Party etiquette- are people rude or am I too polite
8 answers /
Last post: 18/03/2023 at 1:32 am
I have two kids 9 and 5.
my kids parties I always invite my friends kids, my friends from Nct’s kids, families kids and my kids actual friends.
so if it’s a sleepover for my 9 year old and I’m only inviting 6 kids. I’ll say to my friend kids or families kids do they want to come for cake another time. Or if I’m taking them to roller disco I’ll invite my kids friends from their class, invite the family friends kids as well and if smaller kids can’t come they will meet us back at mine after for cake.
im always conscious to not leave anyone out.
what I find though is other people do not behave in the same way.
my friends children they will say “oh it’s just kids from their class” or “it’s just family” and my family will just throw parties for their kids and just not even reference it.
i noticed this was happening. So now I don’t openly invite the people who do this. I’ll try and avoid it but if they straight out ask me, I’ll say oh we are doing this, you child can come if they want. And they ALWAYS take the offer.
I just feel like I can’t be rude if they ask me. But it’s weird they don’t invite my kids back.
my kids do not notice as they get invited to their class parties and have lots of friends.
but I’m kind of sick of my friends and family taking my hospitality and not offering the same to my kids.
does anyone else find that? Even the NCT friends they will outright ask me what I’m doing for their birthdays and then they will do something and not invite my kid.
so this year when my daughter and son are making their lists, I’ve told them to only invite people who invite them and I’ll be stronger on it and less inclusive. As I think it’s rude!
no worries if you don’t want my kid to
come to the picnic in your garden but don’t go out of your way to get an invite to my stuff.
I think you're way over thinking it!
If you invite them then they are going to try and come, of course. But you don't have to 'invite back' aslong as they are just doing school,or just doing family.
Have you not heard of you don't give to receive?
Don't dictate who your kids invite, just tell them to invite who they want to. It's natural as kids get older to not invite all your friends kids too. Parties are expensive not everyone has the option to invite a full class of 30 plus cousins plus their mums mates kids
Well when people ask you, just say "i used to invite everyone, but no one else does it so I'm just saving my money and concentrating on my child's friends"
Tho to be honest, i always figured that a child's party should be about the child's friends, not yours.
I think you're over thinking it.
I also think you're under-estimating the influence the current economic crisis is having on these invitations.
For example, we used to order pizza if our teens had friends around on a weekend, now I offer them a lift home or ask them what time their parents are expecting them home for dinner.
Likewise, my children have started arriving home before dinner instead of being invited to dinner at friends' houses.
We don't take their friends to the cinema anymore, or take them to pizza hut afterwards. Birthdays have become two friends.
We may have reciprocally invited in the past, now I just think 'their parents can afford to invite our kids, but we can't afford to invite them back, and that's okay'. My daughter was invited to the swimming pool after school today. In the past I wouldn't have bothered sending her with money to get in, but today I gave her the entry fee, so the other mother wouldn't have to pay, and because I certainly can't afford to reciprocate the invitation if she had paid.
I live in a big four bedroom house and we don't have the money anymore, so I can only imagine what sacrifices other people are making.
Times have changed.
Now they are a bit older I would say let your kids be in charge of who they want at their parties, rather than inviting all the children you/they know. The only time we invited everyone was their 1st birthdays, and that was more about us than them!
I was like you once, hated thinking I'd left a kid out of parties so I'd invite as many as I could for my dd birthdays Talk about stressful! And expensive! Two more kids later, nope wasn't happening. I returned an invite or two especially if I knew a particular kid(s) wasn't getting invited because they were quiet or had autism (yes, plenty of parents didn't invite this one kid because he was autistic, broke my heart for him, can only imagine how his parents felt. He ended up being my ds bestie for many years). Other than that, it was one large party at 5 and just a few close friends thereafter.
Make your life easy...just invite the kids your children want, within your means. Trust me, that's what everyone else is doing.
When my DDs were in nursery and preschol, we did invite 3 or 4 family friends to the parties.
when they got to school and it became the whole class, we only had the class kids. It would have been too expensive to add any more to the list!
we’ve now moved onto small parties with only 3-4 kids. So my youngest is having a party with her 3 friends and I’m having to do special play dates ie the cinema and McDonald’s with the others who have invited her to their small parties but who aren’t coming to hers!!
as we have now moved on from full class parties, we will not be inviting anyone who didn’t invite my DD to their party. But I do think it’s right that we need to do something nice for the kids who did invite her.
I don't do parties I have 3 kids. 11 . 5 and 4. I take them on days out but if I was doing party I'd only invite close school friends not the whole class. Mine don't ask for parties but if they did I would only invite school friends. But they just have one for sleepover and I take them out to somewhere fun alot easier that way like their best friends. I don't do like family party's etc I visit family around birthday but I csnt afford huge parties. I'd just invite their close friends. And just arrange family visits around the birthday for gifts etc xx