I think the whole b-day thing has gotten out of control -- my kids are always getting invited to parties of kids that we are not that close to.

[quote=jnbythesea]Thanks for your replies. I've had all day to mull it over, and I realize that my friend and I have simply made very different life choices. She is going one way, trying to keep up, and I am drifting in the other, trying to slow down. I do think the whole birthday scenario as she buys into it is crazy.

This was my first impression. we also had a few parents who started this but very soon realized that the majority of the parents were against it. I can only see doing this if your child's bday is right away and they haven't yet determined who their closest friends are, but even then I would only invite a few.

I have all 3 girls bday party together and we still have less than 20 kids. I can't believe the number of parents who would jump over backwards so their child won't be left out. asking if your other child can attend a zoo party for someone who is not their frined is outright rude. great example the parents are setting for their kids. that's why some of kids today feel entitled. I was volunteering at a fair game booth and one parent wanted to buy the grand prize for her child. I said no. there are plenty of kids trying to win the prize. the priz was a truck she could have went to target to get for about 15 dollars.

If you are ok with who you are then you wouldn't feel the need to be like everyone else. you would have the strength of character to not go along with everyone b/c thats what's expected. ok, I have to stop i'm getting riled up.

allgirls

allgirls

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allgirls, mom to 3 girls

This seems a bit ridiculous, IMO. Inviting the entire class?? I do know that our school does have a policy that if you invite one child in the class that you have to invite the entire class. Which is why I dont have my ds bring invites to school. Both of my kids (and my dd is not in school yet) have had parties every year but all but two people that were invited were family members. I do allow my ds to invite friends (1-3) to his birthday party but more than that right now is to overwhelming for him, I think. Most of the family members that come will bring just a card w/ maybe a $1 or $2 in it. An entire class! I just cant imagine it. Here there can be up to 30 kids in one class! There is just no way. Besides I truely do not think that it will damage a child to not be invited to every single birthday party.

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SAHM to Elias 3/00, Camdyn 7/03 and Teagan 5/08

When my oldest son was in first grade we had a birthday party at Chucky Cheese for him and my youngest, since their birthdays are so close together. I didn't know all of the kids in his class and he didn't either, so we only made invitations for those he was actually friends with. His teacher would not allow him to pass out invitations unless there was one for everyone. I talked to her about it later that day and she told me it was school policy so kids don't get their feelings hurt about not being invited. That made things very difficult for us, he had to pass them out before or after school, and some people he wanted to invite he couldn't find because they rode the bus and were always a bit late to school, and no time after school. To me this encourages either very extravagant, large parties, or no parties at all. We didn't have a party last year because of this, and I'm not looking forward to figuring out what to do this year.

I have to say that kids birthdays seem to get bigger and bigger now. We started off big with a big 1-year birthday party for our son that included 100 people. Now we're down a lot, but we both come from big families. So we're talking inviting 60 people including family and friends. It really is a big hassle and tends to be very overwhelming.

The shocker for me was that his principal sent home a note to all parents stating that if they were going to have a birthday party for their child, they would have to invite every child in the classroom and let's just say there were a few kids I didn't want my son to invite! So I went over his head and invited only the ones my son chose. I'm not inviting 20 kids to my son's birthday party in addition to family and friends! It's crazy!!!

Anyone that knows me would laugh when I say I don't have a big party for my kids, BUT that party is only big because it's all the close family (we have a lot) and close friends. Also our kids birthdays are one week apart (and mine one week before that), I'm not going to ask people to come back a week later.

With that said, my daughter only invites a couple of friends from school and then I send cupcakes or cookies the day of her birthday.
We have more than enough cousins and family friends at our back yard cook out.

I do know that in the next year or two, my kids (now 4 & 7) will want separate birthday parties. I have friends that do the big deal at the gymnastics places or the "Pump It Up" play places, but it's very expensive and I don't think it's very personal. Most of the kids are there for the entertainment that you are providing, not for your child's sake.

I will probably just let my daughter invite her few best friends for a slumber party.

