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

Sounds more like you are jealous on his behalf and want to throw your toys out of the pram by stopping him going at all.
Laser Tag will be much better for him than the desired sitting around playing video games and eating pizza anyway!

Really u fair to make him miss out.
”After party” is adult spin, he won’t call it that. He won’t even find out about it if you don’t tell him.
If he does make light of it. The main thing is he was invited to the main party.

You accepted the party invite or have kept it going until you found out there was a second party. I think kids need to learn they are not always invited to everything.

seems a little odd to not just invite another 3, but there you go, maybe the Mum knows one of the boys is an issue and is keeping numbers down - or they have a small house / personal things going on.

You can say no, but I think it off if only really based on the fact he isn’t going to the second party / if he was invited to the pizza too would you still send him?

Where do you draw the line with that thinking though?

Presumably the birthday boy is in a class of 30 pupils. At least half of them weren't invited to either party. Are the parents cruel for not inviting them too?

In the case of the opening post it's the minority who are going to the boy's house after - the polar opposite of your straw man leaving only one person out without warning and potentially without a way to get home. Fourteen children are invited and only five going back to his afterwards.

The hyperbole and out of context projection is really getting going on this thread.

Nobody (except the mum of the invitee maybe) needs to build resilience, nobody is being excluded, because the majority are going to Lazer tag but not back to his.

Fifteen including birthday child for Lazer tag is a normal number for the activity, but fifteen seven year olds back to the birthday child's house to play video games obviously isn't practical.

The set up is a completely normal way to do an older child's birthday and has been for at least a decade plus - my youngest is fifteen and my oldest twenty two and this style of party was completely normal throughout the time all of them were in the 8-14 is bracket. None of them were traumatised or had to attend resilience workshops, kids are fine with the set-up because they are not the only ones not invited and like to go to the laser tag/ trampoline/ go karting/ whatever bit for friendly "mates" and don't care about the best friends bit after unless it's actually their best friend whose house they're constantly at and vice versa anyway , so they feel comfortable there.

I wonder if the OP felt outraged on behalf of the kids we aren’t invited to any part of the party?

It’s rude. I wouldn’t as an example arrange a trio to the movies with 6 work friends and then tell 1 of them at the end.. You’ll have to make your own way home Sandra we’re all of for drinks because that would obviously upset Sandra.

I can’t stand it, adults teaching kids to be mean girls dressed up as resilience building.. All good until it’s there child on the receiving end.

The fact that it would bother you to that extent as an adult suggests that you didn’t have the chance to build up your own resilience.

You can’t force someone to include a person in an event, I think that’s messed up. It isn’t the OP’s son’s birthday, when it is I’m sure he will be allowed to celebrate it how he likes.

It’s only hurtful if he sees it as that. OP clearly has unresolved issues from her own life but resilience is being able to deal with the fact that not everyone will like you or include you.

I can’t believe some people are suggesting speaking to the mother.

Not everything has to be a rejection - friendships should be a positive thing but teaching your kids to not be needy is a massive service to them as they get older.

And I think almost every single parent has had a similar situation where their child is disappointed not to have been invited somewhere, invitations have gone out in playground and they haven’t received, they think they are good friends with Freddie but turns out Freddie doesn’t think so. It’s not an unusual situation, it’s a pretty ubiquitous childhood experience, so trying to avoid it isn’t really going to help. You’re just kicking the can down the road.

Approach it with a positive mindset (and that will also influence how your child perceives it). He’s been invited to a party, he will get to play and enjoy time with his peers, he has been included. Don’t focus on what he hasn’t been included in. That sort of negative thinking can spill over into everything, and a positive perspective helps to build strong, resilient children. Instead of ‘It’s awful he has been left out of this second part’ reframe it as ‘It’s great that he’s been invited to a party when he’s been struggling socially’.

I don’t want to bang on about ‘power perspectives’ as it sounds a bit crunchy and woo but I genuinely do think that the way parents view and frame these things matters so much with a young child. He will take his lead from you.

