To think its pretty poor form, childs party

[Legaldrama]

I'm on the WhatsApp group for ds's nursery class, 16 children. There's been a party today for one of the children that it seems only ds wasn't invited to. The mothers are all sending thanks for a great party etc.

Ds is a sweet boy and plays nicely with the other dc according to his teacher, they run up and hug in thr morning etc, I can't see any reason why he's not been invited.

It stings that they are using the group to share thanks, when ds wasn't invited, surely its more discreet to send individual messages, as the invite wasn't sent on the WhatsApp. I know not all dc can be invited to everything, but to exclude just one seems so mean.

i will sharpen the stick for you op

I literally always check for the very reason that sending a bit of paper home with your kid is 50/50 as to whether it will be received. Can't believe other people don't. How do you know for numbers etc?

Plus I think not RSVP'ing is very rude so if they just haven't bothered to reply, I want to know for future ref.

To be honest if it was just 5 children invited then I would assume your son was purposely excluded. But a big party with invites sent out to 16? That suggests your son was accidentally missed off, as it seems they haven’t been selective with invites and as you say, there’s no reason for your son not to be invited. I would not read into it as a personal slight against you or your kid.

not the same situation but I’ve arranged similar sized parties for adults and it can be easy to accidentally miss someone, especially if they’re not available around the time invites are issued eg if your son was off school that day. Sometimes when planning a party you have so many things on your mind, that it’s easy to not realise that someone hasn’t been invited. You have to put the effort in to be conscientious which hasn’t happened here, but it also doesn’t mean it’s a personal snub against you vs incompetence

You don’t know the child was ‘rejected’ or ‘excluded’, come on. How is your post helping the OP?

Amazing that so many people will jump to the worst possible conclusion, and think ill of people as default.

If the OP’s child is doing fine at nursery and making friends, hasn’t had any reports of bad behaviour from the teachers, and there’s no ill-feeling between the parents, then I’m sorry, but it’s extraordinarily unlikely that he’s been targeted for exclusion and rejection.

It just is.

No parent of small children has the time or inclination for that.

The most obvious conclusion is that an invitation got lost, and/or it was a non-malicious oversight.

Life ticks by far more pleasantly when you don’t spend it thinking the worst of everyone you encounter.

And I bet the people jumping to think the child was deliberately left out, are the same people who think two Mums talking at the school gate are in a clique, gossiping about everyone who walks past……

I definitely wouldn’t send any of the faux ‘bright and breezy’ suggestions. It could not be more clear there’s nothing bright and breezy about them.

For my own sanity I’d err on the side of assuming a miscommunication and carry on as usual.

If I ever caught myself using the phrase ‘king maker’ to describe another child’s parents I’d known I’d lost all sense of perspective.

Maybe your son's invitation (paper) went missing. Don' t make a big thing about it in ear shot of your son.
It would be worth the school advising about how to send out invitations and not have children feel left out and how responding on a whatsapp group is cruel to people who do not attend. The school should be advising personal messaging.

Grow up, OP needs to get a grip, doubt her son even noticed

There are lots of parties happening in schools my child has not been invited to all of them, that is life but it does answer why so many children these days can't cope in life if their parents are this upset over a kids party

Far out it is not all about you or your child

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Or a child forgetting an invitation.

IF it was truly every other child that was invited (and not just the majority)... Yes, that would be incredibly rude.

In the scenario you describe I'd assume that your ds invite got lost. If you are sure everyone got invited. I'd ask a parent you trust for more details or message mum and ask if everything ok between your kids.

