To not want to invite this boy to my son's party?

[ziggiestardust]

Mumsnet regular; name changed after a long break.

This is such a worry for me, I'm desperate to not do the wrong thing.

My son's 3rd birthday is a couple of weeks away, and I'm looking at sending the invites shortly. He goes to nursery and I'm inviting a couple of children from there, as well as some family children and some friends from baby groups we've kept in touch with; so a mixed group.

At nursery, there is a little boy whose mum I'm really friendly with and we get on well. However, over the past year it's become more apparent that the friendship between our sons is a little one sided. This other boy pushed my son around a bit; we had a couple of minor incidents. DS would come home and say 'X pushed me today' or 'X scratched me today' about once a week at one point. I raised it with the nursery, and they kept a closer eye on the situation and it subsided a bit. A few weeks later; DS came home with bruises and marks on his face. It turned out that this other boy had pushed him to the ground, and held him down whilst he bit and scratched his face. It was quite nasty and there was a puncture style wound under DS' eye from the other boys' teeth, which bruised and swelled

The situation was dealt with well by the nursery, although I was quite upset.

Now, we were invited to this boy's party a few weeks later. We did go (like I said; I'm friendly with the mum and didn't want to let her down), but her son still hit mine over the head with a toy repeatedly until I grabbed my boy away and we left shortly after.

I have cooled the friendship a little, if I'm honest. My son ends up getting hit by this other boy every time we meet, it seems.

Can I get away with not inviting this boy to my son's party? I don't want to come across as nasty! But it's my son's party, and DH is adamant that this other boy isn't coming and we need to protect our son from another child who has a tendency to bully other kids.

But how can I deal with this sensitively? What happens if the boy's mum asks me why her son isn't invited?

in advance

I think if you don't invite him, then you should level with your friend and tell her why. Any crap about just having a small party will come back to bite you on the ass, if you'll pardon the metaphor.

What does your DS say, by the way? Does he like the child or would he prefer not to have him at his party?

Thanks for all the replies; I'm ever so grateful!!

I was edging towards having the party anyway, and not inviting the other boy if I'm honest. I will be on edge the entire time if he's there, and DH is firmly on the other side of the fence saying we need to protect DS on his birthday; so I doubt I'd have much support from him if I invited this boy.

I think perhaps I should come clean to her, but I'm just not really sure it's my place. Surely the nursery should've made her aware anyway that there's an issue, and telling her that's why I don't want to invite her DS is just going to make her feel shitty isn't it?

I think what makes it harder is that DS doesn't hit back or defend himself. If he gave as good as he got; I'd be less bothered. I just don't think it enters into his head at the time, because he's busy trying to run away. Later on he'll say 'I should say stop/noX! When x pushes me.' But that will be a few hours down the line.

At this age I think yabu. When my dd was 2 & 1/2 she constantly accused this one little boy of pushing her over, in fact- (according to nursery and my own guesses) it happened once. But my dd was hooked on the idea. In fact they actually played a lot together in nursery, so there was no reason not to invite him. At this age kids bite, scratch and push to get their own way, obviously an issue that needs correcting, but its not because they like or dislike the other really.
It's your decision though.

I don't think you should invite the other boy, but I do think you should talk to his mum about the hitting.

Nursery do tell you when a child has been hit but they're not supposed to identify the child, and vice versa. She might not know it's always your son.

I had twin biters which wasn't nice, they did eventually grow out of it!

Roxy - come to think of it, there was one girl in pre-school that if DTS2 was to be believed, was pushing him over every day!

She did it once, if that. He never had any injuries though (aside from the skinned knees from running around of course!)

As your kids get older, you'll find that the problematic child is a changeling, one day it's your kid, another day it's another kid. Maybe it won't change by the day, but it will by the month. Very few of them are actual bullies (I understand you're not labeling him as such).

If you don't invite this kid, the friendship with the mom will be off.

