Hello all!
My daughter is turning 5 this December so we decided that she could have a party outside of the house, we have always had house parties up to this year. The place that we are having her party requires a minumum of 8 little girls to be able to put on the party. It is $20.00 a child, so I have been saving up for her to be able to have the 8 girls. I have 5 girls that are set in stone that they will be there. I have one little girl that I invited but have not heard from the mother on whether she would be attending.
So-- I have some extra spots, but at $20 a kid, I don't want to invite a bunch of little girls from her preschool class. I do have one or two extra slots. I keep asking my daughter who she wants to invite and every day it is a different little girl.
In a nutshell this is the question, do I ask two more girls from her class and hope they don't talk about it or do I go with a non school friend that we are not very close to so that we don't offend anyone?
Thanks for your input.
Hi--
Invite a non-school friend. If you invite any of the girls in her class, you have to invite them all.
Unless you're particularly close to either some of the moms or kids (where it would be obvious why you chose one over the other, or so the mom's would know in advance why you're not inviting everyone), I'd pick someone outside of school. Hurt feelings about being left out are something you don't want to be responsible for. I had this happen to me in 2nd grade and it really shook my trust in girl friends for many years!
Hi L.,
I would pick a couple of girls at school and then either call the mom or give the invite out of school. I have a son that is 5 and if I was in your situation I would ask my son not to talk about the party in school. My son is very sensitive to other kids feelings so he probably wouldn't have a problem with that. If your daughter does bring the invites to school it may cause hurt feelings. As a parent with a tight budget I would understand but it might still hurt my son's feelings if he wasn't invited to a party that some of his friends were invited to. Good luck and have fun.
Chris
Go with a non-school friend as your choice as that she already has 5 close school friends and yes, someone might find out that they were invited after these five children and be offended....also, if only five are from the school class then it is a small group and you can get away with not asking the other girls in class without being offensive!
Dear L.
You can invite the 2-3 girls from her class and send the invitation by mail(school directory will help). It means a lot to them as they spend sooo much time together.
C. Sengupta
I just had the same issue, my daughters school policy was if I wanted the invitations handed out at school then everyone in the class had to be invited, and I couldnt afford that so I got a copy of our school directory and mailed a couple of her close friends an invitation, and that worked great.Good luck..maybe next year you might want to have a party that might help your pocket..we did a bowling party that ended up costing $10 per child with 2 hours of bowling and unlimited pizza and soda the kids all had a blast. Good luck and Im sure they will have a blast!
With them being that young you should be able to get the mom's names from the teacher and I would talk to the mom's instead of the girls so that you don't have the issue of hurt feelings if the girls talk about it.
The non school friend may feel left out, that happened to us one time at a summer picnic. Also mail the invitiations so that nobody feels left out at school, plus they probably have a policy about that anyways all or none many do.
You need to find out the RSVP from the one that didn't respond, otherwise they could just show up and catch you off guard! Invite whomever she is closest to,outside of school or not. I think it is important that if you are not inviting the whole class, to keep it out of school as much as possible. That means don't pass the invitations out in school, and the thank you notes, and don't talk about it in school. The other kids won't understand why they were left out and can cause hurt feelings. Hopefully there is a class roster that you can use.
At my son's school they suggested that we send any available invitations to the teacher to hand out. This would insure that the students that my child spent the most time with would get an invite to the party. You may want to speak with the teacher and see if he/she is willing to do that for you. I really liked that idea, who better to figure out who my child spent the most time with than the adult that spends the whole day with them. This would also prevent your child from inviting someone who would have no interest in coming. Hope that helps!
I don't have a good answer for you. Except that my son is 4.5 and I have also found it kind of odd that we get b-day invites from kids at the preschool/day-care that we don't really know. I wouldn't let my son attend this parties b/c I didn't know the child, much less the parents. Also, the kids will absolutely talk about it at school.
My suggestion is only invite friends from school if they are actually children your child plays with frequently and you know the parents. Do not invite a few extra just to fill up the spots.
Hi L.
When my son turned 4 he expressed wanting to invite a few friends from his daycare/preschool. We had it at Jeepers where there was a minimum of 6 kids. Of these, only 2 were from his daycare. I put notes in the kids mailboxes to ask the parents for the addresses. I don't think it is necessary to have the whole class. It is too expensive. I told my sonthat he was only allowed to invite 6 kids, so that solved teh problem if anykids asked why they weren't invited, although I don't think the ever did. I did sent treats to school so he could celebrate that way with everyone.
As a parent, I wouldn't expect Trey to be invited to EVERY party in his class. I actually hope he won't be... I'd be broke!!! :)
Have fun at the party!
This is a great lesson is making choices. We always have had to restrict the number of kids invited. Although not easy, it happens and you simply choose, who you want at that point in time. Be sure to give your daughter a response to use if one of the other girls does ask why they weren't invited. We always told our kids to simply say my parents said I could only invite two friends and I chose 1 and 2. Maybe you can come next time. It's part of growing up!
L.,
I have 5 boys and maybe its different with boys than it is with girls, but mine have been invited to some parties and been excluded from others. I have to say with my kids it really hasn't been that big of a deal. I think most families understand these days about the realities of money and making ends meet, sometimes you just can't include everyone.
I think I would send the invitations in with a note to the teacher to discreetly give them to just the girls you are inviting. Include your phone # on the invitation, and then just deal with each family one on one. Good luck and hope everyone has a great time.
The normal recommendation is no more kids than the age of the child but in this situation you are stuck. Maybe invite some cousins or siblings just make sure that everyone has someone that they know well, so that they don't feel left out, and have someone to connect to.
