to ask why, if it's generally accepted to be the behaviour of a twat, do parents exclude a couple of kids from class parties?

[Chippedrippedandstinking]

Inspired by Lappy's thread, we all agree it's wrong and yet it happens. With flame amnesty, will abuone admit to doing it, and if so, why?
And if it happened to you, did you call the parents on it?

I've only seen it once, the mother was taken aside and an invitation was issued.

While everyone clearly will put their own child's welfare above any other, not giving two hoots about others isn't an ideal attitude either.

The problem with "clear cut reasons" is that it implies that parents are expected to explain and justify their decision-making, that other people are allowed to pick over their decision-making and judge it. Which is unfair - it is nobody else's business why my child has chosen to invite the people he want to his party, I don't want to have to tell you about his bullying in order to justify my decision. You'll just have take it on trust that I am trying to do the best for my child, while minimising the impact on other children if possible.

I forgot to add...
IMO the parents get to be the final arbiter if a child's reason is "good enough". Not somebody who doesn't know my child so well, saying "Ahh, but the bulling isn't that bad", or "maybe the missed out child will feel sadder than you".

STDG - im sorry you went through this,you did not fail, school failed you. Parents of those kids failed you. As i said DD was bullied, and she came out stronger its taken time and effort, but shes back to being confident and happy - helps that BF is 6ft tall ... High School have been swift to stamp out problems and shes worked hard to show her nice aide and not retaliated, although this anger has been shown at home. Junior school was seriously crap. The teachers didnt give a flying fig. Parents didnt believe their darling would ever ... they are now dealing with bigger issues.

sdt just read your post of 1409. You are not a failure, the only failures were the parents of the bullies who brought you to this level.
I also won't say you haven't made mistakes, partly because from a few posts I wouldn't know, but mainly because your a parent and a human and we all make mistakes at times, anyone saying otherwise is lying!

((((hugs)))) for you SDTG. You're a wonderful person with lots of sage advice, and a testament to coming through a bullied childhood/teenage.

I always invited everyone in the class to parties up to 8 yrs, when it became a smaller group of friends, but it was a smaller than average class. Even the ones DS had had disagreements with in the past or whose behaviour I knew would need a bit of extra attention ( always plenty of family members attending so not a problem for me to monitor that myself as the adult they knew).

It's not weird to care about the feelings of the children excluded. It would have to be pretty serious physical bullying for me to have done that and I understand why some parents draw that line.like pp though, I suspect Bullying is used as a bit of an excuse sometimes.

It would never be acceptable for me to exclude a child because their additional needs necessitated a bit of pre planning or tweaks to the organisation of the party.

DS has never been excluded to my knowledge. He excluded himself once, from a 10 yr olds disco party involving two classes. From the day the invite was given the child and her two older cousins used it to piss about, withdrawing it, then giving it back, threatening physical violence if he did attend as he was 'a geek'. DS was very sanguine about it all. I told the Mum I was dreadfully sorry but a diary mix up meant he couldn't attend after all. She believed me, but she wouldn't have believed her darling Dd would have been so nasty. It wasn't a close friendship at all and DS was unbothered by it.

I give many hoots about many children, whether they are BFFs with my DC or not. The child (now 18) who bullied one of my children, however, I couldn't and didn't give a flying fuck about and, to be perfectly honest, they deserve everything they get.

SN or no SN, disability or not, my children have many friends under all 'banners' (clumsy wording, but no offence meant), and it wouldn't occur to me to exclude any single one of them. Ever.

I will exclude any child who makes my child's life hell. Again and again and again.

I have been both sides of this argument. DC 2 is a little different, quite eccentric. Also SN. One appalling afternoon, we went to PizzaExpress straight after school for a treat. Two tables away sat every other girl from DC2's class and one horrible Mum, there for a birthday party nobody had mentioned to my DC. I found my DC sobbing in the toilet, wondering why they could be so horrible.
However, I have had absolutely no problem not inviting rude, bullying children to my children's parties. I do like to encourage good manners, though, and if numbers aren't tight, I encourage the DCs to be inclusive of kids who aren't necessarily their closest friends as I don't like to think of them being left out.

I think it perfectly possible to protect your own child and 'give two hoots about other children' - especially when there is a simple solution.

Evil I've just seen what you said about it mattering more to the mother than the child...I so wish you'd been around to comfort my sobbing SN daughter when she was the only girl excluded, specially in your matter of fact way not

My boy had a party, I invited half the class. I excluded one boy but didn't tell my son because that boy was constantly talking about oral sex, instigating violence 'hey it would be funny if you hit that boy' type stuff and generally had not respect for others as well as some bloody awful language and Ideas about periods and sex in general.