We will always have a big back yard cook out for the family. It's a tradition now and there are other family birthdays that we celebrate, but as for friends, I say keep it small.

My daughter still gets invited to them all. Some she chooses to go to and others not. I let her make that decision and believe it or not, she doesn't WANT to go to them all.
We aren't trying to outdo the Jones' anyway, ya know?

Well my ds is going to be four soon and his first birthday was just family I didn't want to overstimulate him, His second and third were small partys with family and the handfull of friends he sees occasionally on playdates. He isn't around other kids too often so his birthday is a special day with other kids to play. I planned on having small parties each year until he was in school and then I would send in cupcakes or something. And let him choose something special to do with us and maybe a close friend. But now that I have another baby 3 years apart what does that mean for her. I just don't know.

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"Before I was a Mom I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body." ~Anonymous

My son will be four in a few months. We have had one party each year so far. I find it fun party planning! I’m a little bit of a “Martha”…… I try to be creative and make a lot of things my-self, saves $$$. I’m already in the planning of his forth birthday! I find the sooner I start the easier it is! I usually start planning a bit after his birthday for the next year and go with a theme which makes it more fun. I start by planning my ideas (searching the internet for creative ideas-free and fun) then slowly buying things when they are on sale/clearance through the year, and making things like posters/decorations. My son is at the age where he likes to help, so we are creating memories there too. I also have made the cakes every year, some where pretty simple, but that saved us money too! For the parties we’ve done it at our home, we just invited close family--- his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close friends. We feed them a meal too since most of them travel quite a distance, but you wouldn’t have too. I know friends of ours that have such huge families that they invite family only so it is not so overwhelming for the kids. Sometimes I wish we could go since we don’t see them but once a year, but I understand and I would NEVER invite my-self to their kids party, because that’s is just rude! I’m also part of a moms group now, so for his forth birthday I plan on doing two parties, on different days, so it’s not so overwhelming for my son, husband or ME! For the moms group, I think I will maybe have it at the park (I’ve heard the Library is a great free place too) and just have cake and ice cream. Some moms in the moms group have not had birthday parties for their kids which doesn’t bother me. Some of the moms have birthday parties saying NO GIFTS, but someone always brings a gift, so then it makes someone feel kind of stupid for not bringing a gift when others do. That is why I’m not saying NO GIFTS for his birthday. He’s at the age where he likes to open gifts, and if I’m giving gifts to all the other kids in the group I don’t feel guilty. If someone doesn’t give a gift I’m not the type to point my finger and if someone doesn’t want to come that is their prerogative. I’m not picky with what he gets, like some people--no gift registries for my boy! Every family is different and I know some parents just aren’t as excited to plan or have parties. My mom was one of those people (she bucked the system often and it was very embarrassing at times) and maybe that’s why I want the birthday parties for my son today, I don’t want him to feel left out and I have fun creating memories along the way. Sometimes I wish I could have had friends over, it was very rare, never once a sleepover! Though she did make her yummy homemade cakes! I also had one party with another classmate (her birthday was only 4 days away from mine) when I was in kindergarten and I still remember certain parts of it today! My son just started preschool and his birthday is a ways a way, so we haven’t decided if we are going to have a school birthday party yet. His schools policy is to mail out invitations if everyone is not invited due to hurt feelings, which I think works best. We shall see if we get invited to any birthday parties, if we do he may have a third birthday party for his fourth birthday, on another day. As I’m not the majority in this group and actually don’t mind birthday parties! He only has about 10 classmates so it makes it a bit easier for me to decide on a party compared to 25 classmates. We would probably make it somewhat simple and have it at a park with cake and ice cream too. I think the child being able to decide things as they get older is a wise idea. We shall see what he wants to do when he gets older, but for now mom is having fun with the birthday party adventure!

My kids are grown now, DD is 24 and DS turned 20 on Labor Day. Here is what we have always done:

Send cupcakes to school on their actual b'day, and then the classmates/teacher sing Happy Birthday and have cupcakes.

On the Saturday before or after the birthday, we had a party at home. The birthday child could invite their-age-plus-one friends for that party. I.e. 8th birthday, invite no more than 9 guests.

