When no one comes to a child’s party. (grandpa, student, friend)

[ClaraC]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

People still have landlines?



This was more my experience. Schools my kids went to would never give out a parent's contact info to another parent without some kind of authorization and for a specific reason (like school event volunteer or PTA activity coordination.) You would never get a list of the classmates' parents names and phone numbers. Which in my opinion makes total sense. I mean, kids get into conflict among themselves and before you know it, some super protective parent whose little one can do no wrong is barkin' up your tree... No thanks. Prefer to have the school be intermediary rather than have who knows what sort of parents get access to my phone number.

But again we are not talking small town schools. Big schools, lots of kids, lots of parents, and people don't automatically just know each other. *shrug* So the idea of being able to just contact those other parents is wild to me.

Our schools publish directories each year, listing names and addresses and phone numbers for the parents.

A parent can opt-out of having their names listed in the directory, but the child's name is still listed in the section that contains classroom lists.

And children who aren't listed in the contacts portion of the directory don't usually get birthday party invitations.

[LieslMet]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

Our schools publish directories each year, listing names and addresses and phone numbers for the parents.

A parent can opt-out of having their names listed in the directory, but the child's name is still listed in the section that contains classroom lists.

And children who aren't listed in the contacts portion of the directory don't usually get birthday party invitations.

This is exactly why I opted us out when they were in 2nd grade and from then on, always. Having to buy $20-$25 birthday presents for essentially all the children in each of my three children's classes, and spend almost every weekend ferrying children around to the birthday parties of children I don't even know?

No, thanks. :P

They would still be invited to their ACTUAL friends' birthday parties but not EVERYONE'S. It also caused us to avoid a LOT of drama, from parents calling and emailing other parents (able to do so easily because of the directory) over the most nonsensical things. "Jimmy said that Johnny was going to wear his martial arts shirt on Tuesday so he wore his but your son didn't and Jimmy felt all alone and embarrassed. In the future, I would appreciate it if..." and being put on spam-my email lists by the parents who work in sales, etc. The ones who abused the directory are exactly the parents of the drama-laden, entitled, always-in-trouble kids now. And we are blissfully excluded from the drama because we have zero past relationships with them and aren't even on their radar.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

I never got a response to the RSVP. People would just show up. No way to know how much cake or how many door prizes to have.


I stopped the birthday party after two of them and started taking my son plus one friend on a "birthday special", trip to the beach, amusement park, fishing, concert, planetarium... something special where I could get the one friend and his parents to commit.


It ended up costing the same, it was a lot less stressful, and my kid enjoyed himself more.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Honestly, I believe that people wait until the morning of the event and then decide if they feel like it or not. Even then, something else might come up and they wander off and do that instead. They live without planning, which makes it very difficult on anyone who is trying to do an event that takes planning.


Or maybe they are waiting to hear what the incentive to go is? Pony rides? Balloon clown? Bouncy castle? What are you offering, OP?

[elhelmete]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

Or maybe they are waiting to hear what the incentive to go is? Pony rides? Balloon clown? Bouncy castle? What are you offering, OP?

This matters? How sad.

[K12144]

Unfortunately, I've seen other people suggest before, and it's probably true, that people wait until the last minute to RSVP because they're waiting to see if something better comes along. Mind you, some people do have schedules that might mean they don't know until the closer to the event, but I would hope they would RSVP as soon as they *did* know.

Originally Posted by Steve McDonald

If your son is heartbroken by no one coming to his party, it will be because you set him up for it, by wanting to make a social splash. You should have been aware of how popular he is with his classmates and not have put him on the spot with this proposed event. My parents would never have held a party for me, but if they'd tried, I would have vetoed it, knowing that few, if any, other kids would come. The popularity of children with their peers, is something that their parents cannot engineer.

Maybe the kid was the one who requested the party. Maybe he was the one who picked out who he thinks will come. Maybe they decided to have the party hoping that it will make more kids want to hang out with them (this kind of thing has a long tradition). Maybe they figured kids who might not play with him on the playground will at least show up for a party. Maybe they're new to the area and want to use it to help his classmates get to know him (the first birthday I had after we moved, my birthday party invited every girl in my class).

Originally Posted by ClaraC

Hmm. To "almost" his entire class.

My guess is, those he didn't send invitations to, might have responded positively?

By the 10th birthday you kind of know who will show up at a party, and who your kid's friends are.

This isn't like a kindergarten party.

What makes you think OP would deliberately exclude the most friendly/considerate kids in the class? Maybe the ones they didn't invite are his enemies.

Originally Posted by CraigCreek

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.

The real question here is, why are schools organizing school-sanctioned events to which the entire student body isn't invited/welcome (assuming they're not club events that have limited membership, like swim-team events or computer-club events)?

Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla

I would start contacting the parents and asking them if they plan to attend or not. If you can get five "yeses" then I would proceed with the party.

Also, consider sending invites to every kid in the class, that way, you might get more kids attending the party. It's okay for a child to be around kids he doesn't necessarily like that much, if it's just for one or two hours at a party.

This isn't just any random event they're going to. Nobody should have to have people they don't like at their own party. I'd rather have no party and eat cake alone sitting on my couch than have one where only people I can't stand/who are jerks to me show up, so they can have fun on my dime.

