Child excluded from party

[Winterdaisy]

I know this is a common problem but I need to know what to do about it.
My son appears to have been excluded from a 8th birthday party that every other boy in his class attended today. Photos on Facebook.
He says he was not invited as my first thought was he had not passed on the invite to me. He is at a small village school with only one class per year.
My son does seem to have had some friends issues lately and has gone from being in the thick of playing it to hanging out with one other boy (they are both academic geek types) talking mine craft when I drop him off at school.
So would I be unreasonable to talk to teacher and find out what is going on and if he is excluded for a reason ? He can be boisterous and can be a bit too clever at times, may have upset other children ☹️
Or do I just keep out? I have no intention of asking the mother as she is very nice and would hate to embarrass her, or myself if it's because my child has been horrid to hers.

Maryz - what you have written is clear, articulate and makes a lot of sense. Children do learn by modelling and I agree that just as smacking a child who hits is absurd, excluding a child who excludes is modelling the behaviour you want to change not reinforce. I get that completely. And I think you have been gracious in your responses

Outymcoutymyself - I can not imagine the pain that your child (and yourself) have gone through.

On a personal note, I would never expect or encourage my young child to spend time with people who have harmed them. So I would encourage a smaller gathering. In my experience, children rarely play with "the whole class" any way.

I think this thread has gone off topic massively. The OPs child is little boy who is a little boastful sometimes - he is not what I would personally describe as a bully. Like I said in a previous thread - having worked with kids I hear them saying things like this to each other ALL the time. Usually it is pertaining to football, or running or minecraft - and that is usually ok, but woe betide the child who says he's better at maths. No one likes a clever clogs but a show-off footie player is just fine!

Bollocks to having to invite everyone, regardless of whether they bully you or not. Completely with Nancy on this one.
There was one girl at school that was intent on trying to make my life a misery. No way on this EARTH would I have wanted the little cow at my birthday. I'd have been upset if my mum had insisted on inviting her, too.
Luckily all this invite the whole class ridiculousness wasn't really a thing back in the 80s. You just invited your closest friends.
I don't get the whole being upset if your child hasn't been invited to a party thing. Sometimes that's life. You can't be invited to everything. Mine love parties, obviously, but don't mind if they don't get invited.
As I've always taught them that sometimes they won't always get invited to everywhere, as it could be due to numbers or other factors.

Again as I said up thread I'm with Maryz.

It's a very emotive subject particularly when your child is hurting .

The reality is that often the child "aggressor" is hurting too.

I'm a mental health nurse who worked in Camhs PDA certainly exists - those children iv met with PDA have been some of the saddest ive met . To the point of suicidal thinking .

I certainly would not want to trivialise any other parents pain but life is not black or white.

No child starts off the day with the thought in their head that today they want to make another child unhappy.

And actually people DO need to give consideration as to why a child might be acting out -

It's called gaining an understanding . A skill that is vital to hand on to our children in order to help them successfully negotiate day to day life.

I agree 100% with Maryz's posts on this thread. The glee with which some people exclude children from birthday parties is enough to make one weep. I have an elder brother who is on the autism spectrum, though he had no diagnosis during his childhood and was simply considered "weird" or "different." A kinder, more loyal person it would be difficult to find. But he was routinely ignored and excluded. He never received a single party invitation (or indeed, an invitation to play at another child's house). The other children's parents no doubt felt fully justified in leaving him out. After all, he was a quiet child who had difficulty making conversation and sometimes laughed too loudly or randomly quoted from the books he was reading. Why would they want to include him? He made their poor little darlings uncomfortable, apparently. It still infuriates me that this sort of constant exclusion was tolerated by the school and justified by the other parents. They should all be ashamed of themselves. As should the parents who excluded the OP's child.

outy... The plain facts of the matter are that there is noting you could - or should - do to make things better with THIS child and it is not your responsibility to do that AT ALL.

I too think that Maryz has got inadvertently caught up in your anguish and her posts are really not directed at the ordeal that your daughter has been through but the sort of bullying (pushing/shoving/name-calling) that most of us encounter. What happened to your daughter (and by default to you) is SO horrific that it's difficult to imagine what it must be like for you both to live with on a day to day basis and it bears no relation to what this thread is really about because it reads like this:

Child A: Pushes in, boasts and belittles school pupils, is a bit mean and won't share now and again and directs this at smaller, younger, weaker pupils who can stand up for themselves.

