....to not invite this girl to my daughter's party because she's a nightmare!!!

[smokinhotchilli]

This is so tricky! And all this is new to me so any advice would be great.
My daughter has been friends with a girl called Rose (made up name) for two years. They are both 4. There's a group of kids who have been close since nursery & they have all started school & are in the same class.
Have never been very close to Rose's mum but the girls occasionally meet up at weekends .... Or used to...
Since starting school, Rose has become a bit of a nightmare. According to my daughter, none of the group want to play with her, she hits, shouts, pushes, doesn't listen and is really naughty (all told to me by my daughter & the other kids) and they often tell the teacher .... I've seen Rose doing all of this before & after school.
My daughter is refusing to have her at her birthday party which is really soon & won't invite her. The mum texted to ask what's happening for my daughters birthday...
What would you do?
AIBU to ask the mum if everything is ok at home & mention Rose's behaviour in a gentle & considerate way? And then explain that my daughter doesn't want her at the party? Arghhhhh! Don't want to upset anyone.

Good grief! The amount of conjecture and projecting going on is unbelievable! The OP said clearly this was a not an invite to the whole class but just 5-6 friends and they are mixed. Not just girls. Instead of focusing on the what ifs about ‘poor’ Rose, the OP should have her daughter’s back here for her party. This is not Rose’s day and at 4 years old, a child is not too young to learn that the way you treat others, has consequences. Stop teaching young girls that they need to bend over backwards and have their wishes ignored and their birthday highjacked by all this pandering to other people. It isn’t the OP’s job to parent and reward another child. If Rose’s mum has concerns it is up to her to deal with it. We have daily CF threads and one clear message is that folk generally don’t just miraculously turn into CFs but have been pandered to and their behaviour went unchecked.

Where does it say best friend? Someone who is hitting and scratching you and calling you names is not your best friend whatever label a 4yo puts on it!

A 4yo’s birthday party really shouldn’t create so much angst and drama! Exactly. All this guff about the 'special day'.
Just ask Rose's mum to come and help. Job done. Next year if Rose is just as bad don't invite her.

Weird that I don't like my child being twatted with chairs, so weird..

I can't see where Rose has twatted anyone with a chair. I would also suggest that 4yos who behave in very extreme ways are likely to have undiagnosed SN. This is not Rose as far as I can see.

Someone who is hitting and scratching you and calling you names is not your best friend whatever label a 4yo puts on it!

It is highly unlikely that this is entirely one way.

We have daily CF threads and one clear message is that folk generally don’t just miraculously turn into CFs but have been pandered to and their behaviour went unchecked.

Agree.

I'm actually quite baffled that the focus of most posters is in encouraging the OP's daughter to be kind to someone who has scratched and hit her, rather than on Rose learning the consequences of her actions.

Just tell her that your DD isn't getting on with Rose at the moment and hasn't invited her. School friendships go like this.

You could tell her that there was a bit of a fight and that your DD ended up with a scratched face etc. You could even tell her that you've heard that Rose is having a bit of a struggle at school and seems to be fighting with quite a few of the class.

How much you say on this would depend on your friendship with the mother.

I doubt that Rose's mum will be much help. If the op is aware of hitting and has seen it in the playground no doubt the mum is as well. Considering the extent of it it is unlikely the mum isn't witnessing any of her dd's poor behaviour anywhere.
The pre-emptive text seems like she is aware her dd might not be included due to her behaviour as well.
If the mum wanted to address her child's behaviour she would accept that she isn't invited and gently tell her child why and work with her on improving her behaviour. Instead she is trying to make the op so uncomfortable she invites the child out of embarrassment.

Is Rose hurting the OPs DD?
In the case of my child he was a popular child who played well with children of all ages (it was a tiny school) and had been doing so for a full year at the same school. He was invited to everyone's party and was always a popular playmate until this teacher decided this could be used to "persuade" him to comply in the classroom.

The children in his class learned not to associate with him when given this example by their teacher. He became socially isolated at a time when he really needed to be able to run around with friends to deal with the pressure he was under all day every day. This did lead to some very poor behaviour, but the behaviour stopped when we moved him to a school with a supportive teacher who actually just believed he was finding something hard and helped him.