Most of their parties were pretty elaborate "theme" parties, many ideas coming from a great book called The Pennywhistle Party Planner. Elaborate never meant expensive, just took planning and creativity.

Example (party at home): my daughter loves to cook, so we had a Chefs-in-the-Kitchen party. They churned their own ice cream, made pretzels from scratch, made cupcakes from a mix (I provided frosting in piping tubes, decorate-your-own), and pizzas (I provided English muffins, sauce, toppings). I bought a bunch of muslin and ran up an apron and a chef's cloche for each child, personalized with her name, i.e. "Chef Jennifer." And I provided a bunch of construction paper, wallpaper samples, printouts of our recipes, and they each assembled a cookbook to take home. That was her 1oth birthday, so I had 12 girls cooking! But they were circulating from activity to activity, some making pretzels while others churned ice cream, while others made their cookbook. It was a wildly successful party, and even now, 14 years later, I *still* hear from those girls what a blast it was.

Example (party going out): my son was turning 6 and was crazy about go-karts. A local go-kart place had a deal for b'day parties. We loaded 7 kids up and went go-karting and then to Hungry Howie's, which is a cheap pizza place (if i was doing this now, I'd go to Cici's) - $3.99 for a large pizza, and they let me bring my own cake. The cake was a 9x13 cake, decorated to look like an oval racetrack, with 7 little edible go-ikarts that I sculpted out of candy-dough (made from candy melts and corn syrup), each holding a candle, which they got to take home. (anyone want to see a pic of the cake? Write to me at Kasparcat@aol.com)

By the time they hit their teens, parties were pretty much "invite your friends, I rent some videos and supply pizza, soda, cake and ice cream." Well, except for DDs Sweet Sixteen which was more elaborate. By 18, birthdays were celebrated by going out to dinner, just the immediate family and the birthday-teen's BF/GF.

So that's my solution: cupcakes to the classroom to include their classmates who aren't necessarily their friends, and then a real and more elaborate party at home to include just their friends.

Another option you can offer is to just pick ONE best friend and go to an expensive day-trip. I live in a suburb of Orlando, so that could be DisneyWorld, SeaWorld, etc. I offered the option but neither of them ever took us up on it.

Rani

Several have posted that their school has a rule that you must invite all children in the class if you invite one. The school CAN NOT dictate who your child decides to invite or not invite to an event outside of school. They can only dictate whether you use school resources (including time) to extend the invitations.

In other words, they can make a rule that you can't HAND OUT INVITATIONS AT SCHOOL to anyone unless you invite everyone. Check the rule and make sure this is actually what it says; otherwise, they've completely overstepped their bounds.

I use the school's directory to contact (by mail or phone) the parents of the 6-8 kids my children want to invite. If your school doesn't have a directory, there must be some way to get at least a phone number of your child's closest friends from the school office. How do you arrange play dates, etc.? If I had never met the friend's parents and had no way of contacting them about a potential birthday party invitation, then I'd probably take that as an indication that they may not be really a "close" friend.

My oldest will be 10 this fall, and I have already set the expectation that at age 10, the birthday parties change. Up until now, they are allowed to invite 6-8 kids to their parties, depending on where it is and how much I expect it to cost. We've mostly had at-home parties which are always so much fun. In the last few years, we've done a few parties at local facilities (mini-golf place, fire station, bowling, etc.) because we were remodeling and having a baby, and it was just easier to plan/prepare for them that way. Anyway, the expectation is that when you turn 10, you get to invite up to 3 friends to go to a movie (or other venue) and have a pizza party at home. That's it.

We have never, ever invited the whole class to a birthday party. Each of my children have been invited to one or two parties where the whole class is invited (one of my son's friends has a party every year and invites all the boys in the whole GRADE!). Each of them also have a friend or two who only invites a few very close friends (or just one). The smaller parties always get better "reviews" from my kids - it turns out that a bowling alley full of 40 3rd-graders isn't as fun as one or two lanes with your closest friends!