Birthday Party Guests

All kids must be invited if the invitations are passed out at school. This is absolutely how it should be. Imagine being one of the two kids that doesn't get an ivitation as the teacher passes out the nvites.
If you snail-mail or e-mail the invites, you can include as many or as few kids as you want. The school cannot control the social life that you conduct outside of their walls.
Don't want to invite everyone? Do the research and get some addresses or emails.

I think it is ridiculous! I can understand having a rule that invitations aren't passed out at school if all of the children aren't being invited but kids should be able to invite a couple friends from school if they want.

When my kids were in private school, the policy was if invitations went to school to be hand delivered, they had to be for everyone, or all boys or all girls.....it was not that you had to invite everyone. If you wanted to invite say, 6 best buds of a class of 22, you had to MAIL those 6 invitations, not bring them to school.
Is that what you mean?

Do you mean that it is the school policy that invitations that are passed out at school are for everyone? My school's policy is that if you wish to use the school as a mailman you need to invite all the girls, boys, or everyone in the class.

This policy prevents hurt feelings. Think about how your child would feel if they were one of the only ones not to receive an invitation. It would hurt your child's feelings and probably cause problems all day, if not all week, at school.

If you want to invite only a few children than you should deliver the invitations to their homes, or mail them through the USPS. Passing them out before or after school is not a kind thing to do. Adults can realize that not everyone is your friend and that it is okay...kids cannot. Even if they don't like the other child, they will feel bad that they were not invited to the party.

I think it is a good policy. Kids at a young age can feel hurt/excluded pretty easily. The school has the policy because if your son hands so-and-so a invite but not what's-his-name, the teacher is the one that has to 'soothe' the hurt child. Thus the policy. They have the same thing for Valentines--giving a valentine to certain children is not permitted so we get "the list" of all the names.

If you have close friends that your son associates with, by all means, invite them but don't hand out the invites at school. But rarely do all the kids, from the class invite list, come to the party anyway. I would estimate half of the class, maybe, might show.

That is a stupid policy. Especially since not everybody would want to go to the others party. The policy in our school was you are not allowed to hand out invites in class. I think I would be fighting that one. What if your child only wants to invite one or two kids from the class. Who can afford to do a party for 21 kids? How are kids suppost to learn feelings if all everybody ever does is coddle them? I dont get it.

if invites are passed out at school, this is totally right. if you mail them, you are free to do what you want. i always invited the class through 3rd grade and most don't show

In are school, it is either the entire class, or all of one sex. Like if it's a little boy, he has to invite all boys, but no girls or all boys and girls. Also, the policy states invites passed out at school. If you email or call moms or mail invites on your own time, the school can't dictate that, only invited being passed around on campus.

Really, even if you did invite 20+ kids, it'ss more than likely that only half or less would show up.

I'm sure it has to do with handing out invitations at school, and avoiding drama and hurt feelings, not actually telling you who you can or cannot invite. There's no way they could enforce anything like that.
Just mail invites to his actual friends, don't do it through school at all.

when i was in school it was always everyone in the class had to be invited IF handing invits out at school but if mailing you could invite whoever you wanted

if the invites are handed out at school, then it's the ONLY 'kind" thing to do! Even if there's 30 kids in the class, only 1/2 will show up....

If you're mailing, emailing, or phoning your invites.....that is different, but not by much. Kids talk, kids end up with hurt feelings.

My policy was to invite the entire class if the party was co-ed.

How can a school dictate what you do at home?
Invite who you want. Who are they to say who you can and can't invite?
I take it your son is in Kinder? I can't imagine having a party with 20 5th graders and inviting girls to my sons party. EGADS!!!! He wouldn't come to his own party.

The way you get around that is to mail the invitations. If invites are mailed there is nothing the school can do about who you invite or don't invite. I learned this when my little girl was in kinder. We wanted an all girl party.

Good luck,
DH

I don't necessarily agree with that but some of the invites get lost in backbacks and never get home (or at least not in time). Not everyone goes to the party just because they got invited. You could probably count on about 4 maybe 5 will show up. Good luck...

In my experience you can invite all, but only those that really know your son will show up. Sometimes other kids will show up but not everyone will. I don't know if November is an off month but there were 2 different times that I have invited his class to a birthday party and both times hardly anyone RSVP. We ended up having 4 or 5 kids, which was nice and he didn't seem to mind.

Here is the reason why the school requires this. One child comes to school with Birthday invitations to pass out to classmates. Most of this kids close friends get one but the little girl , who sits in the back of the room doesn't. She is heartbroken. The other kids just ignore her at recess and group together to talk about what a fun time the birthday party will be. The one little girl who didn't get invited feels like something is wrong with her, that no one likes her and that she is not "good" enough to be included. THIS sets her up for failure and heartache for the rest of the year. She will ALWAYS remember not being invited and the other kids who were invited will not remember the party at all after a few weeks. As a teacher and mother I always invited the whole class and made the party simple. Like at the park with cupcakes. Didn't cost as much at a party anywhere else and everyone had a great time. If you really do not want the whole class invited then I suggest delivering or mailing invitations out instead of sending them to class to pass out. When someone ask your kids why they were not invited just tell them to say they were only allowed to invite # of friends and they are sorry that this time they could not include them but maybe they could have a play date sometime soon. You are teaching your child a valuable lesson here.

lol I'd be in so much trouble if this was true. My kid just had a bday and some of his classmates were invited only b/c I am fb friends w/their mom and that's how I sent out the invites.

