Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I would wait until a week before the party and call the parents if you haven't heard anything by then.
I agree with Charlotte. In addition, I don't really think that it's personal. People don't seem to have the time for leisure or socializing these days. Schedule something else and have the party if you get a half dozen positive responses.
I don't like to invite people without direct contact information. Texting is so easy. There are also apps to invite people via email, where if they see it, responding is easy. They can change it. The app will prompt them with another email to RSVP if they haven't and they'll be sent a reminder of the event, beforehand, at the time of your choice. I choose one week and one day beforehand. It gives people time without YOU being the one to "nag."
By 10 years old, our kids knew the people they liked and I invited them via their parents' cell phone numbers. They had friends in several different classes, from being in different grades, and inviting one class wouldn't have worked. And I had no interest spending money or effort quelling drama and still trying to be nice to bratty peers of my children at their own birthday party. I LIKE it when they don't have a ton of "friends"... it frees up funds and allows us space in my van to bring them somewhere to have a REALLY good time.
Some people are notorious for not RSVPing in just about any situation. Etiquette is definitely something that people need to be better educated about and put into practice more.
Yes! About half the people we invited to our wedding did not RSVP by the RSVP date … we had to call people and then even then some of them weren't sure. We definitely had some last-minute-day-of-show-uppers.
People are so rude.
Yes, definitely call the parents. RSVPing just is not a thing anymore.
I think you are projecting your own childhood issues here.....?
I am in a similar boat with my son turning 11 shortly. HE requested the party. We sent out an invite, many kids were excited to go, but we only heard a few acceptances. After sending out a reminder we got more RSVPs declining (some offering to provide a gift still which is unnecessary but nice.) This is the time of year for travel sports weekends and college visits for older siblings.
Ultimately if only a few come then that’s just fine. Quality over quantity. If nobody shows up then my son will be upset but we will have a good time regardless. What we won’t do is to put it on social media to garner sympathy.
I don't. We don't know if this is the child's desire, or the mom's, or a mutual idea. We don't know how "popular" he is. I think that if a kid is a bit more introverted or picked on or "different," then as a parent, you should be cognizant of that and plan accordingly, a few closer/nicer kids and family and whatnot to fill some of the gaps.
Why did you and your son invite "almost all" of his class? Think how hurt those uninvited kids might be, especially if everyone else was invited. In my long-ago day, the rule was to invite everyone, or to invite just the boys or just the girls. Or to invite close friends - privately, no more than ten at the most - to avoid hurt classmates.
I still remember how humiliated and hurt I was to be excluded from Freshman Cotillion when I was 13 1/2, especially as all my close friends were invited and my best friend even asked me to carpool. I had to 'fess up that I was not invited. Didn't care a thing about dancing - it was being left out that stung.
I was not a problem kid, behaved myself appropriately most of the time (my transgressions were few and insignificant), and the only reason I can come up with for being excluded was that my parents were not as "social" as were some of the parent organizers-officials of Freshman Cotillion, which featured three or four formal or semi-formal dances a year, complete with assigned no-break cards, to local Big Bands. Not terribly kid-friendly or even young teenage aware. But to me, it was repeated pain three or four times that year, as all my friends participated - while I sat at home.
Most of the socialite organizer parents didn't know my family well, never mind that I'd gone to school with their kids since first grade, invited those same kids to my birthday parties, gone to their parties, been with them in scouts and school plays and school orchestra - and sixth and seventh grade dancing school! - with them, and so on.
Apparently they voted on whether or not to include children. My mother did call one member, mother of a good friend and wife of my pediatrician, who'd known me since first grade - she said she had voted for me, but the others didn't know who I was.
No country club membership for us - understandably, since we were always out of town (due to my father's work) from June until mid-August - we swam in Chesapeake Bay, not the country club pools. My mother, a former teacher with a master's degree, was in church groups and Homemakers, not the local Women's Club, and her college didn't have sororities, so she was not in any alum group. My father was not socially active, either. He was also a college graduate and was a district supervisor at work.
The following year, I WAS invited to join Sophomore Cotillion - looking back at it, I'd like to say I blew them off - but I didn't. Maybe the organizers belatedly figured out that I was an acceptable member, especially since I'd known their children forever and shared other social activities with them for all of my school days. Or maybe someone else moved out of town or got kicked out and they filled in with me.
Enough about me. I do agree that parents of invitees are being thoughtless, and it might be a good idea to send them emails or texts or to call them to check on their plans.
And if only three or four of your son's classmates didn't get invitations originally - send them now, unless you have a very good reason for their exclusion. Children grow up - and they remember. I still do, and it still bugs me that clueless adults can be so thoughtlessly hurtful to kids.
My daughter and son-in-law, and their Special Needs child recently attended a Saturday afternoon birthday party for a friend's son, that was held in a city park (we live in a mild climate). The entire class had been invited and no one showed up. Yes, there were friends of the parents and their children (my little grand daughter was unable to interact or play with the little boy) and there may have been a cousin there. My daughter felt very bad, but was glad they had come.
It sounds as if your son has no friends at school. This is a problem, far more important than the party. Speak with his teacher, and then with the school counselor.
If he didn't invite every boy in his class, that's a problem, too. Imagine how your son would have felt had another boy invited
"almost" every child.... except YOUR son.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
