To not invite the boy who terrorises my son at school to his party?!

[OohMavis]

A no-brainer, you would think. This boy swears at, makes racial slurs at, hits, shoves and generally abuses my son. Despite this, DS has tried to be his friend, in the way that 6yos do. No amount of 'stay away from him' and confidence-boosting activities etc, has really helped, unfortunately. I've been in close contact with the teacher but to be honest, she hasn't been very effective in stopping his behaviour.

So I just try to help DS day-to-day deal with the situations he comes up against with this boy. It's actually been improving the last month or so, DS has started to really hold his own a bit.

Anyway. DS has a birthday coming up and we've booked him a party. Invites went out a couple of weeks ago to the children on the list DS wrote, not including this boy for obvious reasons. This was difficult for DS, who wanted to invite him because 'he'll be really angry if I don't, he'll push me'

DS says the boy realised he's not invited and has been very upset with him. Trying to snatch the invitations from other people, generally being not very nice about it. Expected.

But now his mother has messaged me on Facebook demanding to know why her son is being purposefully excluded. She's written all over the closed FB school group about 'someone' excluding her son and how upset he is. She's asked on our local community page if the venue we've chosen for DS' party allows members of the public in during certain times (the time of the party).

I'm fucking gobsmacked tbh. I've never encountered anyone like her in my life.

They seem to cause so much angst and ill feeling and rather than being just a fun thing for children

Not with most of us sensible parents.
If you put 30 adults in a room for six hours a day, they're not all going to get along and there's going to be personality clashes. The same applies with children.

Both my children are in small groups of friends at school and then there's other small groups of friends. It's not exclusion it just means that they have different interests. Like us adults do.

I'm suspecting the OPs DS also doesn't want to be twatted one at his own birthday party too.

Thank goodness the venue is closed!

If she rolls up with her son and crashes the birthday party then she gets the Unhinged Bat of the Year Award.

God I hate this opinion that parents have that everybody should be invited to parties. It's not exactly setting kids up for life is it, giving them the impression that they get to do and be involved in every activity that goes on. Parents/kids should invite who they want and so be it, and then also accept that they didn't get invited to every party. The mum is being ridiculous-I suspect ignoring her is the best thing to do but
I'm not sure I could!

You can tag people in groups, you don't have to be friends with them. You can remove the tag feature from your profile, but as long as you are in the same group as someone they can tag you

Ah I didnt know that sobey thanks. Would blocking her mean she can not tag her in the group too?

I'd respond with DividedKingdom's message but to the group Facebook. That way others know that there is something more going on and you are not entering a fb slagging match. You keep the high ground but stand up to the public attempt to bully you.

Is she intending to gatecrash the party? If she messaged you then I suppose she needs an answer and you have had lots of suitable suggestions on here but, definitely, do not give way and invite him. Just say you have lots of relatives and outside school friends coming and space is limited so only a few close school friends of your son's choice have been invited.

You are well within your rights not to invite him, even if he is the only one in the class not invited. Its a private party outside of school so invite who you want to invite. He is a bully and so is she. Ignore her on FB and report any threatening posts/behaviour (on FB).

As for posters saying tell the loony parent its down to numbers etc, personally I'd tell her the truth, because IME when you start making excuses, she'll try and find a way to blag and mither you to get an invite for her kid e.g. "Kid X can't go because they are away camping or whatever, so my obnoxious kid can take their place".

Feel for you OP, there are some weird ass people in this world.

Were the invitations given out in front of him?

No not at all, though I will admit I may have made an error of judgment there. I made the invitations myself and without outing myself, they were very novelty. The kids took their invitations back into school with them the next day to play with them.

I probably should have stuck to normal invitations but I didn't forsee this drama.

OohMavis every party I've took the DCs too has had someone on the door/gate/entrance. If the name isn't on the list I'm sure they wouldn't get in anyway. Ive always had to give the DCs name before ive been granted entrance. But yes I'd still give the venue a heads up.

