Who do you invite to your kids b-day party?

Question

My daughter is turning 5 this winter and has started preschool. We have been invited to 2 other students birthday parties where it seems like the only people who were invited were class mates. At one party it was a princess party so it was girls only. Invitations are not allowed to be handed out in class. Do you think it is ok to invite only the kids my daughter likes or should I include the whole class? There are several kids at school my daughter is not really friends with, including one who actually hurt her (an incident report was actually filed) and I see no reason why I should have them at my daughter at her party if they are not friends. Is is ok to invite some classmates, some neighbors and some friends from church? I can't afford to invite everyone. I am asking because my neighbor mostly only invites all kids from one location (school or church or playgroup) so as not to hurt any feelings.

Answer 1

My daughter just had a birthday party. We invited all family members with kids and about 5 people from last years class. I got the parents addresses before school ended. I just asked them at one of the school functions if they would mind adding their address to my list so they could receive a b-day invitation. It worked out well.  

Answer 2

Well, its common sense not to invite the child that physically harmed your child.  Other than that though, its up to you.  When you pick your daughter up at school, bring some invites.  You can hand them to the parents of the children she'd like to invite while they are also picking up their children.  Invite all the people that she would like to attend and don't worry about what your neighbors usually do and things like that.  There really are no rules when it comes to birthday parties.  There's etiquette of course, but no set rules.

Answer 3

I think you should just do who your daughter wants. But if she wants, like, to have a party and invite 13 out of 15 kids in the class, just invite the class.

Answer 4

That sounds fine to me, why would you want to invite kids your daughter doesn't like?  It's not a rule you have to invite the whole class.

Answer 5

You can do it however you like, but my rule is to invite either all the boys in the class (for my son) or all the girls (for my daughter) or all the kids in the class.  I do not want any one child feeling left out or singled out and I am not about to teach my son or daughter that it is OK for him to do that to his classmates.  

On other occasions, we might just invite one or two kids.  For example, this summer my kids each had a small party, and since school was out, nobody could really sit around and discuss the fact that they did or didn't get an invite.

My son had a boy in his class last year who could only invite 10 boys, and every day he had a new excuse or reason why my son was not invited.  I know it hurt my son's feelings, at up to a certain age, kids are just not developed enough to have good coping skills where that is concerned.  It's not until 11 or 12 that they can start to reasonably discern these types of grey area.  

Answer 6

I would invite, only my daughters friends, from school, from church, the neighbors etc. I never understood the whole concept of inviting the whole class. Parents can not afford that.  

Answer 7

Only the kids your daughter likes - she can ask for their phone numbers and call invitations.

Answer 8

I work for pre-k kids. We have a rule in our school that you are not allowed to hand out invites unless you are handing them out to everyone. We have had in the past, where invitations were mailed and some kids were invited while others weren't. It truly takes a toll on the children who are not invited, whether they are nice children or not. It's very heartbreaking to see a child upset b/c they were not invited to a party. In most cases, especially with the pre-k age, all the kids from the class will not show up, 1/4  of the children will. So it's really not at all that expensive because the kids don't eat that much at parties. They are too busy playing and having fun! It's the parents of them that want to eat!  

Answer 9

Hi, my son is 5 in a few weeks also.

I have let him choose as many or few friends he wants to from Pre-school. I got the class list out and we went through them together and he picked who we would like to invite.

Then we also invited a few others as well, close family friends with kids the same age. That was all.

If you don't want certain kids there, then you should not feel you have to invite them, your daughter should be happy with who is attending her party.

Hope it is a great day!

Answer 10

I think it's ok to invite a few people from each group. My daughter's 2nd birthday is next month. She's in gymnastics and got invited to a set of twins party. I am inviting them and maybe 3 other from the class and at daycare I am only inviting the 2 kids that I know she interacts with. Meaning she says their name all the time.  

Answer 11

Sounds perfectly fine. Get some good friends together and have a good time.  

Answer 12

there is no rule! just invite who you want! especially if your daughter doesn't get along with some of the children from her class...no biggie!