AIBU to cancel after my son was excluded from the after-party?

Just say we can't stay afterwards, we have guests arriving

Even if they don't bring it up

If there were only 2 or 3 boys invited back I wouldn’t be worried but 5 is quite a number!

We are talking about 7 year olds, I think this is very unfriendly and not inclusive. I can understand OP’s concerns. People have no empathy!

It’s also very common to have a birthday party with a few stay for a sleepover after, nothing malicious about that.
don’t stir up issues where there are none.

The more he takes up these invitations, the less likely he is to be bullied.

The 'after-party' is at someone's house and so restricted on space. He should be able to understand this. Don't exclude him further.

Of course it is. There is no intention to emotionally scar any child. The mother was good enough to throw a party to start with, probably costing the guys of 3/4 hundred pounds.

The most likely reason is space. They might have a small house and they don’t want it to be too overcrowded and intense.

If OPs son was the only kid not invited to the after party then yes that would have been mean, but he’s not.

It will be down too something related to the practicality of having more than a certain number back at theirs afterwardsm

Sorry but if you’re a parent who has a party and then a second part of the party where you exclude some kids; you’re pretty horrible.
I really cannot see any justification for orchestrating such a scenario.

I think I’d still let him go to the laser.
These parents sound very mean, as do many of the kids in the group! I’m not sure in the long run I would want this ‘community’ to be one I had in my life really. They’re only 7 yet so much nastiness between the kids…

This happened me. But my DS was invited back but 3 weren't.
It didn't sit right with me.

In the end something happened and there wasn't an after party anyway.

Not sure but parties are hard to navigate and sometimes adults make more of it than the kids.
Good luck with what you decide is right

Similar situation with dd8 a couple of months ago, big party but a sleepover with 4 friends for the birthday girl. Dd understood not everyone can sleep over, we only let her have 3 friends for her birthday sleepover, this was exactly the same. Myself and another mum ended up taking the girls not staying shopping after the day party and back to ours to hang out in the end. It wasn’t a big deal.

edited - I wanted to add some CF parents who never have their shit together decided to invite every child bar 1 from the party to a sleepover the night before the party 3 days before, so all children were exhausted after still being awake at 3am from the impromptu party/sleepover. My DD and the ones not on the sleep over the next night were the only ones who made it to a special school event on the Sunday because all the other kids ( including lead children) where too exhausted.

100%

No, leave your son to enjoy the main party.

He is old enough to understand that sleep overs have fewer people due to space. He's old enough to know that the birthday boy has some friends who are best friends, and many more good friends like himself.

Reality teaches resilience.

Im in a big group of friends where this does happen, especially before a big event where a smaller group will meet up before we all go to a gig/wedding/birthday party. It really doesn’t bother me; I get on well with everyone but I know who I’m closest to and I don’t need an invite to affirm friendships I’ve had for over a decade. If anything, I’m glad to stay out of the politics just comes with some invites!

You can’t be everyone’s best friend. It’s far better you teach your son to appreciate the friendships he has than that it’s all or nothing when it comes to friendship.

He’s been invited to a party, but he’s not a close friend. It’s a shame news has leaked out but you are being ridiculous; this happens a lot and is going to happen again. Are you going to keep him home every time and deny him the party? It’s irrelevant he’d prefer the video games. He’s not invited to that but.

blimey. this really isn't a resilience issue either. he's invited to something and not something else. that's it. your concern over this will rub off on your son and make it into an issue when it is not one.

take him to the do, collect him at the end, ask him if he had a nice time, go home, move on make no fuss, it's totally fine

@76evie wrong thread

Nooo you can’t uninvite him! I would message the Mum along the lines of “I meant to say tell you with the invite that he is the only boy invited from the class, just so he knew it was all girls before accepting/declining the invite. So just checking he is still wanting to come”. You may get lucky and he pulls out. If he doesn’t, I’d be booking the best friend on and having a party of 11

We had this at a girls party one year where 8 were invited and 3 were asked to stay on for a sleepover.
They were about 8.
We didn't do sleepovers at that age and it didn't bother my daughter in the least.
It did upset a couple of girls and i know the other mothers were not impressed.
They all felt the two would have been better not connected.
I didn't comment but I felt for the two girls that felt upset.
There had been a lot of chat during the party about their excitement for the sleepover.
All rather unfortunate and could have avoided by doing it another time.

I hope OP he can plsy some viseo games with his cousins for a treat.

Interesting bullying behaviour amongst the group. I'd probably let him go but tell him he can't do anything afterwards cos we have family round. Just keep an eye on this group, sometimes bullies pull their victim into their group. It makes it easier to bully them....

Personally I wouldn’t sit him down and talk to him about the after party bit at all but be prepared to support him in seeing it’s fine if he brings it up. If he never brings it up he’ll go and have a lovely time at an activity then come home and spend time with relatives. If you preload the disappointment it may well tarnish the party for him. Im sure the parents of the party child will have told the child to be sensitive about dealing with those not invited to the after party and if not then they’ll have to deal with it too. You are seeing this like the birthday boy shouldn’t invite who he wants because one of the children has been unkind to your child. In the nicest way that’s not the way someone else’s party goes. Plus they’re 7 - by the time the party comes they’ll potentially all be friends again. If you really have an issue with one of the boys bullying your child then I presume you have spoken to school about this and it may well stop. The party could enable a better friendship to develop.

if your son does bring it up just say oh yes I’d heard he was having a few back but most people are heading home, they couldn’t have everyone to their house that’s why they picked the lazer party too so everyone could have fun. Then move on.

this is it, we wouldn't feel great with this as adults so why do we expect children to just accept it?

It’s a group of 5 from a group of 14 doing the extra thing. The majority are not going! To cite your example from earlier, if I went out for lunch with 14 others and then 5 of them went off for drinks that really, really wouldn’t bother me at all. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a child to accept that either. I would have expected mine to be able to bounce back from that with a bit of careful framing from me.

As an aside, I loved and cared for my children very much but I didn’t try to shield them from the disappointments that inevitably come from normal life. Because I know from
personal experience that sometimes life gives you very hard, unexpected things to face that are out of your control (in my case a death of a parent as a teenager) and if you don’t have any personal resilience from the ups and downs of life those things are even harder to deal with. Thankfully my adult DC haven’t had to deal with anything similar but they have grown up to be very resilient and resourceful adults. I think a bit of that is down to us helping them to manage negative emotions and situations in a robust way.

Absolutely. No need to make him miss one enjoyable activity because he’s not nvited to another one. It’s not clear who you think would be punished by not letting him attend the laser tag.

There are more kids not invited than invited. There is nothing wrong with this. You need to teach your son that he can't be involved in absolutely everything.

5/8 is MOST ARE
5/14 is MOST AREN'T
It's completely different. Clearly the ones going back are the kid's BEST friends because that is all they can fit in the house.