Children's party etiquette?

Agutka

I have no manners when it comes to that sort of thing, so I have told all my friends that if I don't reply it's a yes! If I can't make it I will call you with an excuse.
I found an invite in ds bag for a party that afternoon. I, or he, had no idea who the kid was so I did not phone!

I'm not rude on purpose, just too busy thinking about chocolate I guess

jellyhead

idea wrote: »

Thanks Jellyhead for this....lesson learnt for next time!

I've got a second child having parties, and there's a 9 year gap between my children so I've had a fair few years of experiencing the rudeness of people who don't bother to reply.

Also, especially at nursery the invites can go missing. When my eldest was in nursery the pegs were in a separate cloakroom, but youngest's nursery had the pegs dotted around the one big room, so other children could (and did) help themselves to other people's invites, paintings, etc.

As for soft play centres adding extra children - I have found that some do but some are very rigid, and they expect you to pay in advance. Maybe it depends on where the children will sit to eat, and whether enough chairs can be squeezed into a particular room.

We were at a party yesterday where the mother expected 'somewhere between 12 and 20' because so many hadn't replied. luckily this particular centre were flexible, as long as the minimum requirement was met. If fewer than 8 had turned up she'd have had to pay for 8.

embob74

When my eldest DD was younger I invited all the class to her party which was at home with a bouncy castle. Out of the 20+ kids only 4 responded to the invite.......and most of them turned up!! Lucky for them that I tend to go overboard on party bags and food so had plenty to go round!

It has set the standard I'm afraid and I never expect more than a few replies. We now have small get togethers (tea parties) with family and friends for younger birthdays and when they're older their friendship circle is more defined and we arrange bowling/ cinema/ meal out/ sleepover for 5-10 of them (usually dependent upon how many we can fit in a car!)

I do find it rude to not get a reply but I also found it rude when DD had received an invite and the next day the parent was pushing me for a response.

jellyhead

We have a large family so there are lots of cousins, and youngest's best friend is from a large family and we like all of the siblings, so sometimes if there's a maximum number of children allowed, we'd really like to know if someone's coming or not because we'd like to give that space to somebody else. For example, people will call and ask if the invitee's sibling can join in, and I have to say I don't know because I don't know if child X is going to turn up or not.

Maybe I'm just too accommodating and should say no to such requests, but if the venue isn't local and a parent has had to bring siblings anyway, and there's a 45 minute wait for food they need to know if they should order for the siblings, or whether the siblings can have the meal that I've already paid for for those children who haven't replied.

Luckily at a recent round of parties for all the July birthdays we established which children never reply, and decided not to invite those children to any more.

Spendless

idea wrote: »

Extra party bags is a good idea (but slightly annoying as it will be a complete waste of money if they don't turn up!!)

It'll be an additional outlay you didn't need to fork out for but if you are circumspect in what you put in, it needn't be a waste of money. You'd just need to have a plan B in mind for what you'd use items for.

For daughter's last minute party on Monday I got her friends a tube of colouring pencils 50p, a pack of 2 'girly' rubbers shaped like a butterfly and a flower (10p) and a tube of smarties (4 pack for £1). The stationery items were all reduced at asda. In the event of having a spare party bag, the pencils and rubber would have become school supplies for a new academic year or become a stocking filler at Christmas time and I'd have put sweets in cupboard till next time someone wanted some. I bought a cake that sliced to 18 and added that and I think it was around £1 more than the cake that was for 10.

I know some parents have ordered books from places like the book people before for party bags. Any spares could go into a 'present cupboard' as supplies for next time a birthday party comes round.

Janepig

I've had much the same experience with people not replying to invites. The only thing I would say OP is that you said the party is not for afew weeks and maybe people have put it to the back of their minds thinking that there's plenty of time to reply. Normally a fortnight is more than enough notice I find - any less is a bit short notice (although do-able), anything more and it's a bit too far away to think about!

DS has got 34 in his class at school and as with DD when she was having parties about a quarter to half don't reply and it's always the same children and parents who don't reply or turn up to parties. It takes afew parties to realise it, but it's always the same faces at every party.

Anyway, I think it's a good idea to do some extra party bags just in case, although I've always found that the ones that don't reply tend to just not to turn up.

Jx

alleycat`

My DS got invited to a party and we didn't reply

The reason we didn't reply was it was shoved into his bag by the teachers and it got stuck in a small "flap". We didn't even see it until three days after the party and my DS didn't even mention it.

I don't know either of the parents that invited my DS.
My DS doesn't really play with or associate with the birthday boy either.

At the moment it is impossible to apologise for the non response, which i agree appears rude.

They probably think the worst of me but it isn't always intentional.

Spendless

Paddles wrote: »

We have moved around a bit and in four different schools I've only ever had between half and three-quarters of parents respond to party invites! Drives me crazy - especially if you book something where numbers are linited. I don't tend to do that anymore for that exact reason, but on the times I have I have thought nothing about tracking down the parents who don't answer and demanding an answer :rotfl:I really don't understand what happened to manners!

After the disaster that was my daughter's 7th birthday with some no show-ers and people cancelling on the day I also decided this was the way ahead. I now have people meet at our house and then we take them to <wherever> and then come back to ours for party food and cake before being collected. It's not as easy to when children are still at the parents staying with kids for the duration though, but once you get past it, I've found it is more cost effective to do it this way. This year was slightly different as it was a photoshoot party so came with minimum and maximum numbers. I've only one more birthday left for the primary school years and after that I can shove them with some dosh in the direction of the cinema/ice-skating rink/bowling alley. :rotfl:

idea

alleycat` wrote: »

My DS got invited to a party and we didn't reply

The reason we didn't reply was it was shoved into his bag by the teachers and it got stuck in a small "flap". We didn't even see it until three days after the party and my DS didn't even mention it.

I don't know either of the parents that invited my DS.
My DS doesn't really play with or associate with the birthday boy either.

At the moment it is impossible to apologise for the non response, which i agree appears rude.

They probably think the worst of me but it isn't always intentional.

Thanks for the other side of the coin there. It's just a minefield. As I think I said before, my DD is at nursery and so I don't always see parents as we all pick up at different times so some of them I don't know, but I feel that it would be a shame to not invite a child just because I don't know the parents.

jackomdj

The sad thing is when parents constantly don't reply other parents get to the point where, when numbers are limited, they don't include that child on the list of people to invite. We are at that point with a few in DD's class, although she said their name, as we had to select a limited number I cut out the ones I knew would probably not answer.