B-day party: Should the rude and hissing little girl be invited or exculded from the rest of the class?

[TigerDad]

Good day.
My wife and I need your opinion. Our daughter will be 8yrs old soon and we are planning a party, after skipping one last year. It will be at a well known London landmark, and we want it to go well and for our daughter and the other children to be happy.
We know that at my daughter's school all the classmates receive invitations to parties, and no one is excluded. This time however, my wife wants to exclude one girl in the class as she is a really irrating, rude, and insulting to our daughter, and to top it off, she hisses at her and my wife. The little girl in question is awful, and her parents are just as hideous.
My wife realizes that it is not generally acceptable to exclude a child, and she repeatedly reminds our daughter to just ignore the other little girl and to rise above it, but she feels that for our daughter's party she doesn't want the stress and negativity on the day. My wife is a bit fed up with always looking away from those that upset our daughter. I can see her point, but I feel if we don't invite the other little girl it will go around the (small) school and it will become 'an issue' and irrate the other parents at the school.
What do you recommend?
I think we should invite her, but just maybe ignore her! I have to say we hate all this pithy school stuff, but real life means you have to think about it.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Thank you.

[privategodfrey]

I was thinking London Eye :-) but that would cost a fecking fortune if you were taking a class full of children

[melpomene]

"Fecking fortune" is an understatement for the London Eye. If someone was planning taking a class of 30 children, according to this the price would work out at £1080 (including necessary accompanying adults).

[StayingDavidTennantsGirl]

I would probably only invite a small group of the child's friends. Not only do you eliminate the whole-class-party = inviting-irritating-child problem, but you end up with a much smaller group to marshal round central London.

Frankly I have taken my three dses to London, and that was difficult enough - the thought of voluntarily adding a load of other people's children (however unhissy and nice) and having to shepherd them all around, without losing any of them, is enough to turn my hair white overnight!

[sunnydelight]

I'm with everyone else - make it a smaller group. I can totally sympathise with not wanting to invite a vile kid who doesn't treat your DD well, but I don't think I could ever bring myself to just exclude one person from a whole class invite, no matter how vile!

DD had an 8th birthday party recently. The last party we did (6th) we did invite all the girls in the class, this time it was about half which now seems to be the norm. That way the birthday child can invite the people they really want but not cause an international incident at school!

[iscream]

Good idea to break that "whole class party" tradition. The other parents will thank you!
Hope your daughter has a nice birthday.

[mrsgetonwithit]

Whole class parties stop at 5yrs old! After that it is ONLY special friends end of!


UM No it don't.

At 1,2,3 they don't even realise what is going on.

4 and 5 on onwards they are well aware.

Why stop at 5?

My son [9] does not have just one, or two friends he plays with most of the kids in his class at some point.

He would agonize on who to leave out.

Invite the whole lot

[exoticfruits]

I don't even know why whole class parties even start at 5 yrs-mad!

[mrsgetonwithit]

ha ha

They started a toddlers group for us.

30 odd kids from the toddlers group at two years old..

Great fun.

[Inertia]

Just invite a few close friends. If anybody gets shirty about it not being the whole class, just explain that you can only afford/ accommodate/ supervise a few children. Don't invite everyone except this girl, that's just spiteful; also, it would be unfair to invite her and put her in a situation she can't cope with. Do you know why this girl behaves in this way? Some children do just behave badly at times, but there may be other issues that you aren't aware of.

[pigletmania]

melpone the op might be one of those wealthy types who dont mind paying shedloads for their little darlings,you never know

[Ripeberry]

Mrs Getonwithit, they should stop at 5yrs old as after that kids make their own friendships and by 7yrs old, boys start to hate girls

[Pagwatch]

Oh bloody Nora.
No , whole class parties don't have to stop at 5
Yes, an 8 year old can be friends with her whole class
No, having a whole class party does not mean that you expect anyone ekes to do the same.

[Pagwatch]

Oh and
No. Having a whole class party does not mean there will be a problem re boys. Some whole classes don't have any boys. Some have no girls

[shushpenfold]

Downsize the party..invite 3 friends and make it a very enjoyable foursome for your dd (and yourselves!) Having said that, I have had a joint party (6th) for my ds with a class mates mum and we didn't invite one of the class - the bully who at every other party had taken every ounce of the adult/entertainers patience and effectively ruined it. Nothing was said by any other adult or the mum of the boy concerned - she was lovely, but her son a prize delight. I probably wouldn't do it again though and hence my suggestion above......I def. WOULD NOT invite her though and find a way to avoid having to.

[NearlySpring]

I wouldn't invite a child that was rude and disliked and is disliked by the birthday child. We are talking 8 yr olds here not toddlers.

I wouldn't invite her. Not a chance. I wouldn't let her spoil the party and neither would I let her behaviour stop me from inviting the rest of the class either.

If she behaves in such a disgusting way then she cannot expect to be invited to parties. She will quickly learn that being horrible to other people means they will dislike you.

Why would a child "hiss" do you mean like a cats hiss????

[mrsgetonwithit]

7 YEAR OLD BOYS HATE GIRLS, don't think so not here.

they are all hanging out together all through school and secondary school.

what a weird thing to say.

.

[MCos]

No way can you invite the entire class and omit one, no matter how awful she is. That would be mean. It would also reflect badly on your DD, and prehaps cause her some problems at school, as kids have a stong feelings concerning unfairness.

Either invite her, and keep an eye on her behavior. Or invite a smaller group of selected friends. If you are first family to go with the smaller group for birthday party, other families will probably be happy to follow you. This will probably happen naturally later this year/next year anyway.

[breathing]

We have whole class parties. Whats the problem?

[ArfurBrain]

please don't invite everyone except one, no matter how unpleasant you find her.
Maybe you could just invite a few of your daughter's particular friends. That is more 'normal' at 8. By that age, no-one expects everyone to go to a party.

[weegiemum]

We've alawys worked on (roughly) the birthday child + same number of children as new age forrmula.

My closest in age to this situation was my ds who was recently, therefore he could invite 9 friends.

He chose:

His friend over the road who he plays football with after school
2 friends from cubs
4 friends from his class (3 boys 1 girl)
2 friends from the other primary 4 class (1 boy 1 girl)
1 friend who was in his class last year who has gone to a special school for ASD.

He got grief at school from one boy in his class who wasn't invited but as this boy spent 2 years making my ds's life a misery (big old bully) ds said to him "oh I just didn't want to invite you" and walked away.

You know what I liked? That he had friends at all the different activities he does (friends from school are also football training friends) and was able to choose such a nice selection of people - including girls!

We had lego making competitions, drawing competitions and played Mariokart!

THhe only whole class party we ever did was when dd1 was in p1, we lived in a rural area and there were only 8 people in her class!

[MCos]

Wow Ripeberry! Doesn't hold across the board.
My DDs, 9 and 7 are quiet friendly with the boys in their class. There are some boys that they don't particularly get on with, but others whose company they really enjoy. Both still attend some full class parties, and the boys and girls have excellent fun playing chase games, etc.

[MCos]

Weegiemum, I like the sound of how you do it.

[RunAwayWife]

I would leave her out, why would you invite a child that is nasty to your DD? If she is upset at being let out then so be it

[MrsSchadenfreude]

I have invited the PITA child. Stick to them like glue, find them "special jobs" to do (helping organise games always goes down well), sit them near the birthday child. If they feel special, or just very much included, they are unlikely to play up. But if they do, just make sure that they win pass the parcel. We always used to do this last, and the prize was always a drum, recorder or other noisy musical instrument, which was won by the worst behaved child. Child delighted, revenge on mother for badly behaved child, job done.