I know this is bu. but do you feel sad if your child is not invited to a party?

[LardLizard]

I know it's a bit pathetic really, but feel sorry for my nine tear old not invited to her friends party

I've tried to brush it off to dd, and said, oh well, maybe she's only allowed a certain number of children or something
And that you can't always go to everything
And that you can still be friends and still play together

But I think she feels pretty sad, maybe a realisation that this friend doesn't think of my dd as that much of a friend

I've suggested perhaps we do something nice on that particular day

Any other ideas how to help my dd feel less sad

I wouldn't ever actually do this, but I feel like not bothering to chat to the mum anymore

God I didn't know the autistic/Sen kids in dds class in reception and would never have excluded them. DD has a whole class party for reception.

The worst one I had is when dd (sen) finally asked for a party age seven.
We booked a great place and asked in plenty of time. Loads rvsp and dd was so excited.

The popular girl then announced her party the week before the date at her house. 17 people who had rsvp to say they were coming flaming cancelled in favour of the popular kid.

I would never allow mine to do that

My ds never gets invited to any parties. I threw a big softplay party for him, invited the whole class 8 turned up. I always feel so gutted for him and I know it bothers him. There was a party just before the summer holidays which he wasn't invited to and the party boy's mum actually butted me out of a conversation to talk about it in front of me.
I think ds is just on the edge of most friendship groups so gets missed out.

conkers

My dd has just started reception, I'm dreading the party invite politics, I think it's normal to feel sad for our children when they are excluded, I know there are already one or two mums who would potentially exclude dd from a party invite just to prove a point they don't like me much.
like others have said if this happens to my dd as I'm sure at one stage it could, I will plan a lovely treat.

I find it hard and I hate having to be selective about who dd invites too. It's really awful to think that someone might feel excluded. I would be devestated if my dd ever said anything mean though. In fact I'd go as far as cancelling her party if she was ever cruel.

It happened to DD a couple of times in Y2. Didn't bother me, but bothered her. So much so she told the birthday boy he seemed to have forgotten her invitation. And the next day. She harangued the poor child so much I was given a verbal invitation the day before the party.

Her tactic didn't work the second time. The birthday girl told DD she could only invite 8 friends because there were only 8 invitations in a pack. DD suggested to the girls mother they buy another pack of invitations

However when DS started high school his best friend for 5 years in primary didn't invite DS to his party. I may have stomped around the house and declared it bloody rude. The other mother tried to make up for it by inviting me round for lunch and gave DS a generous b'day present on his birthday (DS totally forgave his friend and invited him to his party). I'm not sure I'll ever get over it though. The friendship seems to have faded now they are at different schools and I haven't tried to keep it going.

I was once not invited to a party at around age 10. My best friend had been invited though and my Mum took me to the house to collect her from the party as she was staying over at my house that night. I think if this hadn't been the case, I would have been none the wiser and wouldn't have cared. I remembered and never invited the hostess to another of my parties ever again.

Ellieboo. Your DD may not even notice. My friends DD doesn't.

I e had this recently with my 6yr old daughter. She was upset to be excluded from her younger sisters friends party and as hard as it was to see her upset I had to allow her to be upset and work through how she felt about it herself. Obviously she will always have me lean on but I want her to be more resilient than I was as a child.

I sometimes wish I wasn't friends with other mums on facebook because that's often how i know about them. Just this weekend i saw pictures of a party dd1 wasn't invited to. I can't help but scan the pictures for who is there. I got upset that girls who are normally not friends with this girl were there and dd wasn't. Obviously I didn't tell dd though.
Her first party at school was whole class and last year was all the girls in her class so that none were left out. I don't think we'll bother with that next time. I said no to bowling last year because with all the girls it was too much.

