Another Kid's Bday Party Etiquette Question

My DD will "invite" people to things all the time, when there is no such party or there is no room, etc. (She is 5, we are working on this.) I think that you were right to ask for more information and if she didn't get any, not to go.

ETA: Another thing is that I can rarely accommodate a last minute party thing. We may not have a present or a card or be able to fit it into the schedule. We told the older kids that if they don't tell us about a party til the night before, the answer may be no because of the timing. I had a life, too.

I think you were right in not sending your daughter. Imagine the parents' reaction if you had showed up - they don't know you and didn't invite you, so they probably wouldn't have included you in the head count or had a goody bag prepared for your daughter. It would have put them in a very awkward spot. You did the right thing by explaining to your daughter why she wasn't invited. Chances are the girl likes your daughter and wanted her at the party, but doesn't really understand that she can't just invite anyone she wants at the last minute.

If this is a girl your daughter wants to be friends with, invite her over one day after school. Have your daughter give her a note for her mom with your name and contact info so you can set something up. If you pick your child up at school, see if she can introduce you to the other girl's parents one day at drop off or pick up.

I have had my daughter come home and tell me she has been invited to a party, but she doesn't have an invitation. ( the girl ran out or lost them or something... I don't remember the specific details)...
Anyway, I knew the girl and her mom, and I told my daughter that she needed to bring me an invitation with the pertinent information on it. That I couldn't make a decision without certain information, and that included things like where the party was (their house, but they had moved and I didn't know the address, etc), what time to pick up, what she needed to bring (it was a sleepover party) and so on. Basically, I needed to talk to her mom, but I didn't know what I needed to ask until I had an invitation in hand.

She went back to school and told her friend. And the NEXT day after that, she brought me a written invitation. It wasn't a preprinted one... it was written out by hand on a folded piece of paper by her friend. But it included her address and her phone number, so I could call her mom. Which I did. And she did go to the party.

This isn't something that has been a common thing, but I don't do "just show up" without talking to a parent. And it is not my responsibility to track down a parent to ask about something when there has been no invitation made. In my book... whomever is inviting needs to be the one reaching out. So... she could have had her mom call me, if she didn't want to write out an invitation.

Her mom later told me that something had in fact happened to invitations that she had written out so that she couldn't use them. I don't remember if she had written the wrong date on them or exactly what it was.. but she had done invitations for the kids, they just weren't deliverable.
There was no issue from their side with writing up an invite by hand, and I had no issue getting one done by hand.

I would just make sure that however you handle this, you will be happy/willing to repeat it, should this situation come up again. So think carefully.
I would tell her that you need written communication or a phone call from a parent, before you will consider it a valid invitation. The ball is in her friend's court.

Strange. Maybe the family is very laid back and they thought that was enough?
One time a neighbor girl invited my daughter to her b day party. My daughter was very excited. The mother gave her daughter the look. Although the little girl wanted my daughter to attend. We never received an inviation. The mom doesn't like me. Not sure why although she is very clicky.

Updated

Strange. Maybe the family is very laid back and they thought that was enough?
One time a neighbor girl invited my daughter to her b day party. My daughter was very excited. The mother gave her daughter the look. Although the little girl wanted my daughter to attend. We never received an inviation. The mom doesn't like me. Not sure why although she is very clicky.

My experience is this:

Someone I dated years ago had a daughter, Samantha, who was invited over to someone's house. Samantha showed up and the mother of the girl was surprised (her daughter did not tell her she invited Samantha over). The mother was on her way out and it was totally awkward. She said, "Oh you drove all the way her of course Samantha can stay."

Anyway, this was not my kid and I would have NEVER showed up based on children's invitation. How awkward would it be if the Barbie location had 6 seats set up for the party and your daughter would be guest #7.

This girl and her parent(s) should know that a proper invitation is needed, especially if you do not even know the parents.

edit: I do agree that that host should be reaching out to you. If the party girl is insisting your daughter go, her mother should be looking for contact info. The head count and goody bags could be the reason she is not calling or the mom could be embarrassed that she would be giving one day notice and decided not to call.

I just googled MOA barbie and that place looks so awesome (kind of expensive too at $24 a person).

no invitation, no go.
8 year olds encounter disappointment sometimes.
khairete
S.

