AIBU to uninvite these children from DDs Party?

[Justwondering1]

DD is in Year 7, she is genuinely a lovely girl, incredibly kind and thoughtful though a bit socially awkward and can be over sensitive. She has been struggling to make friends, there are a couple of cliques already in her class which she is not included in and then a few stragglers. She is struggling with feeling left out and not having made any really friends and feels everyone else is in groups. We talked a lot over Easter about making an effort to be friendly, joining in wth groups, trying not to feel shy and self conscious.

Her 12th birthday party is on Sat and we have invited 12 girls. She's just called me in tears because (not for the first time) she sat down in the classroom (got there early to try to sit with new people as we had encouraged her to do) and the girls around her tried to make her move away because they wanted another child in their "clique" to sit in DD seat. The seats were unallocated as it is the start of term. DD got upset, wouldn't move but said she spent the lesson trying not to cry. She's so upset and this isn't the first time this has happened and I'm worried about her getting more and more isolated but don't know what to say to help her.

DH is furious, says if these children can't even bear to sit next to DD, why should they come to her party. Why should they be rewarded for treating her unkindly. He is all for emailing their parents and saying they are no longer welcome. I'm worried this would just make things harder for her in the long run.

Any advice on this or generally on Year 7 friendships gratefully received...

I would have a heart to heart with your DD.

Perhaps cancelling the party and rescheduling another one, with fewer guests on a different day would be better.

I would have a hard time paying for and entertaining guests that clearly didn't want to be friends with my DD.

Or of course as someone else said, (especially if your DD is sensitive to the outcome of how uninviting may go for her) just cancel the party altogether and rebook it at a different place/time with fewer people.

But people are not silly. They will know it's basically being uninvited dressed up as something else. There was a thread on here this week where that happened to someone and the party went ahead without her child and she got wind of it. May as well be just bite the bullet the first time. Honestly, if these girls don't care much for your daughter they probably won't care about the party either.

It may be helpful to also look from the other side -if the last friend from the group of six came in excited to see her friends and someone else had taken her place ?
I think a better way might be for your daughter to see they were being loyal to a friend rather than horrible to her. It will help her self esteem not to take it personally - however if there are any other signs of unkindness they wouldn't be desirable friends so why bother with them?
It would be nice to find a compromise where everyone can be included or better still find some less assertive girls who are more welcoming . Then from a place of security she can build as many friendships as she wants.
I think there is certainly fluidity to join groups at this stage but it will never go down well if you push someone else out , even if it is unintentional .
A great party will only help to develop friendships and can surely do no harm.
I'm sure your daughter will find some lovely friends and usually by year ten things are less cliquey.

"Were the girls mean to your dd over and above asking if she could move? "

I think that that's the point-that & how are they usually with her?

They've accepted the invitations-is that a positive or are they nasty pieces of work who will be intending not to go/go to find fault?

Does the school have any lunch time or after school groups she could join? This would give a small group of like minded teenagers from different classes a chance to get to know each other and meet at break times etc. Once she finds friends she will be less bothered by the clique in her class.

What kind of party is she having? Is it a bonding exercise? You never know it might be just what is needed to show them her interests etc.

They are in secondary school now, time for mum & dad to step back from being the ones to visibly sort issues out. She needs to start build resilience. Harsh but true.

I understand the pain of OP's dd.

I can still - over 30 years later - feel the hot embarrassment of one of the first weeks at university. I sat in a lecture theatre and this boy comes into my row and says, "Hi!" "Hello," I reply in friendly manner. "Could you move row, please, as my friends and I all want to sit together." I felt such a fool that I thought someone was being friendly and I gathered my possessions together and scurried off into the next row as quickly as possible, the sniggering (or so I imagined) ringing in my ears.

As others have said, it may not be picking on the OP's dd, but, as in my case, that a group are wrapped up in themselves and have no appreciation of someone else's feelings. I wouldn't cancel the party at this stage, but encourage the dd to do things like drama/a sport/creative writing society - anything to meet girls who are not in her tutor group.

Dn was always desperate to be in certain cliques and then was off school/in distress etc etc because of perceived "bullying". She wasn't being bullied, she was just wasting time trying to break into impenetrable groups.

Urgh, your poor DD, School can be so fucking cruel. And you must feel powerless when all you want is to make it better for her

I think try and remember what it was like to be this age. They won't be impressed with logic or fairness. They simply care about their mates. I have to say that if I'd had my group of mates in a class together and someone we didn't hang out with had taken a seat that would have stopped us all sitting together, I might have thought that annoying at that age - you're just not mature enough to appreciate maybe making a new friend.

Brutal but true: trying too hard will put people off her at that age. And nobody can force them to be friends. The best thing she can do is be pleasant and fun to everyone, so that they want her to be there.

As for the party, unless she wants to cancel, and unless they were actually mean rather than just asking her to move up a seat, I would go ahead. It sends the wrong signal otherwise.

Groups do shift as they go through the years, esp when they start doing more selective subjects. It won't always be like this

I think all the comments that they aren't deliberately picking on her are probably correct. She's just an irrelevance to them. Unfortunately this is unlikely to make her feel massively better!

I will definitely take on board the advice about not trying too hard and getting involved in other lunchtime activities.

I have nothing to add but my sympathy op. My dd went through this and it is so bloody hard. She is still going through it if i am honest, she is 18 and off to college in september and she can't wait to leave school. I just hope she meets some like minded people in college. I agree with pp, tempting as it may be please don't uninvite these girls it is really unlikely to help matters. Your dd sounds lovely, all you can do is keep supporting her and encouraging her to meet new people at clubs, socials etc.

