AIBU to exclude 1 child from friendship group from DS party??

Support your son
100%

Absolutely not. I don’t get why anyone would voluntarily socialise with people they don’t like purely because they’re too uneasy with saying ‘No’. I’m quite at ease with being ‘pointed’.

I genuinely wouldn’t have someone I didn’t like along to a celebration. I’m surprised to hear people do as adults. I’m not antisocial- I have more friends than I have the time/social battery to keep up with but there’s no way I’m socialising with people I don’t like that much.
I encourage a bit of choosiness in my DC too. They’re both popular and confident, and there is no way we’d encourage them to invite someone unkind to their party.

op- don’t encourage your son to be a total doormat- he needs to develop standards of how he can expect to be treated by others.

I think it’s great that your son is learning to set boundaries and deciding what behaviours he won’t tolerate from others. I wouldn’t override that and potentially ruin his birthday just for the sake of keeping the peace.

It's pretty nasty to belittle someone and to assault them. Bullies will never do better when they are being pandered to. The OP needs to protect her child or she is failing him.

Your son definitely shouldn't be forced to invite someone he doesn't get on with to his own birthday party just to 'keep up appearances'! Especially someone who has been so unkind to him.

However i do think if the friendship group is that 'tight knit' excluding one boy is unfair...not condoning the behaviours towards your son, but he is a child after all and you don't know what he is going/has been through or if he has SEN.At 9 it would really sting and be noticed by him if he was the only one not invited, as they would all be chatting about it before and after etc.

Maybe DS could choose say his top 5 out of that group? Surely there are some he is closer to than others....

Why are you putting a bully’s feelings before your own child’s?

This is utterly bizarre

Stop framing it as he isn't invited - instead the boys he does want are the ones he chose to invite. All the other kids in the class weren't on the list - not a case of one singled out and not invited. Listen to your son and maybe it will make the boy teasing him have a think about his behaviour.

Problem is, for all everyone says ‘would you have someone like this at your party’ we do, don’t we?

I have a couple of ‘groups’ of friends where to be honest there are a couple of people I’m not all that keen on. One from my NCT group, who is dour and miserable and one from a previous job who is loud and irritating. Leaving them out of an event the rest of the group are invited to would be so pointed and so rude that it would be unlikely to go down well with others in the group.

That is the main problem I can see with this; that it makes the others’ attendance uncomfortable.

I don’t know what I’d do. I do think it’s a difficult situation and not as straightforward as not inviting the child, though.

Listen to your son. At the same age I made the mistake of inviting the kid my daughter didn’t want there. She ruined the party, bullied my dd in her own home and made her feel awful. The bullying just got way worse after the party and it all ended very badly. Trust your son and back him up. Show him his feelings come first. And it sounds like this kids mum needs a reality check. I would be honest with her about why he’s not invited.

I think there is a chance that the friendship group might split, the boy might try and turn the others against your son, and he might get accused of bullying by leaving the boy out.

Not saying its the right thing to invite him, sometimes I think a point needs to be made, but I think at 9 I'd be talking through the possible consequences and making sure he understands these before making a final decision.

I'm not sure I'd have the confidence to do this, but think the right thing to do would be to give the mum a heads up and explain the reason, if you're friends

You need to listen to your son, he doesn't want this child there for valid reasons.

Ok, then it's your call really. I personally wouldn't leave someone out at that age, as it's pretty nasty/exclusionary. I'd be more inclined to have a chat with his mum and explain the situation and ask her perhaps to come along too as a "helper" so that she could ensure your child didn't have to deal with any bad behaviour from her child.

I'd ask yourself how would you feel if this child invites 7 out of the 8 friends to his next party and leaves your son, and just your son out...

Listen to your child.

I think you need to listen to your DS.

Have you raised these incidents with the school? Have you spoken to the boys mum about it? As otherwise, it’ll probably come as a shock when he’s the only boy in their group who isn’t invited. I’d also worry, if he’s already cruel to your DS, could he escalate that after being singled out. It’s hard though as I agree with others, if he feels that strongly about him not being there he clearly isn’t a friend to him and shouldn’t go. Really difficult situation, I feel for you OP!
Would you feel comfortable reaching out to his mum about these behaviours at school thus why he’s not been invited?

There’s a girl like this in my daughters class and I Never invite her neither do the other mums, my daughter would hate it

it’s your child’s birthday so they get to choose who comes I’d say x

Does your son understand how the friendship group dynamic might work out if he excludes that one boy? Could that end up doing more harm than good? If that’s a risk I think I’d explain that and err on the side of inviting them all - BUT say to your son that you’ll keep a very close eye on the boy and will make sure your son doesn’t have to be with him in a smaller group at the party or for the food.

My concern otherwise would be that in allowing son to leave the boy out, it would make things much worse for him at school.

If the bully has had his bullying pointed out to him multiple times, his mother will know about it

No invitation can be easily explained

I'm really not sure what the issue is

It’s a hard one but I think u need to go with ur son’s wishes. He trusts you to protect him and he has been confident enough to tell u how he feels.
I think you need to speak to the other mum and maybe explain a bit more and say something liked just now Peter and paul are not getting on so well, and he doesn’t really want to spend any time with him so he has already stated who he wants at him party and unfortunately it doesn’t include ur son.

I'd have absolutely no problem not inviting him. When my dd was 7, she decided she didn't want one kid from her class at her party. All other kids were invited, except this one kid. Be turned up anyway which was a tad awkward...

I think it should be your son's choice. You seem to be more focused on the boy and his mum feeling left out than your son having a less enjoyable birthday. I suspect you don't want the awkwardness of not inviting him?
Which is a legitimate feeling, because it's hard, but you say they haven't got on for several years, so it's not just a passing argument.
What happens every other year? Or does your son not usually have a party?

8/9 is old enough to recognise that the way you treat someone will influence how they treat you in turn. If I knew 100% that this behaviour was happening and had been ongoing for a while, I wouldn't make my child invite them. I might feel bad about leaving them out, but if that kid was consistently unkind to mine he doesn't deserve the invitation.

However, it's also possible it could cause a bigger falling out between the two and there are no guarantees that the other six won't take sides!

So you don’t think your child is being bullied, but at the same time “lives in fear of being laughed at”? Where’s the logic here?

“it's been raised on numerous occasions with him that it's unkind”

Amd yet, he doesn’t stop. Is this really a boy you want to compel your child to have to his party?