Verbal invites between 8 years olds...Ummm...NOPE..
middle school, perhaps

You did the right thing...I wouldn't let mine go w/o something more concrete from the parents

This happened to us in second grade. Dr insisted whole class was invited. Our school policy is to invite whole class or all boys. All girls etc.

I contacted teacher and yes there was a written invite.found it two months later.

Could u offer rd to host the girl once u get contact info?

I notice that you posted the day of the party, so any advice about whether to turn up or not is totally moot. Your question was really whether a verbal invitation kid-to-kid is becoming the norm -- No, it's not.

Did you ask your child if possibly she was given an invitation at school by this friend and it was stuffed somewhere in her school bag? Kids this age tend to jam things into their bags, or deep into their desks, and then are convinced they gave the paper to mom or dad when they didn't. I would almost bet that if your child really was invited, there was a written invitation given much earlier and it was stuffed somewhere that you never saw it (wasn't in the backpack? Could have been inside a book, in a pencil case, whatever).

You were right not to send her. The other parents, if they did indeed invite your child, should have realized that they had no RSVP from you and contacted you to check. Unfortunately it IS now very common for parents never to RSVP and then to turn up, so the parents might have assumed that's what you were doing, but you sound like someone who would absolutely have sent an RSVP!

This has two lessons for all of us: (1) Don't invite kids unless you, the inviting parent, have solid contact information for the other parents (e-mails and phone numbers) so you can reach them if you hear nothing. (2) Don't invite kids unless you send the parents--not the invited kids--the invitation, either by snail mail or by e-mail. I would not send invitations to school to be handed out by a kid, ever. Even if the host kid hands everything out just fine, the recipients are very, very likely to mislay those papers.

If I were you I'd be sure to talk to these parents if you encounter them and say that your child mentioned a party, and if there was indeed a party that she missed, you're sorry you did not RSVP but your child never gave you an invitation and you did not have contact info.

This late in the school year, does your school not have any school directory for families to use? Or the room parent does not use e-mail to contact parents? I might have contacted the room parent, if you have one, to say that you needed to reach X's mom and dad and don't even know their names, and could the room parent give you any contact info....

The person suffering most, of course, is your daughter. What does she know except that her classmate invited her to a party? That's what the world turns on at her age.

Please tell your girl that if her friend is really mad at her, friend's mother should give you a call. Send her to school with your phone number on a piece of paper, just in case this happens.

I would not have sent any of my children to a party for which there was no written, phoned, e-mailed, texted (?), or word-of-mouth-from-mom-to-mom invitation. Even if the party were only next door, I would have wanted something official. There is no change in party etiquette as far as an invitation is concerned; there has to be one.

Actually, I would be curious enough to contact the powers-that-be at school and try to find out the phone number of the family, just so I could meet the mama and find out what happened... whether there really was a party and whether there were - somewhere, somehow - real invitations. I would do this out of curiosity, not reproach. It is a curious thing, after all!

I would wait and talk to the parents. Or when your daughter goes back to school, get her to tell her friend that you need to talk to her parents before you let her go to the party.

I dealt with something like this not too long ago with my 9 yo son. He came home and said his new friend invited him and another friend to go to the lego movie. I told my son to have his friend have his mom call me before he goes. I never got a call so my son didn't go. He was upset, but I had to explain to him that, 1. Sometimes kids just say things without discussing it with their parents first , and 2. It would be very irresponsible of me to let him go with someone I have never met or talked to before.

If u cannot get the phone # from another friend...It's your decision.

Is there another parent u could get the number from --from the school?

Another 8 yr old might have been making this up--or was having a family party.

*******This is a gd teaching experience...Tell your daughter to relay the message that you need to get a phone call from the parent before she could have a playdate or go to a party !!

If this girl says something to your child, I would call the parent myself and apologize for not going and mention that u must have missed the invitation. There should be at least an email. If your daughter was supposed to go, have your daughter give her a small gift a few days later...if you decide this...the girl would love a gift...I'm sure !

No that is very odd. I would probably have seen if I could get the phone # to the person who was having the party, and spoken to their mom or dad. But definitely would not just go.