Originally Posted by ChessieMom

I find this whole thing where parents invite the child's classmates to their birthday party, just plain weird. Does your kid not have neighborhood friends? Cousins? Family? Those are the ones that should be at a party. I didn't have many parties for my son (maybe 3 or 4...if that) but I never sent a single invitation. I told the parents about the party - since I actually KNEW them all. My son never wanted to have anyone at his parties that was not an actual friend, so it never even entered my mind to invite anyone else. I didn't worry about anyone behaving or feeling out of place...and honestly I would not want a bunch of strange kids in my home anyway.

Having a party with your aunts and uncles and grandparents is not the same as having one with your friends.

Originally Posted by elyn02

I am not sure if my post was seen as attacking the child. My point was that you are likely to get more RSVPs from people that can expect to engage with you in the future than people who don't expect it. You kind of have to put yourself out there.



We are talking about RSVPs here. Not low turn out. Kids who had the biggest turnout did exactly what I mentioned in my post. The child asked the other children at school if they were able to attend the party. There were still many who did not RSVP even after their child said yes.

It would make a difference if I understood what RSVP meant. Does it mean "yes"? Or does it mean "Yes" or "No"? I can't tell if people have answered "no" to the OP or if no answers have been given. If the OP received all "no", I wouldn't be posting on this thread.

If the OP had received all "no," they probably wouldn't have posted this thread. They don't need to wonder whether they need to cancel the party if they know for sure no one is coming-- they wouldn't have a choice as you can't have a party without guests. I'm thinking they've heard nothing at all, which means they haven't a clue if people are going to just show up on the day of or not.

Meanwhile, to what extend does a host hound the people they've invited for an answer? Isn't it also considered rude to pressure people to attend your party?

Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla

It was not your post.

I cannot point out who it was, but I will say, there are posters here who don't have kids so their viewpoints are often coming from a place of no background or experience with being a parent. Sure, they are "allowed" to post on parenting boards but I don't know why they'd want to.

Probably because all posts show up in the "new posts" lists. Probably because this isn't just a parenting issue but a social issue that all people deal with in their lives. You don't have to have kids to know when people are rude not to RSVP. You don't have to have kids to have been a kid who has probably had or been to parties, to have friends or relatives who have kids' parties, etc.

Originally Posted by ClaraC

There's a problem with that venue, IMHO.

I can see not being able to reduce the amount; but the pizza place is very short-sighted to not allow you to add to the order. I would think that would be fairly common, to realize people are eating more than you predicted.

I could see it as them not wanting to have to scramble at the last minute to provide vastly more food than they were initially told they needed/were able to plan for in advance. Serving food to a large number of people requires advance planning; it's not something you can just do at the last second, pulling supplies and people and time out of thin air instantly. Making more food means you need to make sure you have more ingredients on hand, more employees for making and serving, making extra food takes more time (not nice when there are a bunch of hungry people staring at you angrily while it's all still cooking), etc. All of this while they still also have other customers to serve with this limited amount of supplies, employees, and time. It sucks for the customer who has rude guests, but it also sucks for the venue, who is risking losing business if other customers are inconvenienced by having resources pulled away, the party customer is angry because extra food doesn't appear instantly, etc.

Originally Posted by Jdawg8181

It's not that hard to find out people's contact info. White pages is online now. I don't know that you'll get them all (my parents were always unlisted) but I think a good majority of phone #'s (landlines, anyhow) can be found online.

Who has a landline anymore?? Who wants their phone number published for scammers to pluck like ripe grapes from vine?

Originally Posted by Jdawg8181

Good point.


OP, does your son have friends from the block or any cousins?

Wouldn't "friends from the block" go to the same school?

Originally Posted by ClaraC

Based on the fact that she was willing to bail on the entire party very quickly after not getting responses. So her son wouldn't be embarrassed.

Why would you want to sit around an empty house hoping people show up and feeling worse and worse about yourself, while looking around at all of the preparations you've spent time and money on, when you have no evidence anyone is coming? Why is it such a bad thing to want to save her son that pain? Especially since they could be better using that time going out and doing something actually fun?

[LieslMet]

Originally Posted by jmf33078

My son will have his 10th birthday party in two weeks. He has sent invitations to almost his entire class. But no one has RSVPed yet. Should I just cancel the party and do something with him or just see what happens? I don’t want him to have to go school and see the kids who were supposed to come to his party.

Was the party this weekend, OP? How'd it turn out?

[Nichole Harmon]

Maybe Contact The Children's Parents???

[CraigCreek]

K12144: You quoted from my previous post about having been left of Freshman Cotillion long ago and seemed to question why the school would allow this to occur.

It was not a school function or activity, but was private. But most of my classmates and friends were included... and I was not. School dances were open to all, as were other school activities (I attended public schools).

[CraigCreek]

A related question is why do so few people respond to RSVPs? I had this happen with a very recent social event to which many were invited - some responded, but the majority didn't let me know either way, even when I indicated that replying was helpful in planning the event.

The majority of those who were invited were people I see regularly, college graduates in most cases, from family backgrounds which I would assume taught their now-adult children the basics of good manners.

Fine if you can't or don't want to come - but do be considerate enough of the party-giver to at least acknowledge the invitation and respond.