Child B: From an extremely young age, wilfully and intentionally targets ONE particular child and engages in a one-sided war of terror on that child with acts of verbal and physical violence to such a degree that the victim feels entirely helpless and absolutely believes that Child B wishes her to die.

.
Most of us, if we have come across bullying never experience or meet a Child B in our lifetime and thank god we don't. Your daughter is a victim of Child B and there was NOTHING that either you nor she could have done differently, to avoid that monstrous and psychotic behaviour.

I believe that there are children in the world like Child B, I really do. They are psychopaths who need expert intervention and specialist skills to rehabilitate them. They are so far from the party invitation scenario as to make a mockery of the suggestion.

I apologise to you myself if you didn't feel listened to by my own posts. I've re-read the thread and your posts are full of horror in describing what your daughter went through. I don't think any of us here are equipped to really delve into this to help you and truly, I don't believe that Maryz has posted with the meaning that you are giving her posts. I've re-read them carefully and the points that are so clear to you as making you responsible for this child, are just not evident to me at all. It's a nightmarish situation that is becoming heightened by what is really a simple and far more benign situation for the rest of us.

I really hope that you will not be offended by most post here, outy, it really isn't intended to diminish or deflect from your daughter's ordeal at all. It's just meant to say, in a nutshell, that the mythical child being discussed throughout the thread is more or less, Child A; most of us will never know any different and have posted accordingly.

I'm so, SO sorry for you and your daughter.

There seems to be a tendency on MN to name a child a bully in reception My dd has been hit with fists, had mud throw at her, pulled to the ground, had her lunch thrown on the floor, had a pencil scratched down her arm, hit on the head with fists & a book, been bitten, pushed over, pushed around (all multiple times)...by a 5/6yr old who was a reception pupil. Almost every day FOR A YEAR we would have "X did Y to me" But that isn't a bully, no? I beg to differ.

Oh & get this....my dd was told by her teacher that it wasn't my daughter's job to tell ME what X had done to her, because it would hurt X's feelings if she overheard it. Oh but it's ok now for me to have a battle EVERY morning to get my dd to go to school. Needless to say that I encouraged my daughter to tell me what she needed to tell me, every time she needed to tell me. Silence the victim? No thank you!

Nice bit of victim blaming Maryz. I'm disgusted with your attitude on this. As am I.

but you really are deliberately misconstruing and misquoting every thing I said I disagree. I have read your posts how outy has read them...perhaps you need to look at what you are saying and how, if some many people are "misconstruing and misquoting" what you say.

This sentence

But if your dd was to have a party and invite the entire year bar this one child, do you think that would make things between them better

I have a real issue with. To me, it reads like victim blaming. Again, I have to agree with Outy.

They're talking about young children being spiteful and vindictive, So we can exclude for out & out violence, but not spitefulness & vindictiveness? A lot of what my daughter experienced was vindictive, and I maintain that that child would not be welcome in my home. People seem to be downplaying just how fucking harmful spiteful & vindictive behaviour is. The girl who bullied outy's dd was not given the message that the bullying was unacceptable, and she ramped it, turning it into criminal behaviour.

There, most "bullying" (insofar as a 4 year old, or even an 8 year old can be considered to be a deliberate bully) is over-activity, low-level violence or disruption Why is bullying in inverted commas? Do you believe that primary school children are incapable of bullying? And "low level violence" ok as a "bullying" technique? And please explain, what the hell "over activity" is? Is that being shoved/pulled to the ground/having a pencil scrapped over your skin (and breaking the skin), being bitten, having your lunch thrown on the floor?

You are minimising bullying. Lots of people have shared as to how bullying in primary school has affected themselves/their child, me included & you are minimising what they have been through. So no, perhaps not victim blaming, but minimising, definitely yes! Because now you seem to be saying that only cases of extreme violence in any setting other than primary school would be counted as bullying.

Nice.

Maryz at the risk of being called defiant I have to disagree.
My 10 yr old DS changed school this year re SN (often left out) at Christmas I asked his teacher for a list of children and was told "he was not allowed". I was surprised as

1. It was not a problem at his previous school and
2. My son has social communication difficulties (diagnosed only that month) and very poor short term memory.

