Another question! My husband and I were discussing whom to invite to my daughter's birthday party. She can only have 10 people at the venue we selected, and the theme is relatively gender neutral. I thought, for simplicity's sake, to limit the invitations to little girls she is closest to--she already has her own list of invitees! However, there are 3 boys in question. One has invited her to his party, another has parents who are our friends, and the third is our neighbor and my daughter wants to invite his sister (she tends not to play with him as much). It would feel rude to not invite the boy who has invited her, and the brother, and would feel awkward not to invite the kid of our friends, but I don't know--maybe this is something that happens all the time. That's why I am asking you all! I didn't go to too many parties as a kid and my husband isn't from around here so I need a reality check. Thanks. PS--DD will be 4.
if you keep it to all girls its less awkward to tell the one parent they cant bring their son. If you're going back to your house after with all of the kids you could invite the boys to that part.
Invite who she wants to invite. Not everybody gets invited all the time. I was not invited to all of my sister's friends' parties. Nor did my SD invite our nephews to all her parties (the real friend was the girl cousin). We do not always invite all our friends' kids, either. It sounds like your DD is old enough to have her own friends and should invite the 10 she would like there the most - be it girls or boys. You can suggest that reciprocal invites are a good idea, but it doesn't always work out.
If the friends ask, you can say that you had to limit the list, but if there is space after RSVPs come in, would they like to know? But only if your DD wants those kids there. I wouldn't even mention it to her unless you know there will be space.
The other part of it, for us, is our friends do not always make friends for our kids. DH has a couple he is friends with but the kids don't get along anymore. Sure, we could have invited the kids to the sks' parties, but it would have been for us, not for them. Once they get to an age where they care, you have to give them more say. I don't know how old your DD is, but I will say that adding kids to the list can be really bad in late elementary/middle school, where friendships change on the weather, especially for girls.
Maybe it depends on the area but in my neck of the woods, it's almost expected that not only is the child invited, but the parents and siblings as well UNLESS the invite specifically states that only the child is invited. My kiddos have been invited to many parties and if I didn't ask first if the siblings and the rest of us can come, then the parent usually extends, "oh siblings can come too. I would invite who you want or who your daughter wants as it's HER party, after all it is her day. Right? Let her decide who should come and leave it at that. I really don't care for the mentality that some parents seem to have these days that so-and-so has to be invited to our affairs because we were invited to theirs. Good luck with the party planning. : )
Go ahead and invite the boys! She's 4; it doesn't make a difference! My son has frequently been the ONLY boy at a girl's party, and he has girls at his party--and he'll turn 8 this June. At 4 they don't even register much difference. And, I agree with teh poster who said that typically families come; at 4, most parties we attended and threw included at least parents if not sibs.
We just had our first "didn't invite the whole class" party for my oldest this past weekend. We also had a guest limit at the venue, so I sat down with him and we figured out who was DEFINITELY part of the list -his best friends (particularly the ones not in his class), then I told him he had X number of people he could invite, so he decided who else he wanted and we sent invitations. In the first round there were about 3 kids (either siblings of his friends or my best friend's daughter who he likes, but probably wouldn't have thought of first), who I put on the list.
Just go ahead and put the kids who you think should be invited on the list and then tell her to pick the rest. If there's a real issue involving a few, I think you would be okay nixing the boy whose parents are your friends. Is she close with the boy? We have several great friends with young kids, but our kids aren't really friends. They'll play together if we're all together somewhere, but I didn't feel like we had to invite them to our son's party. With the neighbor -it's okay to only invite one of the kids. You may have "no" RSVPs from some others, so you could mention to the parents closer to the party that it would be fine to bring him. If he's not a great friend of your daughter, then there's no reason really to invite him. Kids need to learn that they aren't really a package deal with their siblings. I invited a few siblings we're all close to for the party this past weekend, but I certainly didn't invite every kids' siblings.
Just because the venue says the max is 10 doesn't mean you need to invite 10, right? That's a lot of kids at a party for a kid turning 4. Why don't you just stick to her list and skip the rest? You really don't need to reciprocate every birthday party invite. Some people have big parties, some people don't. Unless your child has asked to invite the child of your friends I would not do it. She should get to have her own choices in friends. I would only invite the neighbor girl she plays with and wants to invite. You should not feel obligated to invite the brother. Keep it simple, keep the total number of kids small. It can easily get overwhelming otherwise, making the experience more stressful for the birthday girl herself. I don't think it is doing small children any favors by inviting more and more kids because the adults feel like they have to in order to not offend anyone. If anyone asks "why was X not invited?" I would just say, "it was nothing personal, DD made a small list herself, and we wanted to keep it at 6 kids (or whatever)"
