Kid left out of party - why?!

I see you've not creally addressed the questions I posed regarding the other children, fair enough, but it's relevant.

Not being invited isn't being excluded, because a party is never open to everyone.
Consider parent's attitudes may also feature in reasons not to invite a child, if numbers are limited.

Thanks - yes, she’s a wonderful person but still suffers from the damage to her self-esteem from those times.

And that would have been an opportunity to teach your child that being considerate of how that might hurt the excluded child/ren. How absolutely batshit to pander to the whim of such a ridiculous reason

Ok, thanks for that.
A few thoughts:

• telling others not to include her, or play with her, is most likely bullying and utterly horrible too (I say most likely because there will be a small percentage of time when someone is actually genuinely trying to protect their friends from something/someone really unpleasant).
• does she actually have similar interests? People do end to navigate towards those they have stuff in common with, which is hard for folk with different interests than typical for that and (that was and still is me).
• it is true that people can invite who they like, sadly, but that doesn't make it less hard if you're routinely never invited.
• I can relate to the subtleness, definitely, 'been there, done that', 'still there, still doing that' to some extent.

I'm sorry it's brought back pain for you, you sound like a great mum though and I'm sure she's a very interesting and cool young lady too.

I’m reluctant to bore pps or derail, but it was a case of a couple of friends deciding she wasn’t interested in their more teenage interests and excluding her. Two of these girls were ringleaders and basically told others that if they played with her or included her, they themselves would be ostracised. All extremely upsetting and we are still seeing the effects of this cruelty even now.

She was/is genuinely a kind, gentle soul, but probably not exciting to pre-pubescent peers. She has since suspected and been diagnosed with autism, and this has helped her to understand and rationalise her ‘square peg in a round hole’ experience at school. If you met her you wouldn’t guess this - I know you’re not supposed to say ‘mild autism’ nowadays but really, it manifests very subtly but was clearly a contributing factor to her friendship troubles.

She would come home and ask why Kate or Eleanor had given everyone else a party invitation but not her. This went on for over a year. Yes, of course you say the usual stuff (they can’t invite everyone etc), but that line wears thin after 10 or so parties. She was a bright girl and she saw through my rather desperate excuses! Agonising to watch.i feel miserable again just typing this!

Did they invite you last year? Did you rsvp? And did you go? You didn’t pull out at the last minute or forget and not go?

At our school this is the most common reason for leaving kids off the invites if, for example, the parents have paid £20 for a kid for bowling the previous year and then they’ve flaked out at the last minute.

OP if it’s a class of 30, then having invited 6 friends and none of the others doesn’t feel like having only left out one or two. It genuinely may not have occurred to the other mother that she’s invited all but 2 of the girls as there’s so many of the class they’ve not invited.

I would also say encouraging friendship groups and parties at this age to be “all boys” or “all girls” when there’s so few girls is doing your dd a disservice. Make a point at your next thing of inviting some boys too.

The way you speak about the parents financial status and their home appears as if you are bitter and jealous and that’s probably rubbed off on your child who may have made an remark that has been repeated to the parents and quite rightly they have not invited your daughter.

Unless you’re on MN where people seem to believe they have the right to self invite to others events, or demand a reason as to why they weren’t invited, to turn up anyway as noted on this thread, to expect the party to be changed from what birthday child wants, to what their child prefers, and as per another current thread re parties, to host other people’s parties to suit their child!

What I find odd is the concept of only inviting girls (or only boys) The primary school birthday parties held for me/I went to were always, without fail, a mix of boys and girls and this was many decades ago. Maybe some of the boys have been invited and it's had an impact on numbers.

At 9 years old, it's probably a themed party with some kind of hired entertainment if held in the girl's home? So places will be limited. I imagine the mum asked her to invite X number of girls. Maybe there are cousins/family friends included in the headcount.

Regardless of how wealthy they are, hosting more than a few 9 year olds for a party might be more than parents feel comfortable with. I wouldn't want to be responsible for more than 5 children this age. Size of house is irrelevant.

Invitations these days aren't give and take. Maybe when they start school and for a couple of years after, but by year 3 children normally have friends they choose over others. Inviting all the girls/boys in the class naturally phases out.

Encourage your DD not to take it personally.

And nobody can be 100% sure if their child has been unkind to others, or if they misbehaved in some way at last year's party, or accidentally upset a girl in the class.

Absolutely this, with bells on!

It hurts but it isn't mean. This birthday girl and your DD may be friendly but not particularly close. I'd sympathise with your daughter then encourage her to shake it off.

At this age it's very common to restrict numbers. It's not about how much physical space, often, but about how much party noise and chaos a family feel like dealing with.

I doubt there's anything more than "you can have 6 friends for your party".

At that age they start to have smaller parties- I think it just feels more obvious because it’s a small class.

Only those invited to a party ever have access to the party, some people aren't invited and that's just life.

Surely by not being invited you don’t have access to the party? I’m not saying the OP’s daughter is entitled to go to the party, I’m just saying I understand why she, and the OP, would feel hurt that she wasn’t and think it wasn’t kind to have not invited only two girls. I think this is the point not whether we agree with the meaning of the word excluded.

I wouldn't tell my children any of those things but it is life, isn't it? You will not be invited to everything and children do need to learn how to cope with that.

No one knows or likely will ever know why she ultimately wasn't invited so I do think it is best for OP to comfort her child and then let it go.

I didn’t say the girl was being intentionally mean or deliberately trying to leave her out but I am surprised that her mum would say you can invite all but two girls when money and space doesn’t seem to be an issue. I’d have thought the mum would be able to anticipate the OP’s daughter and the other girl not invited would feel hurt. And I do wonder if posters on here with the “grow up” “get over it” and “that’s life” would say the same to their own kids in that situation. It’s quite sad if they would

I don’t think it’s the same as a work party. I think at 9 it’s the same as an adults birthday party. Would I invite someone I like but aren’t massive friends with to a small birthday party? No.

You'd need to give actual detail for that to be meaningful.

Parties aren't something that everyone has access to, where access can be denied, they're events you're invited to. It's up to the host or the hosts parents or whoever is paying for it to invite guests, not for anyone else to decide who should be included.

I think it's fine for OP's DD to be sad that she isn't invited to the party. She wasn't the only girl left out though which would be different.

Maybe the girl is closer friends with some boys, maybe she has some cousins she wanted to invite etc not inviting her isn't automatically because the girl wants to be mean towards her or is intentionally leaving her out.

Honestly as the parent of almost adult children I wish I’d never wasted any time or energy on this stuff when my kids were little.
Move and model the unbothered energy to your daughter

I’m not sure why that should change the OP’s daughter’s feelings. She’s been left out of the girls. But you obviously think it’s fine so there we are