Planning a Party for Children: Tips, Hacks and Resources

Planning a party for children is my THING! I love the excitement, buzz and happiness around the planning and the chaos of the actual day! Sharing some tips, hacks and resources for all parents so that you can plan a great party for your kids without passing out on the day!

Let me first share a throwback picture of birthday parties from the 80s, which have inspired my general excitement for parties:

I love the smiles and how eager my dada (grandfather) is to be the first one to hand out the cash! Also, don’t miss me sporting the official hairstyle for girls from my generation: that khajoor (palm tree) pony!

Planning a Party for Children

Now let’s come back to present day and talk about planning a party for children which might be for a birthday, Eid, special celebration etc. 

Food:

Keep it simple. Food that can be eaten with hands easily. The cake will be the highlight for the children anyways so stick to pizza, chicken nuggets, fries etc.

Decoration:

Guess what? Children don’t really care much about the decoration. Work on the cake table and you are set. 

Venue:

If you have space at home, nothing like it! When planning for a backyard party, do have a backup plan in mind incase the weather doesn’t cooperate. I personally invite a safe number of children I can fit in my basement if it rains outside. Rent an outside space if you don’t have enough space or want to keep your house clean (a perfectly valid reason)!

Invite List:

This is your child’s party, not yours. Keep the invite list for children your kid gets along with, not your own current besties!

Parents or Not?

This is a big question! Invite parents if children are less than 6, you have space for parents or you want to invite the parents. Be mindful that if you don’t invite the parents you have to stay super vigilant about all the children. A good middle ground can be just inviting the moms. 

Be aware that you will also have a super paranoid parent (like me!) who will ask if they can stick around.

Getting RSVPs

Imagine this: You have sent out 10 invites to kids in your child’s classroom and have only heard back from 1 parent. Now the day of the party approaches and you aren’t sure if you will get 10 kids or 1. 

This has happened way too many times with me to learn an important lesson: when sending out the invites only mention the date + time and not the venue! This will ensure that the parents will get in touch with you (on your email address or phone number) when they confirm and you will know who all is coming for sure!

Allergies/Food preferences etc

For all parents who confirm, make sure you check for allergies, food preferences etc. 

Entertainment:

This is where the actual meat of the party lies for the children!

Plan for old fashioned party games, throw the party at a fun place, rent the equipment (like we did for Zeynab’s birthday here) or hire an entertainer!

We had Trixtan from Trixtan Entertainment at our Eid party for children perform a wonderful magic show for the children!

He truly kept the children hooked for the full 45 minutes of the show and thoroughly entertained them.  

What I liked about the magic show was that we could have as many children as we wanted and did not have to keep a cap on the number of invitees. 

Trixtan had good control on the children and was able to manage children from a varied age group of 4 to 12. 

He also invited the children up to participate. 

Along with magic shows, Trixtan also does a grand circus show with a variety of acts like juggling, acrobatics, hula hoops, ladders etc. He also does illusion shows, family feud style shows and rents out photo booths and DJs for parties.

Here’s a video of our party. As you can tell from the big smiles on the faces of the children, it was a huge success!

Hope all these tips help you in planning a party for children. Let me know if you have any questions!

Disclaimer: The magic show by Trixtan was a gifted experience. Do checkout his YouTube channel here.