Birthday party invitee help

[carolinacool]

I would invite her, but it doesn't mean your DD has to pal around with her all day. We had DS' 7th birthday at a trampoline place. He greeted everyone has they arrived and said goodbye to everyone as they left, but during the actual party, I noticed he stuck pretty closely to a small group. And other kids grouped off. It wasn't 12 kids moving around in lockstep. Sally can go gossip with whoever she was gossiping with in the car. Everybody's happy.

ETA: It sound likes this is a pretty big party. Nine girls from this one class and then other girls from the other three 3rd-grade classes? That's big enough that inviting Sally isn't really a big deal.

[elbenn]

Inviting every girl in class except 1 is wrong. Either cut the list from that classroom or invite all. I wouldn't frame it as 'forcing DD to invite her', I would frame it as 'how would you feel if every girl except you were invited somewhere?'. I also would check with the school, some schools enforce 'whole class' or 'all of one gender' to prevent this type of situation.

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I agree. I think you should either invite Sally or reduce the invitees in the class to about half of the class. I would invite the twin also.

[MamaSnoo]

My DD is this age, and her party is this weekend. We are doing a movie party at home, so very flexible on the number of guests. I asked her to make a guest list of whom she wanted to attend. The list included all the girls in her class except 2, a couple from other classrooms (same age, former classmates), and some neighbors. When I looked at the list and compared it to her class roster, I told her she had to add the other 2 from her classroom. It was too large a percentage of the girls to be leaving out just 2. She attends a traditional Montessori school with mixed age classrooms (1st-3rd in her case); the ones that she "left out" were a couple of the 1st graders who are sweet girls, but they do not play much because of the age gap. I do not think she was trying to exclude, and when I told her the reason why she was gracious.

Likewise, there is a 3rd grade girl in her classroom with a twin in another classroom. I said the twin had to be invited, even though they have never been in a class together, and DD does not really know her. It just seemed like the right thing. I will leave it to the mom to decide if she wants the girls to socialize together or separately (have seen both approaches from twin moms).

While I like to respect my kids preferences and budding social identities, in the case of a larger party especially, I do not think this age is too young to teach being an inclusive and gracious host. Personally, I will be glad when DD moves onto doing a special activity with only 2-4 BFFs instead of a larger party. I'm planning to lobby for that next year.

[KpbS]

I would invite her, but it doesn't mean your DD has to pal around with her all day. We had DS' 7th birthday at a trampoline place. He greeted everyone has they arrived and said goodbye to everyone as they left, but during the actual party, I noticed he stuck pretty closely to a small group. And other kids grouped off. It wasn't 12 kids moving around in lockstep. Sally can go gossip with whoever she was gossiping with in the car. Everybody's happy.

ETA: It sound likes this is a pretty big party. Nine girls from this one class and then other girls from the other three 3rd-grade classes? That's big enough that inviting Sally isn't really a big deal.

This is a great point. Inviting Sally doesn't mean that she will be your DD's ride partner that day. However, I do think that you will need to monitor the girls a bit more if she is invited to make sure she isn't actively being mean to your DD during the party and recruiting other girls to do the same. Also, there is always a chance that Sally won't be able to attend the party for whatever reason.

[JenChem]

This part is my fault - once I had rsvp'd yes I wouldn't have let DD decide not to attend and she knows that, so she wouldn't even have asked at that point. And I may have messed up rsvp'ing yes b/c I honestly don't recall specifically asking DD if she wanted to go - I think I just assumed she did b/c they are in the same class and Brownie troop, so that was totally my bad.

I feel like there is a weird dynamic here. You are taking on some kind of blame for 'making' your child attend a party that you didn't know she didn't want to attend. There's also a kind of theoretical guilt that maybe you think your general reaction might have led her to not tell you she didn't want to go. Now you feel like you need to make it up to her by excluding this girl from a rather large, obvious party. Two wrongs don't make a right.

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[Corie]

We took a non-rider once (bc we didn't know) for ds1's birthday to an amusement park and it just didn't go well.

I totally agree with this!!! My son took a friend to Kings Island and once we got there, he told us that he hates roller coasters.
I really wish the mom would have told us that her son didn't ride the big rides. It wasn't a very fun day.

[liz]

I also would check with the school, some schools enforce 'whole class' or 'all of one gender' to prevent this type of situation.

This is us, but ONLY if invitations are sent into school. So if invitations are sent to the classroom to be distributed it has to be the whole class or all boys/girls.

And a bit OT, but if the birthday child is close with one twin, why do both twins have to be invited?

[bisous]

So much to think about. Personally, we have a family value of being kind and including so it wouldn't be okay for me to allow my kids to make a decision that would be so exclusive as to not invite only one girl out of a whole class. I hope non-riders are still allowed to come! There is a whole lot of kids out there that enjoy amusement parks but don't love the high and fast rides. My kids aren't huge roller coaster fans and I didn't like them until I was in 6th grade. Maybe I'm spoiled because the amusement park we usually go to is Disneyland but there is always plenty of fun stuff to do even if you aren't on the big rides.

[squimp]

Usually I am very much a let the kid decide person, especially by 3rd grade. But in this case, since you are inviting all the girls in class except Sally and your DD went to Sally's party, it just feels confusing. I would invite her, take the high road. You will be there to make sure she is not excluding your DD.

[carolinacool]

I hope non-riders are still allowed to come! There is a whole lot of kids out there that enjoy amusement parks but don't love the high and fast rides. My kids aren't huge roller coaster fans and I didn't like them until I was in 6th grade. Maybe I'm spoiled because the amusement park we usually go to is Disneyland but there is always plenty of fun stuff to do even if you aren't on the big rides.

I so agree. I also HATE roller coasters, anything that drops, anything that goes upside down, etc. So I'm probably not the most fun person to go with, but I really like going for the other stuff. I'm perfectly fine standing off to the side and waiting. I spend a lot of time waiting, but I'm totally OK with it!