When DO you let kids limit their invite list?

[dogmom]

Since there has been a rash of the party invite dilemma posts I was wondering:

When IS it OK for your child to decide who they will and will not invite to a party? I mean, as an adult I don't invite everyone I know, or all my coworkers, or whatever to a party. My son is in fourth grade and there are 100 kids in his grade, and after 5 grades he's been shuffled around with different groups of kids every grade, plus he knows kids from sports. So I just let him decide who to invite. My DD is in first and has some clear ideas who she wants to invite to a smallish party we are having at the park or at our house if it rains. Some girls I thought she would invite she feels fairly strongly about not inviting, I think she has been fighting with one of the girls a lot in class. I suspect it's because the have been together for 4 years now (preschool, K and 1st) and there is some grating of nerves going on. I don't want to force her to invite kids, I don't want to say invite everyone. But I do worry about hurt feelings. If there were lots of birthday parties this year, we didn't get invited, so it's not like I'm ignoring someone who invited us. Although I know there are a lot of summer birthdays in this grade. (120 kids) She does want to invite some girls that are not in her class or her grade.

Really looking for opinions.

[mom_hanna]

Whenever they start to have an opinion about it. But we have never worried about hurt feelings. We've never invited the whole class or invited someone just because dc were invited to their party. We tend to stay relatively small and just tell the kids not to talk about it at school. No problems so far. dc are 6 and 8.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I;ve always put a cap on it. I feel like unless you are inviting 75+% of the class (where excluding someone, imo, becomes more obvious) then you can do as you please.

[KrisM]

They've picked more-or-less since age 4. I do make a couple suggestions if I feel someone is forgotten. We've never done a whole class or school party. I just don't have a house big enough for 25 kids!

[crl]

Well ds is in third and this is the first time we have ever done an all class (and all team) party. (He wanted a baseball game for a party and we moved here recently so I figured it was a good opportunity to just invite everyone.)

When he was younger he had a lot of trouble with big groups and noise, etc so an all class party would have just been torture for him. I pretty much did the deciding on who we were going to invite for most of those years, but as he got older I talked it over with him and gave him some input. We always invited less than half the class, always distributed the invitations outside of school, and always told him not to talk about the party at school. I did not invite kids he didn't want and did not invite kids I knew he wasn't getting along with.

Catherine

[ilfaith]

I just sent out invites for DS1's 9th birthday party. He has eight boys in his class. There were two he did not want to invite to his party. He said they don't like him, they make fun of him, and they wouldn't want to come anyway. He did invite the other five boys in his class, as well as four friends from his old school (since we moved last summer, but are still 20 minutes away from our old neighborhood). Since he felt so strongly, I wasn't going to force him to invite all the boys in his class.

Of course the next day DS gets invited to a birthday party for one of the girls in his class, which made me feel a little guilty about doing a boys only party (I suppose girls would like Go-karts and mini golf too)...but I really wanted to keep the guest list to about 10 kids.

The party invitation that came home in Noah's backpack this week was the first invitation to a birthday party he has gotten all year. Since Noah is the youngest in his class, I have no idea whether other kids have had parties and DS1 hasn't been invited, or if birthday parties just aren't that prevalent here. Since we are new to town, I feel like it has taken a little while for my boys to make friends at their new school...I actually invited parents and siblings to come by our house (for swimming and cake) after coming back from the amusement park, because I really would like to get to know some of the other parents...so we can all be more comfortable with playdates and such.

[twowhat?]

Subscribing because I am curious. This year we will invite the whole class since I found a private space that can accomodate everyone and it's reasonably priced and you can do whatever you want, however you want to do it within the 2-hour block. Next year I might do the same (since the girls will still be at this daycare center). But once they start public K, I have no idea what people usually do! I guess I'll wait and see what the other parents do!

eta: it just occurred to me that I may run into the whole DD1 invited but not DD2 and vice versa since the girls will almost certainly be split up into different classes! Eeek!

[georgiegirl]

I let DD pick who she wanted to come. She really didn't want an entire class party, and she only waned to invite her closest friends. So we had 5 girls over (2 from her current class, 2 from last years class, and one sibling of one of the other girls who she is friends wit too.)

[alexsmommy]

First grade. Before that I had a big hand in who was invited. In first grade I feel like they have a better handle on hurt feelings (ie, not nice to invite all of the boys in your class except one). They also have a limit on the number of people (they get a "big" party every other year, the off years are usually four guest or less) so it teaches them to think things through.

[westwoodmom04]

We just invited the whole class (plus a few outside friends) all through preschool and kindergarten. In first grade, all girls in my dds class plus a few who weren't. This year, just a few friends. I try to follow the if its more than half the class, invite them all benchmark (or half of a specific gender in the class). I think if you are using 75 percent as a guideline, you are only leaving a handful of kids out; and that's when feelings start to get hurt.

[westwoodmom04]

Subscribing because I am curious. This year we will invite the whole class since I found a private space that can accomodate everyone and it's reasonably priced and you can do whatever you want, however you want to do it within the 2-hour block. Next year I might do the same (since the girls will still be at this daycare center). But once they start public K, I have no idea what people usually do! I guess I'll wait and see what the other parents do!

eta: it just occurred to me that I may run into the whole DD1 invited but not DD2 and vice versa since the girls will almost certainly be split up into different classes! Eeek!

We have many sets of twins in dd's grade. If she knows both of them (even if one is in a different class), I try to invite both, just to make it easy on the parents.

[JBaxter]

I have never did a full class invite. I ask who they would like to come to their birthday part and invite those children. Ok maybe Preschool years it was the whole class < 10-12 kids> but after that I got 6 or 7 closer friend plus cousins. If your child doesnt like or play with children why invite them to a birthday celebration?

[maestramommy]

Starting now. We have a policy at school that says if you are not going to invite everyone, to send the invites outside of school. IOW, don't use the communication folders to send them home.

With DD2's party she wanted to invite her "girlfriends." Well that turned out to be every girl except one. So I did suggest that she invite her as well, and she was okay with it.

[lovin2shop]

I think I'm a bleeding heart, so I try really hard to make sure my kids are very inclusive. I try to steer them to parties that accommodate plenty and try to preach "the more the merrier"! I get that this is not always possible, and I don't think it has to be a big affair, but I've generally felt that this approach has been a good lesson in kindness for my boys.

[erosenst]

No invitations are allowed to be distributed at school. That helps to minimize hurt feelings. Most girls also have learned not to talk about parties in front of friends unless they know from the bday child that that friend has also been invited.

DD has always had small/small-ish parties because even at 9, she's easily overwhelmed when the attention is on her. We've had to help her make one or two choices, but she's pretty aware of drawing lines that don't hurt feelings. Some of her friends still have big parties. They tend to fall into 'all the girls in the class, and maybe a few other friends' or 'pretty small, just close friends' category.

Having said that - there are about 120 kids in her grade. She often knows when friends of hers are invited to *their* friends' parties (ie DD's friend is closer to someone than DD is) and DD never has any issue with that.