I can honestly say that I never gave any thought to the parties that my DC weren’t invited to. I couldn’t tell you if the whole class were invited or a few close friends. If my DC ever mentioned the fact that they weren’t invited I would either explain how sometimes when you have a party there’s only a certain number of invites and it’s difficult but you have to make a decision about who you choose to invite or tell them that we were going to be doing something else and so they couldn’t have made it anyway. I would have thought if your son was invited the rsvp would have been chased, ignore the group chat and move on, personally I would never have challenged a parent for the lack of an invitation. I once specifically didn’t invite one of DDs friends because every party she went to she cried hysterically for her mum to come and pick her up about 30 minutes in and I didn’t want to deal with her at my DD party so when my DD included her on the list of friends that she wanted to invite she was put on the reserve list so if anyone couldn’t attend they were next in line like a subs bench.

Take heart , your kid won’t remember and probably didn’t notice. You won’t be in touch with vast majority of these parents in a few years. And children’s birthday parties are tedious at best.

Thank you all so much for the replies.
Having slept on it, it's not that big of a deal.

DS is blissfully unaware, maybe the invite got lost, maybe she missed him accidentally, maybe she didn't invite him. It's only a little party for a 4 year old, I really need to uninvest.

Last night it just felt a bit stealth, like it had been hushed up and DS excluded, but it in the light of day who would have the energy or time to create exclusivity around a dc's birthday!?

Sorry, I completely disagree - it’s not up to schools to advise on this. We have 54 three/four year old across the week in our pre-school nursery unit. It’s not our job to get involved in birthday parties! And the minute schools start giving advice like this then it becomes our problem because parents come in and complain if another parent chooses not to follow the advice.

DS is blissfully unaware, maybe the invite got lost, maybe she missed him accidentally, maybe she didn't invite him. It's only a little party for a 4 year old, I really need to uninvest.

I’m really glad this is the conclusion you’ve come to. Some of the replies on here seem quite disproportionate to me, no need for it at all.

@CrazyArmadilloLady it's called having empathy with your the OP is currently feeling, maybe you should try developing some? 😊

It's a party for preschoolers. Your child has no idea about it. Don't get your knickers in a twist. If you post any of the passive aggressive 'why didn't you invite my child' messages suggested above you will mark yourself out as hard work and your child will be less likely to be invited to the next party.

The invite may have been lost or you may not have been invited. It doesn't matter, you are not owed an invitation, the only thing that you can do is ignore the messages and carry on as normal. You can't spend the next 15 years holding grudges against parents you hardly know.

I've just scrolled for an update hoping you hadn't taken the advice to reply on Whatsapp with a passive aggressive message, phew, I was so glad to see you decided against it 😊
You're right to just let it go, he's 4, he doesn't realise, there's probably a reason like they missed him off.
You don't want to be "that parent"
Ds would never be invited to any parties again

Just seen your message @Legaldrama , very sensible.

Wise decision OP. Nothing to stop you saying simply "We didn't get an invitation" if anyone asks you why your son wasn't there though - that wouldn't be PA, just truthful. I do hope it was just an error somewhere.

Something similar has happened to us and h agree completely - I'd probably go with a missing invite (not everyone chases) or some other error though as there sounds no reason for your DS to be left out.

It may have been an innocent mistake. I still cringe when I look back to DDs 4th birthday party. I work, so I don’t do all pick ups/drops off (therefore don’t meet all the parents). I asked nursey for a list of the girls, as planned to invite them all. Askes DD for a list (bearing in mind that she wasn’t even 4 at the time) Went ahead with the party. Realised 2 weeks later that we had missed one girl off. One girl that I didn’t know, my DD hadn’t mentioned. I felt awful - as that girl would have known she had been ‘left out’. DD ended up in the same class as her, 5 years on and her mum still has never spoken to me 😳😬

I'd just say to the mum, oh did he have a lovely party? So sorry we didn't come, we must've completely missed the invite! It probably was just a missed invite or the mum forgot to add your son by accident as they are still so tiny.

Your child doesn’t get parties because you don’t want to deal with other grown ups??

Hardly insane and rude?? all the thanks are on the group whatsapp!

If anything OP will look rude if her invitation got lost and she doesn't say anything.