Childrens Birthday Party -- What's the ruling here?

[captain_hug99]

To the OP, I'm glad everything went well.

I think it is OK to leave a 5 year old at a party. Many 5 year olds already are left for significant amounts of time at school, scouts, etc...

Originally Posted by Kibbiekat

What if the only choice is stay and bring an extra sibling, or take the sibling and go?

That's not always realistic, especially is there are 3 or more kids in the family.

You drop off the invited child and stay with the UNinvited children somewhere else. It isn't fair to the hosts that you bring your entire family and make them pay for all of you in a situation like this. If you are afraid of dropping off your one child, talk the host beforehand.

Originally Posted by Wmsn4Life

Do schools really dictate who comes to your kid's party??

No, they don't. You can mail/email anyone you want, just use the USPS/evite/e-mail server instead of the school to hand out the invitations. If you use the school, then you need to follow their rules.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by captain_hug99

No, they don't. You can mail/email anyone you want, just use the USPS/evite/e-mail server instead of the school to hand out the invitations. If you use the school, then you need to follow their rules.

You can *if* you know the emails or addresses of the children you wish to invite. I hated that when we moved here and my granddaughter started kindergarten, we had NO way to find that out. Kids were bused or driven to school and parents did not hang around and the school did not have a directory of parents. When my own kids where in preK and K, each class had a class list put out by the room mother, so we could easily find out the addresses of the kids my kids wanted to invite. Not so here - the schools are HUGE - and when you just moved, it is hard to get acquainted with the kids and parents in the class. This is especially true because most of the kids are not in the neighborhood with you. We only knew one child from her kindergarten class because he lived next door.

[ADVentive]

Originally Posted by nana053

You can *if* you know the emails or addresses of the children you wish to invite. I hated that when we moved here and my granddaughter started kindergarten, we had NO way to find that out. Kids were bused or driven to school and parents did not hang around and the school did not have a directory of parents. When my own kids where in preK and K, each class had a class list put out by the room mother, so we could easily find out the addresses of the kids my kids wanted to invite. Not so here - the schools are HUGE - and when you just moved, it is hard to get acquainted with the kids and parents in the class. This is especially true because most of the kids are not in the neighborhood with you. We only knew one child from her kindergarten class because he lived next door.

Our school does have a directory, but it is strictly opt-in, which means that in a class of 18 students, maybe 6 will actually be in the directory. However, we have been able to hand out invites to only specific kids at school if we send them in envelopes with the kids' names on them, and then the teacher will put them in those kids' take-home folders at the end of the day. So we don't have to invite the whole class where we are.