Yes, it's the same when posters complain about being blanked at the school gate/unfriendly other mums etc. I'm sure these women just don't notice them. They have their friends with whom they are busy chatting, and are not actively spying out for lonely-looking, eager-to-be-friends mums. And I speak as one of the latter, not one of the in crowd!

I hope the party is a massive success and I'm sure your daughter will have a lovely time.
I'm sure she is not an irrelevance to anyone - we are all wrapped up in our own lives to some extent.
I think it's very positive that so many want to come, so please build on that and have fun .

She needs to make her own group; she won't be the only straggler. And yes, friendships are fluid at high school and it is nice to be friends with lots of different groups.

DD2 and her best pal bonded at an out of school activity that DD was dragged along to by someone else. They were pretty inseperable at weekends. But at school they were in different groups; DD in the high achieving swotty group, her mate with the more indie geeky crowd. They just said it meant they had more to talk about when they hung out. Now they are at different colleges and still hang out.

What I'm trying to say is, she needs to chill, be friendly with everyone, not push it, try lots of things and she will find her niche.

I went through this. At the time it's awful. Now looking back I see that they had the problem and not me. But it was so hard. Eventually I found my 'group' of other 'excluded' kids and have stayed in touch with a few for 30 years now

No advice other than don't un invite them. That would make school day unbearable. Just never invite them again

Our DS starts secondary in September and I'm already bracing myself as he is so like me. Eager to please and want friends - it doesn't bode well......

I have nothing to add, other than sympathy. My Year 7 DD is finding navigating the new paradigm of secondary school very hard - and she never had a moment's issue in primary. Conversely my eldest son, who struggled socially throughout primary, has taken to his school like a duck to water and is flying academically and socially in Y8 and I think often prefers being at school to home with his three noisy siblings!

I wouldn't uninvite them because I think it will just cause more trouble and single her out even further. I have encouraged DD to invite girls over individually - either from her class, or from her teams (she is in netball and hockey teams), and to try and spend lunchtimes trying out extra curricular clubs etc. It's taken a while, and there still seems to be some sort of drama within the friendship groups every day, but slowly she's building a group of friends who are (in the main) nice to each other!

I do think that girls can be very cruel to each other, and with all of the hormones and changes happening, Year 7 is hideous. A friend of mine who is on her third Y7 rotation, said to just try and ride it out - they all seem to find their groove by the end of Y8 - which seems a really long time away now, but actually, with DS1 already in the summer term of Y8 (when it feels as though he only started yesterday), it isn't....

I hope that she has a lovely party and that things improve for her - it's heartbreaking to see it, but we can't live the school day for them, and as someone upthread said, I think it encourages resilience, which is important longer term. I'm sure in time, she'll find 'her' people and will have learnt a lot in the process.

Maybe if this group does come to the party, or even better, some but not all, it might give her easier circumstances and 'home territory' for developing friendships a bit more? I think that uninviting will definitely result in no forthcoming invitations in return, which would feel like a long set of repercussions if I was 12. Parties were a really big deal for all who were invited when I was that age.

Panicmode you've given me hope. Our DS has struggled to make friends in primary so fingers crossed

I also think uninviting them is a really bad idea. And sitting in someone else's space isn't brilliant either, especially if they are an established clique.

Do you know why she chose the girls she did to invite to her party? If she invited the 'cool' girls in the hope of infiltrating the gang, that might backfire on her horribly. What are you doing at the party? I hope that they don't exclude her at her own party but that is a bit of a risk if she isn't actually friends with them at all. Hopefully I'm being hugely alarmist but you may want to put strategies in place to guard against it happening.

School is bloody awful for so many kids

I agree that uninviting them is a bad idea. You see it as rewarding or punishing behaviour but ultimately you want DD to fit in and make friends and a party would.offer a chance for this to happen. If you cancel they will probably decide they "hate" DD (because children are very fickle) and make things worse for her.

I'd be so upset if this was happening to my child that I would probably send FrenchLavenders email.

But it probably isn't wise. What's wiser is probably teaching your dd to be thicker skinned and moving on to another group to see if they're more like-minded. I also agree about not trying too hard to endear yourself.

But none of that solves your daughters party problem. It'll be bloody hard to host them with good grace after this, won't it? What's the plan for the party?

for your dd and for you-bloody horrible.

I'm surprised that an early poster commented that at yr7 girls are still learning to be kind?
Fuck that. I've been teaching my daughter kindness above all else.
She is only yr3 and already upset by the unkind behaviour of some of the girls in her class.
I think in some families efforts to help their girls assert themselves , they've forgotten how to teach their daughter's to be nice.
Schools do jack shit about it - and then it is too late!
I'm sorry for your DD op
I hope it improves for her.

BusyBeez99 - I hope your experience is as positive as ours - I have found (so far at least) the boys to be SO much easier. They are both at single sex schools - not sure if that makes it better or worse, but his school has given him wings, and now that it's ok to be geeky/clever/sporty/whatever floats each individual child's boat, it's as though they can just get on with being themselves and they don't seem to have anything like the same dramas as the girls do!

Carolines ..it was me..so all year 7 girls are fully socially mature and considerate?

No..this is still developing. Its not am insult to your DD its a fact

Panicmode thanks. His primary is very small and I keep telling him there will be over 100 boys to choose from and he just hasn't found his 'tribe' yet but somewhere out there are a handful of other similar boys just waiting for the chance to be friends

How awful for your poor daughter . They sound mean, unfortunately most teenager can lack empathy and can be quite self centred. No don't uninvite them, but I don't think they will come anyway by the sounds of it. Keep,a close eye on things.