This is a very good post. I think some people are so, I guess almost scared, of their child being upset or sad that they will go to extreme lengths to prevent it, believing that it’s the best thing for their child. But it’s okay to be sad and upset sometimes, that’s part of life, and the resilience part is not by telling them to get over it and ignoring it, but by supporting them through the upsetting stuff, not avoiding it.

We all have disappointments in life, feel left out, don’t get to do X, Y or Z when others are, but the way to build a kind of ‘power’ perspective where these things don’t affect us other than fleetingly is to work through these things, not to avoid them happening entirely because then when they inevitably do happen when it’s something you can’t control, your child isn’t properly equipped to deal with it.

"We wouldn't feel great with this as adults so why do we expect children to just accept it"

Well, precisely because they are children, and this is all part of learning to take the rough with the smooth in friendships. It sounds like OP is very invested in managing DS's relationships. He's 7. Nobody gets invited to everything. Mum sticking her oar in, however subtly she's doing it, makes it worse because it tells DS that he's someone who has to be protected and rescued. By Mum.

OP mentions 'just brushing it off' several times, as if she actually thinks that this is unhelpful and the lazy way out. I wonder if that's what happened to her as a child, and she wished an adult / Mum had intervened. It would explain the strength of her feelings. But really, it's only a 'difficult' situation for DS if the adults make it so.

On an unrelated point - talk of little kids having after parties, like some kind of rap star with their entourage, makes me cringe!

Exactly and this is why you know how the obnoxious teens that merrily exclude do this because their parents are happy to endorse this poor hosting.

I wouldn't cancel the main party because of something that might happen afterwards. He may never even know about the pizza and gaming unless it's made into a big deal, and I'd hate for him to miss out on the fun part as well.
If he does find out and is upset, I'd acknowledge that it hurts rather than trying to explain it away. Being left out is genuinely painful, especially when he's already had a difficult time with bullying and his confidence is low.
I'd also be careful about shielding him by inventing another reason not to go. That may avoid one disappointment this weekend, but it also means he misses an invitation he did receive, and it doesn't really solve the underlying issue. He needs his resilience building up - that in and of it's self is a painful process but worth it because when he reaches adulthood he will face these situations with confidence.
If you're worried because of the bullying, that's a separate consideration. If you think he'll be unsafe or deliberately made to feel unwelcome at the main party, then that's a different conversation and I would not bring him. But if the laser tag party itself is likely to be enjoyable, I'd let him go and make some nice plans afterwards with your visiting relatives so he has something to look forward to.
Your instinct to protect him is completely understandable. I'd focus on helping him build resilience with 1-2-1 encounters rather than in groups initially, while making sure he knows that being quieter doesn't make him any less worthy of friendship. Hopefully he'll have a good time at the main party, and this won't end up being as significant as you're fearing.
As for parents who invite some kids and not others, at that age <10 when their egos are still so fragile, I had an everyone or no one rule because I detest teaching my children how to exclude others. If space was an issue the party was every 2nd year instead of annually, that way we could hire a hall or whatever. My now adult children learned to treat people with kindness, equally and get along even if they didn't want to - a key lesson in life. They are now very well adjusted and well liked adults. Parental 3-dimensional social chess is not something I respect. Be nice but make a mental note of the chess players amongst the adult group, and stick to your own philosophy on how to treat others - it will never be wasted on your DS. The parent group you find yourself in will change and wither with time, but how and what you teach your son today will have a lasting impact. Hugs OP x

It seems to me there’s a lot of posters on here who don’t really understand what resilience is and how it’s built over time!

Resilience is not:

Not being upset by someone’s actions
Not caring about an outcome
Accepting bullying behaviour
Pretending you don’t care when you do
Accepting ‘just get over it’ when a negative situation occurs

Resilience is:

Recognising that life often doesn’t go the way we’d ideally like it to.

