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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Re: PSA about Birthday parties where you don't invite all
I completely agree with this, and with Amyrob. Why should I invite the kids who are not nice to my kid, who he comes home complaining about day after day? I'm going to have them at his birthday party? And I'm certainly not going to nix the whole party all together just because there are kids like that in his class.
And - maybe my experience is different because my kid is a boy (i'm just guessing, I doubt that's really the whole answer) - but ALL the kids have parties where they only invite a few of the other kids. It's really no big deal, and it's definitely not the expectation in our class that everyone's invited. He's never had his feelings hurt, even when another kid was talking about a party he didn't go to.
We did invite all of the boys this year, and I really wish I did not. There is one kid who created havoc at the bowling alley - he's violent, he's disruptive, he's just MEAN. He's a little punk and if he was my kid he'd have been removed from the party. I di dnot want to invite him, but I did. But I no longer allow playdates with him (RP has had two with him). Let the kid cry (actually, he won't cry, he'll probably just slash my tires) - I don't care - I don't care for him but more importantly, my kid doesn't even like him anymore. Why should I invite him?
LOL, I know Amy! He & his friend Pennie are tight now but I know!
I have a "gentle giant" which is how I know about the bullies. Since Gabriel is as big as the kids in the bigger room, I wanted to make sure he wasn't overwhelming to his classmates. The teachers told me it is the opposite- he's so gentle, these bullies take advantage of HIM. No way do I want them at his party.
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We had this happen already. Keira was invited to a party at Sweet & Sassy. I told Ryan it was a princess party and only for girls and he was totally ok with no going. He was fine with going to his grandparents. Didn't phase him at all.
yet another reason why i'm putting the boys in the same class. i am not dealing with all of this sh!t.
IMPO, i think it's sh!tty to not invite some kids to a party when the kids are little, like K & 1st grade. they're still developing relationships at this point. and there are some kids who didn't know the other kids in the class who went to other kindergartens/pre-schools and it's another lost opportunity for those kids to make friends. and there are some kids who just get off on excluding other kids and i think this is a way to... shall we say... teach them the right thing to do?
once you get into 2nd/3rd grades, let them do whatever.
Amy, you remind me so much of my sister, lol. She's always been rather vocal about her feelings about some of the kids Kris has gone to school with. There was one in particular that she just did not like and I didn't understand it. I finally had the pleasure of spending some time with him and within 5 minutes I knew exactly who he was, completely agreed with her, and totally understood why he'd never been to our house and never would, lol.
I get it with older kids...it's when they are in pre-school to like 3rd grade that I feel like it's a really rough situation.
But that is off topic. Like I said, I feel no obligation to invite everyone, for many reasons.
Very well said. Of course I don't want to see my son hurt over something like this in the future but guess what...We will have to just to explain to him the dynamics in whatever way we can. The fact is that there's going to come a day when this does happen. We would be remiss if we don't teach him how to handle things like this because it happens. Not saying it's a good thing but sometimes life sucks. And then you get over it.
Things are so complicated now. I don't ever remember going to kid parties who were in my class. Our parties were family---cousins---and family friends. That's it. Mind you, I am old, probably older than most people here. But I know things are very different now. I'm not offering any input, just thinking out loud.....
LOL we have one of those. We call him Eddie Haskle. LOL he is a sneaky weird kid. The mom is a doll and I feel for her but we dont encourage playdates. Once in a while Ryan will hang out with him but not alot. Even he has said "S isnt a good playdate"
I wouldnt purposely hurt a child's feelings but I dont see why MY child needs to have to be with kids he doesnt like. I get it, I have also calmed down a very upset kid when he felt excluded but this is the stuff of life. Sure it hurts.
I will not flame you. But I do disagree with you.
I don't think there is anything wrong with a child saying we don't have the money to invite everyone. Good for her parents for being realistic about their abiliities as well as for teaching their child about them. There is no shame in that. My children will be hurt. they will be left out and I hope I will see through my own pain and be able to explain to them that in life, we aren't everyone's friend and sometimes we are left out. We're not always going to be invited to the party, that's it...
and another point..my 2 kids have 20 kids each in their class, thats 40 b day parties to cart them to and spend $20 a gift on. Really not what I want to be doing with my time or money :-)
well, one kid I did make Ryan go to, he said alot of kids didnt want to go to this one party because the boy is "lame" and that no one else was going. Seriously I left awful and said he had to go. I am glad I did because only 4 kids were there.