I had planned to send the whole class cards to support his integration. In the end I sent some blank cards and asked his 1:1 if she could help him (she didn't) I also don't know how many children are in his class, I know the boy/girl ratio is more balanced (19g/7b at previous), he was always the one paired with a girl.

It always amazes me on threads like this there are posters who think you should either invite somone who is bullying your child to their party, or change your plans for a class plarty because of a bully. When my DS was being physically abused by another child 2 years ago, which caused massive amounts of distress for him and us, I did not invite that child to my DS class party (which he had with his friend who was also in his class, and whose mother agreed knowing all the facts that we should not invite him). I would not allow my child to exclude on the basis of SN but if they are bullying my child I feel perfectly entitled to exclude them (regardless of if the reason for bullying is SN or not).

If a "bully" is left out of every birthday party, and that's ok, the only lesson s/he will learn is that it's ok to leave people out. So the next time there is a playground game and one child is told they can't play because the organiser of the game doesn't like them, is that ok too?

Alternatively, the bully may learn that, actually, it is not nice to be the only one left out of things, they may realise that they are not as powerful as they think they are, they may realise that their bullying is not really working because everyone else has decided to attend the victims birthday party , they may slowly come to realise that there are actually consequences to their actions which could eventually backfire on them.

Bullies won't be left out of every birthday party, they will only be left out of the parties of their victims.

Outy, I am so very sorry for what your daughter and your family have experienced, it must be life changing for all of you to be subjected to that.. I really hope everything turns out okay for your DD.

Outy you are obviously upset, terribly so. But your posting 'style' on this thread has not helped I think.

The 'drip-feeding' or escalation of the trauma your DD suffered has intensified from post to post, and actually contradicted what you have previously written a number of times. I understand that this must be the result of how much the bullying has affected your whole family, but it is rather unfair for you to post about another MNer 'blaming' your child or 'dismissing' your child when your first posts didn't amount to the same level of bullying as your subsequent posts.

I read your first couple of posts, went away, returned to a thread that had moved on and read your last few posts - I thought you were a different poster with a similar NN.

You went from
Bullying,
To hitting and kicking,
To strangling,
To setting on fire,
To strangling to try to kill,
To gbh
To sexual behaviours, to assault, to theft
The bullying started as a teen thing, then 5, then 4, then 3, then 4 again.

There is no way that MaryZ was talking about inviting that sort of child. No-one would and no-one on this thread did.

You are quite obviously and justifiably traumatised by what happened/is happening to your daughter, but I think you and MaryZ have simply got your wires crossed on this thread.

I think there are differing levels of bullying, yes. My DD was bullied last year for a period of roughly 3 months. But she was never physically harmed.

She was isolated, name called, suffered some minor thefts and was left feeling emotionally battered. But not physically abused. She was still bullied though, still suffered and still hurt by what happened.

This year she had a birthday party and invited all the girls in her class. Including the ring leader of the bullying, the 3 girls who were her 'sheep' and two girls who she has never been friendly with. I had a harder time with her decision that she did

Responsibility of the bully, yes. But not always the 'choice' of the bully.

For eg. There is a child at DDs school that I think has Special Needs. As do the teachers, as does the SENCO. His parents absolutely and definitely do NOT. They will NOT countenance any form of testing, helping, labelling. He struggles daily. He becomes belligerent and violent. Mum gets called to the school again and again and again, but refuses to see it. She laughs when told about his antics, says highly inappropriate things to him and threatens the HT if she tries to give him any sanctions.

He has become a bully. Other children are avoiding him because he hurts them or shouts at them. But he does not see that he is doing any wrong. He made his previous teachers life hell - to the point that she quit and on her last day he cried and cried, inconsolably because she was leaving and he 'liked her so much, she is my favourite teacher' - he had NO IDEA that his actions had contributed.

My DD, who is lovely and kind, and forgiving and understanding said the other day "He's going to get his head kicked in at high school" - I was shocked that she would say it, but also (quietly) agree with her. If he does I will blame his parents. Not the child that snaps, not him. His parents for not getting him the help he very obviously needs.

It would be very easy to write this kid off as a bully. I think there is more going on.

Minimising what? What he is doing? No it's not. I can simply see past the fact that he is a bully and accept that he doesn't see it because his parent WONT see it. How will he be 'taught' to do right, if his parents don't see that he is doing wrong?