If your husband is anything like mine, he doesn't understand the delicate nature of friendships forged at the school gates. I wouldn't count on him to understand what's at stake (what is at stake? how good of friends are you?)

Yes they don't identify the victim to me, or tell the mum always which child it was.. She might be unaware of all the nursery incidents.

I'm a big fan of the truth I'm afraid. Regardless of the party I would approach the mum and say, "look, x seems to keep hurting DS- not sure why, can you have a word with him?, sorry."

When my kids were 3 and I caught them whacking other kids I dealt with it extremely firmly to stop it happening EVER again, and I apologised profusely to the other parent. But my children were repeatedly smacked nd punched and pushed over by other kids while their parents shrugged and said 'boys will be boys'. Discipline your kids!! If a 3 yr old gets away with it then he'll still be doing it at 10!

No way would i invite a child who physically attacks mine to his own birthday party. You don't owe the mother any explanation, it's unlikely she'll ask why and if she does then you simply say your child chose his own guests, no need for it to affect your friendship.
I save up all year to give DS a party and he gets to invite 12 children as that is all i can afford so you can always use that excuse if you don't want to tell her the truth. I've never had a mother ask me why their child wasn't invited and i'd think it a bit rude if they did ask tbh.
At 3 his friendships will change with the wind anyway.

"is just going to make her feel shitty isn't it?"

Less shitty, I would say, than telling her it was just a small gathering and then her finding out from Facebook or at the village shop that it was in fact a proper party and her DS wasn't invited. She'll be aware of the issues between the boys and will be able to see your POV, if she's any kind of friend worth having. I'd broach it by saying that you're really sorry, but in view of past events your DS has quite understandably said he doesn't want him to come to his party and you and DH both feel he shouldn't spend his party worrying about being attacked; and perhaps it's best to see each other without the boys for a while as it's probably something her DS will grow out of, etc etc.

Or could you perhaps compromise and invite her to the party on the proviso that she watch her son like a hawk and intervene at the first sign of trouble? Either way, I think you're going to have to talk to her about this if you want to keep the friendship.

Incidentally, after the unprovoked attack at her son's party, did she ring to check your son was OK? Because she will surely realise that that's why you left early and it would be a pink flag for me if she didn't follow it up.

I was in the same predicament as OP a few months ago, although my friends little boy was a personal friend and not a nursery friend.

First two hours of the party went fantastic until the little boy (tired?) sunk his teeth into another child's face (not the first time) and bit another's finger whilst my friend (obviously embarrassed) says to bitten child's mother "he never does that!" And pacified the biter with a pack of haribo

He had previously bitten my 11mo, the bitten child a few times but never my 3yo as i assume he knows 3yo would react.

The friendship came to a halt after this as i realised that Biters mother didnt care about endangering my or others children and i needed to protect them. We had a very good friendship before this but, i realised our parenting styles were completely out of sync and didnt want my children seeing biting being rewarded!

Hope your party goes well!

Another point- some posters are saying that their children are exaggerating incidents at nursery ( x keeps pushing me over, when it only happened once). Who says it only happened once? Nursery? When I used to help out at nursery almost none of the pushing over/ punching incidents were reported to parents, and a lot of it was unnoticed by staff, even in a small well run nursery! So the child MIGHT be exaggerating. Or they might not.

I think nursery told me every squabble id be sick of it,they only tell me if its recorded in the accident book..I know that they will have fall out.Dont all kids?thankfully we have only had one time when my ds was the pusher!I think if its a regular incident of causing hurt they need some proper one to one time of learning that its not acceptable.Id probably say leys do a play date with the two kids and monitor behaviour closely and intervene

I wouldn't invite him OP but I would be honest with her about why.

When DS started school last year he made a friend the same age. They are actually about a week apart in age and were almost three and a half when they started school.

I got friendly with the boys Mum so we spent a lot of time together and would go to each others houses some days after picking up the boys so they could have lunch together and play for a bit.