Accepting that we can’t control what others will do or say

Understanding (with help from an adult initially) what is a major setback that needs addressing separately and what is a minor setback that can be overcome with suitable scaffolding.

Recognising that we might feel upset or hurt by a certain set of circumstances

Being able to move on and bounce back after expressing those emotions, knowing that you are strong enough to weather a minor setback.

Resilience is built over time by parents who wisely shield their children from things like bullying and abuse and who wisely and carefully allow their children to experience minor disappointments and setbacks. The latter need to be modelled by parents as something they also experience and weather and then when it happens to their children, talked through and given tools to cope and overcome.

Also to say this isn’t a bullying situation (although I agree the bullying needs to be addressed). The birthday child isn’t doing the bullying and the lack of invitation to the after party isn’t an example of bullying. It’s a very normal part of life and something that will happen again (friends being invited to something that he is not) and so needs dealing with in a way that builds self confidence not in a way that disempowers him.

Lots of people do this for girls; it ends up being a party, then a sleepover. Sometimes my daughter will be part of it, sometimes not, depending on how close she is to the child. Your son will already know this is happening, as kids are not subtle. If you pull out now, then he probably won't get invited to things in the future. It's so natural to worry about our kids but they do learn through experiences , even difficult ones.

Well the hosts are being a bit crass to separate the guests into two tiers like that, but perhaps they just have a lot on and didn't think it through. There's no need to turn it into a big deal and make him feel worse.
I'd take your son to the bit he is invited to, so he can have fun with his friends and tell him you both have to get home for cake and fun with the relatives - maybe taking him to the supermarket to help choose a cake or nibbles, so he's looking forward to that too.

I would let son go to the party, he isn't the only one not going to the after party. If particularly worried organise something for after that means your son couldn't go to after party anyway.

The best way to tackle bullying is to build friendships.
14 have been invited, suggesting there are children in the class who have not been invited to any of it. Costs and logistics for the parents likely mean the birthday boy had to choose, and he chose your son. That's really positive.
Having a smaller group at home afterwards is very normal. I wouldn't want 14 children either. 9 children are not being bullied in this scenario. They are being given the opportunity to have a fun event with schoolfriends.
Buy a gift, let him go, and at the end he can wave goodbye with all the other children who are leaving the same as him. And he will have a shared experience to talk about with them at school.
Hope he has a wonderful time.

Can people please read up on what resilience means - it does not mean accepting that hurtful things are OK (to paragraph a PP).

Being left out of the second (better) part of the party is hurtful. I'm not sure what all this talk of resilience is about. Teaching someone to not be hurt by something that is hurtful? People can't learn to find hurtful things un-hurtful. They can only learn how to behave publicly in a situation like this.
If he's already a quiet character and this will knock his confidence further, I'd cancel and hope he never finds out that he wasn't invited to both parts.

I've not passed judgment either way on whether the parents should have arranged a sleepover after the party with a smaller group. I was responding to your comment that "He’s 7, he doesn’t need to learn resilience yet" because that's simply not true.

OP cannot change the fact that the sleepover is happening and her son hasn't been invited. But she can control how she chooses to respond to it.

I think this is a really helpful post. Building resilience is so very important from a very young age but I think many people think it is about being told to just get on with it and it isn’t - it’s exactly as this poster has described. We are doing our young people a huge disservice by never allowing them to meet any adversity, hurt, upset and jumping in constantly to solve things for them. We need to help them meet these things, deal with their feelings and move on positively - that is what helps them become well rounded adults who are able to deal with things effectively and positively as they are going to have to. It sounds like the Op has come to a sensible conclusion but blowing this normal, (certainly not bullying) situation out of proportion does our young people no good whatsoever.

I disagree with you. In this situation I think it was twat behaviour on the parents part fir arranging two events on the same day knowing that some where excluded.
My children are adults now and there seems to be a different attitude towards excluding children now compared to twenty years ago. I find it really quite mean and I’d want to shield my child where I could.
You don’t have to agree with me but that is my opinion.