I think I heard of that policy for our school for kindergarteners but for other grades, its a free for all.

I totally disagree. That is absolutely ridiculous to not allow a few best buddies to be allowed to go to a party. I agree that invitations should never be taken to school if the entire class is not invited.

We have been in the situation where someone found out about our party and so we just invited them at the last minute. We have also been in the situation where my kids weren't invited to a party and we used it as an opportunity to talk about how a person can't afford to or might choose not to have a large party or how someone might have been invited because the moms were friends, etc.

If my kids were never invited, then I would have looked into what my kids were doing or not doing to be so disliked at school.

I suppose your school doesn't give grades either to "protect" everyone's feelings.

I understand the idea behind it, I also understand your frustration with that, but the reality is out of twenty you will be likely to get 6 of them that actually show up. Make out invitations and put an RSVP date on there and see what the response is.

That is the policy in our district, invite the whole class or just the boys if a boy or just the girls if a girl, and send out invitations to those who are not in the class. Last year my grandchild invited the 5 girls in her class with invitations sent home in their folders...none of them came...though they did talk about it in school and coming. She also mailed/delivered invitations to her friends in other classes/schools, they did come.
Last year in my class, one of my boys invited the class to his BD, 2 came, and one of my girls invited the class, and no one came and the same thing happened to a boy in my class the previous year and he had it at McDonald's! This was so sad to me.
It would almost be easier to ask the teacher if you could bring treats for the whole class, and then have 2 or 3 friends over for a game day or a trip to a moonwalk place or the movies or a sleepover or a mini spa day, etc.

I think its fair to do this because otherwise some kids would be left out. If you don't want to invite all, get their physical addresses and personally send them by mail to the parents of the kids you want to invite. Bringing them to school causes chaos and isn't allowed--so thats the best option if you can't invite all the kids. GL

M

I totally disagree...if this is in fact the policy. As many others have posted, maybe you've misunderstood. The school cannot tell you who to invite to your child's party. At my daughter's school, the rule is: If you hand out invitations AT SCHOOL, then the entire class has to be invited. I haven't been able to invite her entire class ever and have delivered invitations instead.

I understand why they have this policy however that would get expensive hosting that many kids! I would just stick to close friends and family and avoid the whole school thing. Just give the invites to the kids your son already hangs out with or is in an outside of school activity with.

I agree with the policy. It is hurtful and unkind to pick and choose who is popular and who is not when inviting kids to parties. I think teaching kids that everyone is our friend and worth inviting is far better for them in the long run. It is not that much more expensive to invite 20 than it is to invite 10. Plus, a mom DOES NOT have to spend a lot of money on a birthday party. Cake and ice cream is fine, no reward baggies for coming to the party, no huge pizza and Hors d'oeuvre's either. It's a kids birthday party, cake and ice cream is plenty. Plan some games and have a lot of fun.

I believe the way the school would handle this is if they saw your child handing out invitations that did not go to everyone they would take them back and send them back home with your child. They would find a way to stop it.

My neice had a policy that every girl in the class (not every kid) be invited to any girl's party and I think it saved alot of heartache. My son doesn't have that policy at his school, but I have tried to stick to it. I think if he had a summer birthday where all the kids have lost touch for a while we would just have small parties. I just hate the idea of kids feeling left out.

At my son's school (thankfully) the policy is: asking the teacher who my son plays with, giving the teacher the invitations to put in their lunch boxes to take home.. That way, the other kids don't even have a clue about his bday party.. We do, however, have a school party for him also.... I bring in cupcakes and juice boxes... I love the policy at his school!

I agree, they are trying to be fair to all students, that's the way it's been here in our district for years. No more than a third, if that, of the class would show up anyway, they never do. They actually suspended the right to hand out invitations from January through the end of the year a few years ago because 2 moms handed some out to a few students in the parking lot to avoid inviting the whole class.

Check with the school, the policy more than likely applies to invitations handed out on school grounds. What you do through the US postal service or the internet to extend invitations is your business.

Our school says that if you are going to distribute invitations at school, you have to invite everyone. Otherwise, invitations are to be mailed.

Ours is also a policy where you have to invite them all only if you distribute invitations at school. So we often mail them. However, the kids at school still talk about the parties at school even if invitations are mailed. My daughter was going to invite only the girls in her class to her party, but I'm trying to talk her into inviting everyone because last year when we only privately invited close friends to her brother's party, kids talked anyway and feelings got hurt. And, a boy in her class is having a party this weekend and she wants to go. If she goes to his, and he finds out about hers, it will be rather awkward if he's not invited. We're just having kids over to the house, so it's not a major cost to invite more, and we have a big yard so they'll fit. We have smaller classes than 21--we're at a private school. However, in most cases, you won't find everyone in the class actually attending the parties they're invited to, so you shouldn't have a huge number.

Even though it hasn't worked well when we've invited only select people, and distributed invitations outside of school, I disagree with the school forcing you to invite everyone and not giving you the option of inviting children privately. I think the policy should be inviting everyone only when you are passing out invitations at school.

I do not understand how they could possibly enforce this.

I understand saying you can only hand out invites at school, if every child in a class is being invited, but how on earth do you police what you mail?

I am assuming this is a private school, because in public school, there is no way this "rule" would be allowed. You cannot tell people what to do in their homes.

What about sleepovers for Bday parties? Sounds shifty to me.