For those of you with kids when did you or when do you plan on ending the large "invite many kids" birthday parties for your children?

My siblings and I never had big parties because it was not our cup of tea, but my cousin ceased having big parties around middle school. By then only his closest friends and family were invited (they usually played video games in his room until dinner.) Less money spent on big parties, more money spent on gifts – I think he enjoyed this trade off a good deal.

Well, my oldest is 11, and I think the large birthday parties kind of fade away as kids get older. For my daughter’s last couple of birthdays, she opted for a smaller group of friends so she could do something special. First a slumber party, which I limited to three other girls. Her most recent birthday, she chose to go to a movie and out for pizza with her three best friends. I think her birthdays from now on will also be more “big kid” things with just two or three friends. We also always have a family dinner with cake, with the birthday kid picking the menu for the meal. That’s in addition to the “kid party.” I don’t have a particular age in mind where I plan to end the birthday parties, but I am not going to fight this trend of scaling things back. It’s so much easier!

I guess I was into upper grade school and middle school when my birthday parties also changed from a big group of every kid I knew to a smaller group of close friends.

When they (the kids) don’t want that kind of party.

My kids never have had a party with a lot of kids.
They might have a couple of friends spend the night, and we always have a nice family dinner where they pick the menu and we have cake.

As for me, I am over fifty and I have never had a birthday party, not ever. Am I missing a big deal?

We take the littlest ones to Chuck E Cheese, and the older ones get together with family at the twice a year family birthday feast. Several family members have birthdays in the Spring, and several in December, so we used to have two family gatherings a year. With so many of the kids grown now, the ‘party’ thing is mostly over.

I ended mine around the age of 10. From then on I only invited my closest friends. Sometimes we go to an amusment park and celebrate there.

My kids had big parties starting very young. They were both very social and I had a dozen kids for slumber parties many many times. It was always lots of fun. Eventually, the kids decide to have a few friends do expensive things. And it can get very expensive. I never indulged them in ridiculous parties but they were invited to many over the top birthday deals, like private plane trips for dinner and a show.

We had very few “big” parties, most were at home. Someone told us to hold parties with the number of guests equalling the birthday age plus 1, and that’s pretty much what we did. I think they each had three bigger parties – but I can’t remember what ages. Ball crawl place, roller skating, and laser tag. They both hated those big parties. When they turned 13, we had a sleepover at a hotel with a pool, two adjoining rooms, swimming, lots of junk food. I hated that, even though there were only 8 guests. Some girls are wild at that age.

I love to host parties. I hope to switch instantly from Baseball and Blues Clues to all-night-game-a-thons to boy/girl pool parties, as my son ages. Better he be partying at home where I can keep an eye on him, than gallavanting around with some underexperienced driver with more adrenaline than sense.

Well, my daughter turned 14 and she had the biggest party of all! She had every single person in her class come. My wife refused to have anything to do with it, so I “organized” it. Actually, my daughter organized it. It was a pool party at the swim club we belong to. All I had to do was clear it with management (they were naturally concerned about 30 14-yr olds), and order the pizza. It went off perfectly.

I don’t think there will be big parties again, since now she’s in high school, her friends are all over the place. Her old school class no longer meets daily. She’s making new friends.

My son is ten. He had a semi-big party—not the whole class, but selected boys and girls. He did one of those rock climbing place parties. I’m not sure what will happen when he turns 11. Hopefully there will be a blizzard and no one will be able to do anything.

For the past 2 years (since I turned 12) , I’ve just had a couple of my best friends over and we pretty much talked for 5 hours. Supper, cake, ice cream, lovely times.

I had big parties with all of my friends until I moved out. I still like having parties to this day, but life gets in the way a bit these days. My brother never wanted to have the big parties, so he didn’t. I will continue to have parties for my children as long as they want them My sweet 16 party was one of my favorite parties and it wouldn’t have been the same if it had been cake and ice cream with only my family.