The friends from his previous school were still bullies, and the school went into special measures at the next inspection.

And there we go with the undiagnosed sn. As the parent of a child with an actual diagnosed developmental disability it is present from birth not age 4.
I also wouldn't have foisted my child in someone's party. I expect certain accommodations for my child's disability. Welcoming being hit isn't one of them.

If my child tells me a girl in her class has been hurting her and acting like Rose, and that she does not want them at her birthday party, I would respect her wishes, it’s her special day and should be surrounded by those who she wants to share it with.
If this was just a play date my reaction may be different but this is her birthday, her special day.
If I had reasons to doubt my daughters sincerity I may override her wishes but if i believe her concerns to be genuine, there is not a hope in hell I’d be potentially ruining her day to save the feelings of her nemesis.

I wouldn’t leave her out. She’s 4.

Watching everyone whipping themselves up into a frenzy on here is sort of educational. I have often wondered why some children have such dramatic Fallings out all the time - I can see now it probably comes from the parents. A kid behaving badly in reception and other children not knowing how to deal with it seems to be sending some people into meltdown despite it being a fairly normal occurrence. School need to help rose and protect the other kids. The party will be irrelevant in the general scheme of things as long as the school do that. As long as all involved parents manage to resist falling into the kind of hysteria on this thread it'll all sort itself out by the end of reception.

Is Rose hurting the OPs DD?

Yes. HTH.

Watching everyone whipping themselves up into a frenzy on here is sort of educational. I have often wondered why some children have such dramatic Fallings out all the time - I can see now it probably comes from the parents

No one is "whipped up into a frenzy". People have differing opinions and are articulating those.

There is no frenzy.

Have you spoken to Rose’s mum re the aggressive behaviour since moving onto school? I would have done if they’ve been friends for two years.
That’s just me though

AIBU to ask the mum if everything is ok at home & mention Rose's behaviour in a gentle & considerate way?

Everyone has jumped straight into invite/not invite and ignored the actual AIBU. No, OP, that wouldn't be unreasonable, it would be kind - it would be you trying to actually understand what's going on and address it rather than make a snap decision one way or another. If something is going on at home, is that something you can talk to your daughter about? Are there ways you and Rose's mum can help the girls work through their issues? Are there strategies Rose's mum uses at home? Etc.

Would anyone here invite a colleague that was horrible to them to their birthday celebration so as no to exclude them if you weren't inviting everyone from work anyway?

No. But if someone I had been close friends with for half my life was going through some shit and behaving a bit erratically, I wouldn't invite all my work friends except them to 'punish' them. And I certainly wouldn't abandon the friendship after less than two months of erratic behaviour.

I would however think of ways to protect myself - not going somewhere with alcohol, asking my other friends to support me if things went a bit tits up, maybe going to the cinema or something where there were limited chances for her to be hurtful.

Ditto this party. I honestly don't know if you should invite this girl or not OP. But I do know that if you DO invite her, your first priority should be to make sure she doesn't have any opportunity to hurt the other kids - whether that's through distraction, distraction, distraction, or having her mum there, or making sure there are enough adults to supervise the kids really hard or whatever. I think teaching empathy is important, but I absolutely agree with other posters that that doesn't mean your daughter and her friends are a punchbag, and I think you can model that by stamping on any inappropriate behaviour at the party HARD.

It's 13 pages long and contains tales of blinded 3 year olds, fractured fingers and burnt down sheds. Meanwhile poor Rose is now being imagined as an outcast, friendless for the rest of her school days. She may even have undiagnosed sen. Someone has also suggested that the op's relationship with her friends may be ruined off the back of this all important party decision.

But no, apart from that everyone is totally chilled....

There's a difference between behaving erratically and being consistently hurt though. Yes the child doing the hitting and scratching is only 4 but so are the recipients and it will hurt and upset them.
In real life there would be absolutely no drama. Kids who bully mine are not invited to their parties. I've never had a cf parent expect them to be either. I wouldn't do a whole class party and leave out 1 or 2 kids but 'excluding' more than half of the class isn't exclusion imo.

Well when you put it like that!