Often parents are subtle about inviting just some, but one time last year all the invited girls got helium balloons, making it super obvious who was and wasn't invited. And of course they were extra upset because they wanted a balloon

windmillsofyourmind I live in St Albans and this is spot on. There is one parent at school who has never invited DD to her daughter's parties once whole class parrtes stopped - so year 3 onwards - girls now in year 12, despite being the first one to reply yes on more than one occasion when we invited her daughter. The same woman who never invites me to anything in spite of having get togethers where basically all class parents apart from me and one other were invited.

She obviously doesn't like me - the only reason I can think of is that I don't treat her like a Queen Bee, which is what all the other mothers do. One of them actually admitted to me that the other mothers are influenced by her.

I too have had to deal with a crying DD when her friends have asked her if she wants to lift share and DD has to say "I'm not invited" I HATE HER AND HER DAUGHTER!

Conkers that's dreadful.

This happened to DS2 in year1. He had been invited to the new girl's birthday tea at her house which we accepted.

A week later he got an invitation to one of his best friend's roller skating party.

DS was furious but I explained to him that sometimes we have to do the right thing.

He and the new girl are now good friends.

Who are these people who would be so rude to children

Make sure you ask the mother if the child had a nice party. She will feel shit for sure

Why would you want to make the mother "feel shit"? It's not always feasible to invite everybody, why be spiteful about it?

Some of theses post are sad :(.

But on reply to the op. I don't feel sad when my kids are not invited to party's they can't get invited everywhere. I also do not try and do something special with them if they are not invited. I think it would be making a rod for my own back.

It's clear from this thread that some parents are far too involved in their DC's social lives. Leave them to get on with it. Not everyone is invited everywhere, get over it.

And as for saying you hate a child - that's plain unhinged.

Some of these stories are awful and obvious that kids have been deliberately excluded or there has been nastiness involved but some are just simply bog standard cases of not being invited, no nastiness, just no invite, it should be no big deal, some people here are being way ott!! When dd didn't get invited when she was younger I just didn't entertain the disappointment, not in a bad way but "you just can't get invited to everything" chin up move on way, don't dwell. But I see the same at the school gates if two friends are going to each others houses and someone not going and are disappointed you can see the mother pandering to them, I always said (nicely) to basically cop on and everyone is entitled to have a friend over after school without offending people. Obviously this is different in cases of a best friend or being left out of whole class parties for no reason etc

It is heart breaking and sometimes dc can be really cruel how they show dislike for somebody. However it is the way life is and unfortunately you do have to deal with it in a positive manner. For dd I always invited the whole class as I hated leaving anyone out. At one stage I even had a number of girls boycotting dd party. So if they don't get you one way they will get you another.

It's easy to explain why your child hasn't been invited to a party where they don't really know the birthday child or it's a very small thing and only 2 or 3 close friends have been invited. Same with playdates - they're one on one.

It's not so easy when they are the only child left out of a friendship group which is what most of these posts are talking about. Or indeed believe they are a closer friend to the host than the children who were invited.

That's not 'pandering' - it's explaining to a child that adults (and children themselves once they're in KS2) are socially manipulative which is a tad more complicated.

The act of leaving a child off an invitation followed by the obligatory load of facebook photos (which the excluded child/parent will see) must be the ultimate nasty persons weapon to cause upset. Obviously not all children can be invited to a party but you don't just leave one out. I'm horrified at what I've read on here.

MoreCoffeeNow This is also the girl who whose mother ended up bringing my DD back from a party and on the way back the girl was chatting about her party the next week - my dd was the only one in the car not invited to this party - mother just let her talk.

DD and I have spent years ignoring it, accepting that we can't all be invited to everything - and there are plenty of parties that she is not invited to - but this girl seems to have gone out of her way to invite everyone that DD goes around with and not her. The party was at home, so not cost per head.

You may think I am unhinged - that's your prerogative - but I do hate them both - and there are very few people I hate.

dalek If anyone sounds unhinged it's that girl and her mother. Downright nasty as well. Why should other people have the power to cause such distress to your daughter. What a horrible pair, I'd hate them too.

windmillsofyourmind Thank you