But this is the flip side, quite possibly not every kid and parent views your party as the celebration of the season and even WANTS to come LOL!
People who don't think it's a big deal to exclude some kids- let me ask you a question. But first let me say i'm not talking about a kid your kid specifically is NOT friends with, but just say a kid who maybe they aren't super good friends with, but play with at recess. Each class basically is a big circle, for the most part all the kids usually get along.
OK, so let's say you hang out in a circle of friends. There's 10 of you who get together sometimes. Some of you are better friends than other. Let's say you find out that one of the people had a party, and didn't invite you- but invited all or most of the rest. No, you aren't the closest of the bunch, but you were friendly and are part of the circle. Would your feelings REALLY not be hurt, as an adult? Mine sure would be. I would feel like i was singled out and that they specifically didn't like me. If my feelings are hurt, as an adult capable of rational thought, i would sure want to spare a 5 year old from that. I'd even have trouble excluding the "mean kid" because I'd feel mean excluding him. Even as a little kid I was nice to the mean kids. Some find it a fault, and it sure faulted me sometimes, but well, i think it's a positive thing regardless. It's good to give the benefit of a doubt, and providing someone isn't causing physical or emotional harm, why not?
There is a difference between inviting your 3 closest friends to something, and inviting 10 out of 15. The bigger the class size, the easier it is to include only some kids. my experience comes from my life at a small town school with 6-8 girls in my class, never more than 20 kids total. I just think you need to look at it and think "Am I excluding a few? Or only including a few?" And go from there.
Totally agree.
It's one thing that all the kids weren't invited but it's another to have the parents have to explain why.
This is why I only like having family/close friends only parties. It gets way too crazy and out of hand.
This year G gave a specific list of who she wanted at her party. it was 2 kids from her class and about 5 from the older class. If I had invited everyone from these classes, it would've been too many kids (the place had a cut off of 15 kids). She didn't want to invite certain kids because they're not nice and I don't blame her. Why should I make her have kids at her party she doesn't want?
She's been on the other end of it, knowing she was NOT invited to a party. I told her not everyone goes to every party. She was fine.
When my sister was in second grade we moved to a new town. Her birthday was a month into the school year, so my mom made her invite every girl in her class since she didn't know who she was friends with yet. The "mean girls" used that opportunity to pick horribly, the entire time, on the "nerd girl". It was the most depressing thing my mother ever witnessed. This poor girl was picked on all the time at school then spent the entire birthday party, when she should have been able to have fun, being picked on as well. That was the first and last time my mother invited the entire class.
We usually were allowed to invite 3-5 of our closest friends and that was it. Our parties were at home and our house wasn't big enough for more than that. I remember hearing about other people's parties that I wasn't invited to and thought nothing of it. Nobody seemed to have more than a few good friends and you dealt with it.
I likely will be in the same position. We're probably going the townhouse route (don't want a yard to maintain) and we'll have to limit the number of kids for that reason. I, of course, will not pass out invitations in school (never would have) but I see no reason for the school to dictate what is done outside of school. Luckily my girls both have summer birthdays, so hopefully that will help alleviate some of that pressure.
I think that is key. At some point they have to understand. At 3, not really.
I invited the whole class to the party and still we had some issues. The kids talked about it (and 2 other parties that month) non-stop. They pretended to be at the party place again when playing outside. And one little girl that hadn't come asked Matthew why she didn't come. He told her he didn't know. Her feeligns were hurt because she *thought* he hadn't invited her. So he came home and asked why I didn't invite her. I had and her mom had said she'd come and then they totally forgot to come.
So even inviting the entire class someone's feeling were hurt and he was in a position of answering the question. You cant win.
Though I also invited a couple friends over to our house for a playdate and made the mistake of telling him one was coming over that weekend on Thursday. Big mouth went and told all the other kids. Doh!