You sound like a lovely mum oohmavis.

She sounds batshit.

She's asked on our local community page if the venue we've chosen for DS' party allows members of the public in during certain times (the time of the party).
Surely he'd feel worse actually going there and seeing the other kids have a party he's not part of. Unless she was planning on telling him he's now invited and letting him join in with food etc.

She's setting her boy up to a future arsehole. I hope people reading her batshit crazy rants are just a gobsmacked by the cheek of it.

She's made a serious twat of herself on the school facebook group then. There will be much tittle tattling about that, most of the mums laugh about rants on the fb school page in a kind of way.

I'd be more worried about the fact that school are not dealing with this child's behaviour. If you are getting nowhere with the class teacher including with racist slurs (and where does a 6yo learn racism from) then you need to make an appointment to see the head.

The mum sounds utterly vile and actually I feel sorry for the little boy as he's just a tiny child trying to make sense of the world. Not that I'm saying you should invite him, but he's only 6 :(

What a shame, it's obvious where the child is learning his behaviour. Turning up to a party you're not invited to is utter madness. What does she think will happen?!

I agree with Quim that if she gatecrashes she gets the batshit award.
This bullying from the boy needs to be stopped. The happy cloud thing is not working and I would get a bit tougher.

Keep cool, respond with the "DS has loads of cousins and couldn't invite everyone"

That way she can't get defensive with you. In time, and it will happen, he will slowly but surely get less and less invitations and come a few years down the line will have realised he is not popular, is not liked and is purely to blame.

Seen it again, again and again.

It's good that it's closed :)
She's setting herself and her ds up for a miserable few years if she carries on like this. My ds is 6 and knows he won't be invited to every party! It's a lesson everyone needs to learn. And she's going to find fewer invitations happen if she makes an arse of herself like this.

No of course yanbu. And I still wouldnt think you were even if the rest of the class was invited. I dont really care where a child learns his behaviour, thats up to his own parents to deal with etc theres no way I would have someone who was bullying my child at his birthday party.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?
How obnoxious of her.

Reply on the post in the school group, your kid may not be the only one being bullied but no-one wants to come out and say "maybe it's because your kid is a shit" on her post.

Go for the compliment sandwich idea...

Hi crazybitch, I just wanted to clarify a couple of points. Unfortunately, due to space constraints we could only invite a certain number of children and there are many in the class who also didn't receive an invitation. Since littleshit has been a bully and used racist slurs towards my son I don't feel it's appropriate to have him on the guest list. Maybe we can arrange a future playdate for them so we can sort out the issue though?

(Ok, not sure if you'd want to do the last thing but I'm struggling to think of something else nice. And as others have said, I'd be speaking more to the school, even if every teacher in the school starts running away when they see you walking in, they need to know that bullying and racism will not be tolerated and if it's continuing then their way of dealing with things isn't working.)

DS doesn't get many invites to parties tbh, it's never once occurred to me to question the parents as to why, even if he says they're friends.

I'm a bit concerned now that the ones we haven't heard back from are ignoring the invite because their parents are friends with this woman. That will be horrible for DS.

Kids parties man. Who knew.

See I'm very transactional (I manipulate people to get what I want) so here is what I would do. Contact the mother and explain that your son is frightened of her son and that he pushes him around, and that you did not want this affecting his birthday. Offer to invite her son on the strict condition that she makes sure he behaves himself nicely. Invite the son and tell him directly that you have let him come despite his behaviour but that if he starts up again he will have to leave.

Carrot and stick.

I'd reply with something reasonably moderate like my son doesn't consider X to be one of his best friends.

Not to moderate tho. No point blaming the amount cousins or the venue size when the simple fact is he isn't a pleasant child to be around.

I'd be factual and to the point. DS had 14 class friends to invite owing to the venue numbers, and your son wasn't on his list I'm afraid.