And every single time we did, her son would hurt mine. Hitting him with toys, jabbing him with a plastic plate, stabbing him in the face with a fork, locking him in the kitchen by closing the baby gate they used for the dog, locking him in a bedroom to stop him going to the toilet.

DS started to refuse to play upstairs with him because he was hurting him every time they were out of our sight.

And this boy started to say things like "if you come upstairs I've got some sweeties up there" so DS would go and then be straight back down because there weren't any sweets but this boy had tried to hurt him again.

The time he stabbed DS with the fork and DS started crying, he started to shout "silence!" at him over and over so everyone thought DS was crying because his friend was shouting. It wasn't until later that we realised he had actually physically hurt him.

I think that even at age three, this shows some sort of awareness that he knew what he was doing and some level of planning to do it. Most of what happened was out of sight of any adults and to try and trick DS into going upstairs so he could hit him without being seen is just too much to put down to his age and not knowing any better. His age doesn't matter because he did know what he was doing and was obviously old enough to try and be clever about it to avoid being seeing.

When I realised the extent of it all we stopped accepting invites to their house and stopped inviting them to ours. He may grow out of it, I hope he does, but I wasn't prepared to let DS be his punchbag until that happened, especially as his mother used to all but ignore it or give him a token "no, that's naughty, say sorry" but then comfort him because he was upset she had said no to him.

What a difficult situation. Has your friend never mentioned the problem she has with her son hitting etc? When my DD went through a hitting phase at about 3 ( now a perfectly fine 15 yr old!) I was devastated when nursery told me he had hurt one of his friends. I watched him like a hawk when we went to groups or socialized with other children. I also talked to my friends about it which really helped - especially as it showed we were not ignoring the problem. It sounds like your friend has witnessed it herself - maybe you could meet for coffee without the children and see if you can bring the conversation around to his behaviour - if it is so bad she may well be desperate to talk about it. I know how much I appreciated talking to other ( non judgemental) mums.

DS not DD

I think the problems arise when the mums don't handle it as people expect. If my DS was around someone's house and he started hitting he would be taken home - and has been. If people feel confident your handling it and not letting it escalate then they are usually ok.

I agree with talking too, I say to people I've had issues with hitting and please if they see anything tell me or I give permission to deal with it in a pre agreed way if I'm making coffee etc.

He very rarely gets a hit in now.

I wouldn't invite him, it would ruin the party for your DS if he's scared of this boy. I'd send a message to your friend, something a bit blunt, but not too harsh, like 'Please don't be offended that I haven't invited X - he and DS don't seem to be getting along at the moment, so I thought it might be better for them to have some time apart. I'm sure once X is over the biting phase they'll be best of friends again! It'd be great to catch up with you soon, maybe the two of us could go for a coffee next week?'

Is it really possible that friend has no idea her DS is rough with other kids?

Is she a bit head in the sand about her DS, or is it that your parenting styles just very different and she is a 'boys will be boys, let them thrash it out' kind of parent?

I've read the thread OP and just cant get any feel of what this friend thinks of her sons behaviour - or would think if she knew about it. If we knew this it would be easier to advise. If you're such good friends with her you must have an inkling about how she'd react.

On the face of what we know i think the boy should not be invited to the party.

It seems the mother has no idea that you have an issue with her son, either because no-one's pointed it out or because she refuses to see it, and unless there's time to bring it up with her before the party and make sure it doesn't happen again then it's not fair to your boy.

Your son is more important than a school gate friendship.

harold i think your attitude is exemplary :)

I'd just say, 'x his having a party but we're really limited on numbers so just inviting a couple of his best nursery friends and family etc.' then maybe suggest a meet up in the park or something to mark your DSs birthday with them and that way it won't be so intense and you'll be able to intervene easily if an in extent does occur.

*incedent

Harri that's a great idea!