That doesn't make any difference. Kids talk. Sit in the preschool classroom after you drop-off someday. You'll be amazed at the amount of crap they talk about. NOTHING is secret in their lives. NOTHING.
I also don't think there is any shame in the girl admitting that she couldn't afford to invite everyone. There is nothing wrong with saying that. Most people can't afford to invite the whole class. It's not like she had to say she was too poor to buy new shoes or something. (Not that that is shameful, but you know what I mean.)
In fact, it's just the truth and she didn't have to hurt the other girl's feelings by saying something hurtful.
I see both sides. Honestly with the size of my family and our friends we can't include the additional 22 kids from school. And I don't think I should have to invite the "trouble" kids who are mean to my kid either. Granted mine are in daycare and not real school yet so it's not the same.
My sister has 2 parties each year for her school aged kids. One for family/friends and 1 for school. I can't afford 2 parties like that so it's not an option. Last year RJ was moving from Toddler to Pre-K3 room so I asked his teachers who he was close to and she gave me a list of 10 or 12 kids. Those are the ones we invited. In total I had almost 40 kids at his party between school, family & friends. It's just not possible to invite everyone and I can remember not being invited to all the parties either. Yes, it sucked but I'm not scarred for life from it.
Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't tell my kid we couldn't afford it. I'd put a different spin on it.
i do. if she can go, she goes.
I disagree. Now, in first grade, we are at the point of not inviting everyone/all boys to a party. It's the norm..he hasn't been invited to a few, he won't be inviting some to his. He won't hand out invites at school, but there is a chance that it will be talked about at school, and that's ok.
At most, its a disappointment, not a life failure. kids can COPE...they really, really can. Sometimes I wonder if its the parents that can't. It can be explained to them in a reasonable way...."are you friends with x at school? no? so its not such a surprise that you wouldn't be asked to his party is it? or "you know, i know its a disappointment, but everyone has a disappointment some time and we will learn to deal with them..let me tell you how i felt yesterday when I was disappointed...
I honestly don't think party invites were on my kids radar at 3, certainly not as any kind of social barometer, and even if they were talked about at school, it didn't seem to register with them.
a lot of times a kids reactions/stress/anxiety is a mirror of how their parents react to life situations. what are we modeling for these kids when every thing has to be fair, and just and perfect??
I don't think I ever held or attended a grammar school birthday party where all the girls in the class were invited.
You can't always get what you want. The sooner kids learn that, the better.
At most, its a disappointment, not a life failure. kids can COPE...they really, really can. Sometimes I wonder if its the parents that can't.
Ditto. The kids I know personally that make a big deal out of things are the kids with parents who make a big deal out of things. The kids who can shake things off, or buckle down and do their schoolwork, are the kids whose parents tell them "Life's not always fair/you have responsibilities/you're not always going to get it your way."
Kids aren't dumb and they don't come up with these behaviors on their own ... they're going to mimic what they see around them.
this is what we did this year except i cheated and combined grace and the boys' family parties and then had a little party for grace's school friends, girls only.
i should have mentioned before that i don't have a problem with splitting by gender, mainly because the boys in her class would have been bored to tears by the parties she's gone to. if grace said that little stevie wants to be a princess when he grows up and wants to come to her party then i would have invited him but there was no such indication.
I am completely NOT saying poor kids can't have parties. That is RIDICULOUS. My point is that many people think it's no big deal to do this at age 4-7. It is a HUGE deal to the kids. You make major hurt feelings. As they get older and understand the nuances of friendships, it's a no brainer. You can invite select few.
I am primarily talking about a kid who invites 15 of 20+ kids. You are clearly excluding a few and it is not a kind or fair thing to do to young children. It really isn't.
I had no money as a kid and we had my best friend over and a few neighbors. Of course that is appropriate. As is inviting just 2-3 children from the class to a small get together.
But if you want Bounce U or Chuckie Cheese and you want to exclude 1/2 to 1/4 of the class, you are doing a sucky thing to other little kids, whether you realize/care/expect them to suck it up.