If Rose's mum is a friend then speak to her and say 'about your text - DD is just having a few friends over. From what she's said it sounds like she and Rose aren't getting on so doesn't want to invite her. Maybe we should organise a separate play date so we can see what's going on. How is Rose settling in at school? DD is finding all the new people/being around big kids/getting changed for PE/ other random thing a bit overwhelming/challenging'

Opens the door for a discussion

It's 13 pages long and contains tales of blinded 3 year olds, fractured fingers and burnt down sheds. Meanwhile poor Rose is now being imagined as an outcast, friendless for the rest of her school days. She may even have undiagnosed sen. Someone has also suggested that the op's relationship with her friends may be ruined off the back of this all important party decision.

I agree with this, but if the SEN stuff is aimed at me then please re read my post because that isn't what I said. It was about the child 'twatting' others around the head with chairs not poor Rose who is doing a bit of hitting for whatever reason.

They just aren't getting on for whatever reason. Rose is likely to make other friends, you cannot engineer friendships between school aged children. Despite 'playdates' (and one of my dd's best friends never ever ever invites other children over)/ mums being friends etc. They have also not been friends for 2 years, they were two 2 years ago but played alongside each other while their mums had coffee. Real friendships start around Y2 up to then you'd get a different party list of 5 each time you asked.

Also,

1. Equating adult-adult relationships with child-child relationships is just (sorry) stupid. Unless, of course, you assume the adults in question have the intellectual, emotional and social capabilities of your average 4yo.

1. Suggesting the DD inviting Rose to her 5th birthday party = teaching her to appease and please others at her own expense is just ridiculous. The majority of people ‘siding’ with Rose have done so in a way that brings Rose’s behaviour into line with what’s acceptable and appropriate for child group interaction (as the other children may already have learned to do), not in a way that allows her to continue punching/ hitting etc. Her mum/whoever should come along and keep her in line (ie be a parent), meaning she doesn’t feel left out, she learns to behave herself, the DD offers the hand of kindness and who knows, may be an example to other kids in the group. Nobody has suggested that Rose be left to her own devices and for the DD to appease her 🙄

We all, children and adults alike, need to get along. Not being compassionate, not showing tolerance and kindness, not being inclusive, these are just as likely to linger into adolescence and adulthood (clearly, as this thread shows) as this emphasis on teaching girls to stand up for themselves. These things are not mutually exclusive. They just take a little effort and thought (which is probably why this thread is so long. Easier to just say no than make the effort)

Corbyn you are very lucky if your child's disability has been understood from birth meaning that your child has been able to get the support needed. (I'm not saying lucky that the disability existed but lucky to knew what you were dealing with from the outset and have the possibility of support).

You seem not to realise though that there are an awful lot of children who start school with an actual developmental disability who do not have a diagnosis by the time they start school. Many disabilities that make the classroom especially challenging (DCD for instance, or APD) are not so well understood. APD cannot be tested for until a child is 7. A child with APD appears not to be listening - even though they are. It is practically impossible to get a child assessed for DCD UNTIL there are problems at school, and even then it's really difficult to be taken seriously as a parent who knows there is problem. Far too many children have already been labelled as naughty. In my child's case he also has an actual diagnosed developmental disability - so yes it presumable was there from birth. Unfortunately, it wasn't diagnosed until he was much older than your child because his particular disability is not something that can be assessed at birth. A 3 year old playing doesn't need the same planning and coordination skills as a 4 year old being asked to sit still, appear to be listening and write in a classroom. A child playing who is able to ask for and receive help when he finds something tricky learns to persist and ask for help when they need it. When that same child is punished, told he is naughty, disbelieved and ostracised when he asks for help he soon learns that the only way to get out of the situation is to do something that annoys the teacher so much they send them out of the room. Hitting something works. So does pushing things. There surely is some poor behaviour in schools because children simply do not know any better, but for many children with undiagnosed disabilities it is simply self-preservation when their teacher refuses to accept they are actually struggling with the demands being placed on them in the classroom.

I'm not saying that is what is happening in this case. I don't know. But it happens far more often than you'd like to believe. Children don''t just start to behave badly and lose all their friends for no reason.
The OP didn't say that Rose has hurt her daughter and the things she has said could well be things her DD has heard adults say to Rose or about her.

Why is Rose's mum asking about your daughter's birthday party? They either get invited or won't. She shouldn't be asking about it, especially if you are not close.