To think a whole class except 3 party sends a very pointed message.....

[starterforeight]

I'm trying to get my head round this as it is affecting the way I see someone I know well.

I'd rather not say which part I am currently playing in all of this so as to get a truly non biased opinion.

The children concerned are more than old enough to notice who is and isn't invited to a party and much discussion takes place about who's going, what they're going to wear, what they're going to do.

That's just a bit shitty then if there is no reason to exclude and 21 others are invited.

The numbers were well under the party venue capacity so that wasn't an issue.

Cost constraints.....well, if you're spending say £10 per head or whatever it worked out at would you think it reasonable to say O.K £220 is O.K. but not £250, it just seems highly unlikely (plus, without giving too much info I know for a fact that money was not the cause in this case).

So you think the mother is just being nasty, or what?

Has a reason been given then?

Can you not just give the rough details, this guessing is a bit wearing.

Well it does seem mean on the face of it but perhaps the host has a reason for doing it. Children don't have to be full on bullies to upset eachother. Eg there is a child in ds class who isn't a bully but spends a lot of time telling other kids he can do x or y better than them so dents their confidence and makes them a bit miserable. That sort of thing.

I can only assume the child or his mother have their reasons. There isn't enough here to go on. I can't think of anything.

So you are saying, that you are only inviting if your child has been invited to their party? The party that wasn't a party, just a select gathering of close friends. That is one of the pettiest reasons I think I've seen for exclusion.

I am going to stick my neck and speak from experience. Parties fall away after Y3. Birthdays tend to reduce in size and it becomes a much closer even of four, five, six in a close friendship group.

The only people I have experience of having a full class party after Y3 were those mothers, the full on I-think-I'm-Popular sort of mother.

Ds 1and2 wrote the invitation list for their joint party at 4 and 6. We had a limit on numbers and their list wouldnt have been the list I would have written for either of them but it was their party and their friends.

Maybe, I should have, I honestly had no reason to suspect DDs list wasn't complete.

It's incredibly hard to be the mother of a child who for whatever reason (different interests, ASD ETC) is constantly excluded from whole class parties.

The first one or two you accept, but when you realise your child hasn't been invited to anything for 2.5 years even though they are desperate to try & make friends. It's heartbreaking.

So no, I wouldn't allow my child to do that.

MorrisZapp

What additional details do you need ?

Ds1 was adament and could not be persuaded to invite one boy he is very good friends with. "He is not well behaved at parties and upsets all the girls" I felt awful but thats just one more reason for me to stay well out of it.

If we are not kind to children, how can we expect them to learn how to be kind?

It's a very unpleasant and insensitive thing to do to a child. Even if there is a good reason why 3 particular children can't be invited just have a smaller party so it's not so obvious or pointed.

Where the three exluded children from a different culture/race/religion to the other children?

Seems mean not to invite three children when everyone else is invited. Having been the parent of one of those children (due to SN) I can tell you it might not affect the child but it stays with the parent for many years.

The difficulty is - we can all think of circumstances in which we'd agree with this policy, and other circumstances in which we'd say it was a terrible thing to do.

So... we can talk round it for ages, but that doesn't help anyone to actually know if this person, in this set of circumstances, ought to be applauded, sympathised with, vilifed, or what.

Are the parents all friendly with each other - has there been a falling out? I'm mystified. If there is no bullying or behaviour issues from the three excluded then I just don't understand it.

You've already said it can't be down to finance or numbers.

To summarise

I'm asking "AIBU to think a whole class party bar 3 sends a very pointed message ?"

Extra details 25 in class, no bullying involved, no special needs or disability, children old enough to take it personally, no restriction on venue capacity, no boy/girl divide in the invited or not split and cost not an issue and the excluded 3, along with many others in the class didn't have their own parties this year, perhaps just a treat with best mate(s) but no party with invites given out.

Well it seems as if this is someone you know, and you maybe know why they have done it so just spit it out! What's their reason?

I deliberately left one little girl out of dd's (7) party this year and I know a lot of other parents did too. I don't feel bad and I genuinely hope her mother's got the message now. The girl in question is a nasty piece of work who has made the rounds in that entire class pretty much picking her next victim. The final nail in the coffin for me was watching her physically shove my dd off her own scooter (she landed on the ground and smashed her head against some fencing) and take off with it, scooting right by me and ignoring my calls for her to bring the scooter back. The dislike I feel for that child gives me energy.

No major fall outs

the Op has already said why three are excluded:

The 3 excluded children have not had parties this year, I'm not saying they haven't in the past but not this year, there's a lot less parties when you get older, most of the kids haven't had one this year, just a couple of best friends taken out for a treat type celebrations.

Its a reciprocal thing.

I just had this with DS1's party. There are 23 in his class. Once he'd named off all the people he wanted, I reminded him of a few others whose parties he'd been invited to, and by then we had nearly the whole class (about 19-20). Thankfully we had a class picture so DS could give me the names of the ones I didn't know. If I hadn't had that though, I would have ended up leaving out about 3-4 girls and boys that apparently DS doesn't play with that much. I'm glad we invited everyone, I wouldn't have wanted those few kids to feel deliberately excluded.

Could it be that the parent just didn't have a way of coming up with all the missing names? I was only able to do it with the picture and the knowledge that there were 3 girls with the same first name (just something I remember from day one looking for DS's name on a table!)