to get them each to invite just a few people!

 

For Emilie and Trevor's party just 2 weeks ago, they each invited 5 friends from their class. :good: I mailed the invites (we aren't allowed to pass them out at school at all), but kids still talk. I don't feel bad, there is no way I can invited the whole class, let alone 2 whole classes. ardon: And I wouldn't want my kids invited to everyone's party either. I was at lunch with Trevor's class and a few boys that came to his party were talking about it, but honestly the other kids really didn't pay much attention to it. :good: I agree, they really don't talk about it very much, I think these boys were talking about it because I was there.

 

Thanks for posting this. It reaffirms my decision to have my girls party mid-August before school is back in session and they are in separate classes. I too have a hard time excluding kids. I think you've gotten some great advice.

 

We've done it where we just invite the girls (or boys) from the class and it works out well. It's kind of an easy way to limit the # of kids and also its easier to understand and the younger ages if it's just for the girls (or boys) and not really leaving anyone out. DD1 is in 3rd grade this year and this is the first year she is inviting just a few friends. She's inviting 4 of them and since I'm the Friday Folder Mom, I just tucked the invites into their folders and discussed with DD that they shouldn't really talk about it too much at school.

 

I agree with Amy, I don't think it really bothers the kids that much. I would imagine most all of them know that they can't be invited to every party and most parents wouldn't want them invited to every party either. I always just let my kids choose a few of their closest friends, we have never invited the whole class.

 

We did only non school and family at the girls last party and had plenty

 

I think it matters more when the kids get to be closer to my girls age.

Last year we were so snowed in at their birthday, we agreed we'd do a party for them during the summer. Because of where we did the party, I was able to limit them to a specific number (and moms had to stay, so I had someone to chat with during the party!). We did a swim party at my parents cabin so my dad's rules on a party prevailed. We had almost a 1/1 ratio adult to child.


I see more of the girls getting upset when they don't get an invite to someone's party now than ever when they were in kindergarten or grades 1-3. Probably in part because of pre teen hormones and peer pressure. Many of the moms of my girls friends and I are friends and we have seen some major meltdowns because so and so invited A, but not B, and C made fun of B for not getting an invite, and D (who didn't get an invite either), 'blacklisted' A and C and had a party with only B, E, and Z. Then next month they are all wanting to get together for a party to celebrate someone elses 'whatever'. It will drive the moms C.R.A.Z.Y!!!!!

 

We invite all the girls from the class. That is the only way at school you can invite anyone is the whole class or all girls or boys.

 

If you are willing to do all girls from both classes I would do that. I do not know what the heck we will do in July. My boys only like the girls in their classes but I am not having an all girls party! I need them to play with boys!

 

The girls got to invite 5 friends each from their class and I just put their invites in their folder that the teacher went through and then the teacher put their invites in each of the student's folder so the girls didn't have to hand them out in front of the class. It was done very discretely and worked out really nicely.

 

I let each child pick 6 friends he wanted to invite. They ended up choosing 10 friends total because there were a couple of kids who made it on both of their lists. BUT then I added cousins and family friends who had to be invited because they were family or were old friends. Plus many of the kids who came to the party brought siblings with them, so it ended up being about 20 kids.

I find that as the kids get older, it gets easier to cut down the number of party invitees because they start to distinguish between true friends and acquaintances.

 

I booked the girls party and saw the space and realized there is no way we can invite 36 school friends. Last night I explained to the girls that there isn't enough room to have all their classmates come to the party, but they can each choose 10 friends. Then I told them they will still be able to celebrate with their whole class when I come for their birthday snack and story time the day before their birthday. Finally I explained that they shouldn't talk about the party at school because we can't invite everyone and we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. We'll see how it goes.

 

This is what I ended up doing. The girls were fine with it. I thought about doing an all girls party, but they have quite a few little boy friends too so that wouldn't work.


Thank you everyone for your responses!

 

I probably will be doing my twins birthday party with friends in Summer because their birthday is Good Friday this year and with spring break I don't think people will come. And will just send some invites to people via mail. So we will do a family party on Easter for them and my oldest who turns 18 on April 12th.

 

I am with some of the previous posters, where I plan to have the girls invite a certain number from each class to attend their party.