Only one showed up to that party so now we don't bother. My boy has SEN and a few undiagnosed problems (he cannot understand who are friends and who arnt due to his lack of social skills). He doesn't have many friends but isn't a bully (school confirmed this) so generally parents can be complete twats and make assumptions about kids without really knowing anything.

This year he wasn't invited to a single party. in fact he has only ever been invited to 2 parties.

Agree with others, you can really hate a childs behavior whilst still giving 'two hoots' about it.
And of course the kids know they've not been included when it's obviously been done deliberately and all the rest are there.

Mehitabel6 a direct question because you come back to it time and again. My son was leaving the school and the country, His teacher specifically asked me to make sure I invited some of the boys that were not particularly his closest friends because they had been saying how much they were going to miss him and wanted to say goodbuy properly. Those boys feelings are also important, should I have just exluded them so the bullies feelings could be saved? My son wanted to say goodbye to his class, the close friends he will see again and emails daily, so in this circumstance his closer friends were actually less of a priority. Do you still say I shouldn't have just excluded the bully and downsized the party?

There were a handful of occasions where my children were not invited to certain parties and their close friends were. They were a bit upset but shit happens, I didn't make a big deal about it and nor did they. There is a massive difference between your child not being invited because they are not that important for the host and not being invited because the host is a bully. The mother of my sons bully was well known for exluding close friends of her older daughter, leaving the girls (daughters of my close friends) sad and confused. Like they say though, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

In the case of Lappy's thread, that was plain nasty. But where was the fault? With the parent who arranged the party or somewhere else? In circumstances where there is a class event arranged I usually hear aboout it from the one or two people that I am friends with, I will pass on the information to the other people that I am friends with. Social networking usually works like this.

There may be those that are not told via this method. There will be one parent for one reason or another, known only to them, that will not pass it on or bother to say "are you coming?" or "everyone's arranging the party". The fact that they also mention that there is a party though is quite spiteful. In that case that person may in actual fact be the problem person, not the person who arranged the party. If I knew that there was a party that delibrately excluded certain families I would not EVER tell those people of the fact, I probably wouldn't go either as those are not the kind of people I choose to be friends with. Thankfully all my children are at school with other children whose parents are adults too, so that kind of deranged crap doesn't happen.

I'm afraid I agree with Biscetti & EvilTwin x

I do think that is rather different tomato.
It is a one off- and a send off from those who are not particular friends. They wouldn't normally be at a birthday party, but they are class mates and it is a party for classmates not friends. I think in that case you can just exclude and if they feel hurt it can be explained that they never liked your DS anyway so a send off is a bit inappropriate.
My argument is that there is generally a simple solution to a birthday party. You don't have that simple solution.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned my brother who was routinely excluded from parties. In his case the exclusion was part of the bullying he was subjected to throughout his school years. It wasn't the worst part of the bullying but it was very hurtful, and it was unquestionably due to his SN.

One exceptionally charming woman had the nerve to tell my mother that of course she couldn't invite my brother to the party because it would be unfair to the children she had invited. Unfair? WTF? It's true my brother probably wouldn't have joined in all the games, but he would have enjoyed watching. And it would have meant a lot to him just to be included for once.

That happened decades ago and I'd like to think some progress has been made since then, but it seems not much. I do not have a child with SN but from friends' accounts, this sort of thing happens all the time.

I would never hold a party and leave out one child. Not even a bully. If I felt I really couldn't invite a particular child due to his/her behaviour, I would choose a smaller group.

Sometimes it just can't be helped but if it can be helped I don't see why you can't be the bigger person and go for the kinder option. A lot of people are insisting that you must have the whole class party when there is no need because your child would be happier with real friends, and it will save you a lot of money.

"Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or a bit weird" - a rather inflexible attitude.

"I am trying to do the best for my child, while minimising the impact on other children if possible" is the society I'd prefer, over that embodied in the "why should I give a shit about anyone else's child" variety of responses.

Even when that child does not give a shit about mine? Ok lets all be nice to the lovely bullies and they can have their cake and eat it. Whilst everyone else suffers their intolerable indifference.

I agree with you, Mehitabel.

It's my birthday next month. I'm not inviting people to my party who I don't socialise with. Why would I expect my child to do something I would absolutely not do? The "prizes for all" mentality baffles me. How about we let the children have a little autonomy?

I agree that some of the times it's more about the mother's upset rather than the one of the child.

dc2 wasn't upset about the fact his 'friends' decided to not come to his party after all. He was upset he couldn't do said activity. It was easily solved by taking him to another activity he loved.
I was very upset as I saw it as the sign, again, of all the difficulties he has to socialise and how he actually didn't have any friends (or not one who really cares about him).

Again talking in generalities doesn't work.

(I appreciate that some other children will be upset by it though)