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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to allow my son not to invite a mean boy to his party?

356 replies

Busyworkingmumof4 · 05/03/2018 05:46

My oldest is turning 9 and normally we have only ever had family birthday parties. This year we have allowed him to have a friends birthday party for the first time.

I asked him who he wanted to invite and he listed eight names, which are all the boys from his class except one. When I asked why he did not want to invite that one boy, he said that he is mean to him all the time and gave me some examples. Given this boy's behaviour, I didn't see any reason to encourage my son to invite him.

This morning, after my son handed out the party invitations yesterday afternoon, I received an email from the class teacher telling me that to have one boy excluded from the party is "not fair" and has "created tension" and "goes against the school motto".

Should 9 year olds be expected to invite kids who are mean to them to their own parties, just to not 'create tension' in the classroom?

OP posts:
Nocabbageinmyeye · 06/03/2018 07:07

I think you handled this brilliantly op,well done, glad it worked out in the end. The other mum sounds lovely too i think

givemesteel · 06/03/2018 07:14

Well done OP, you've handled it well, and it does show you can't take what kids say at face value.

Parents please be kind when you consider who to invite. My sister has autism and learning difficulties (undiagnosed until later in those days) and it made me so sad to hear from my mum that kids used to come to her party but never got invited to theirs every year. As a kid I had no idea.

Lizzie48 · 06/03/2018 07:26

It's like that for my DD1@givemesteel she has Attachment Disorder as a result of being adopted and she struggles socially at school. We do parties for her, but she's regularly excluded from other girls' parties. What makes it harder is that DD2 is very popular and gets invited to lots of parties.

TITANIUMPINS · 06/03/2018 07:33

thanks for the happy update @busyworkingmumof4 had this so many times with a childs version of events. Not always of course as proper bullying does exist. :-)

Rumpledfaceskin · 06/03/2018 07:47

I think you handled that well, glad it was just a spat. But I’m really shocked at how many parents on here would have been prepared to exclude a child from a party and label them as a bully over one side of the story from a 9yo.

differentnameforthis · 06/03/2018 08:04

I'll be damned if I invite the kid who has been picking on my child to her party.

I don't get all this "it's mean to exclude"

Well, it's even more mean to bully someone, so get stuffed.

Aeroflotgirl · 06/03/2018 08:06

That's good, I am glad you made the effort to find out and sort it out. You need to tell your ds what he had to be honest, which he wasent, that has to be addressed. If op ds was genuinely being bullied, it has been reported, and op ds is distressed by it, then there is Noway he has to invite that bully to the party.

Lizzie48 · 06/03/2018 08:13

Catch up with the thread, @differentnameforthis this is not about bullying. It was a game that the OP's DS was happy to join in but not happy to lose.

differentnameforthis · 06/03/2018 08:16

izzie48 I have read the thread. Stand by my comment. The son asked the boy to stop, he didn't, he took it beyond the game that it started of as.

Perhaps bullying is a strong word in this case. But still, it was mean behaviour.

Shrimpy1234 · 06/03/2018 08:19

Why are people talking about ‘bullying’ - at no point has OP said her child was bullied. As it turned out, the boys in question were playing a game, and one of them kept winning so as a result he gets excluded from his group of friends, starting with a party, in the name of retaliation. What happens if the boy then feels justified in retaliating against the birthday boy to account for his feelings? Would this make it right now facts have shown he did nothing wrong? This is how bullying starts as bullies always feel justified in exerting their power over an other. It saddens me that people have such strong reactions when the facts weren’t known.

Lizzie48 · 06/03/2018 08:20

It was that once, yes ok the boy didn't stop when he should have done, but it wasn't a case of him being mean all the time, which the OP's DS said initially. 9 year olds do get carried away sometimes, it's why there needs to be some adult supervision at that age.

goodomens830 · 06/03/2018 12:35

To be brutally honest. You and your son now look like the bullies. To exclude one child is pretty awful. If you really didn't want him there, you should have invited less kids so that one child wasn't excluded.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 06/03/2018 13:06

To be brutally honest snide I think OP and her son look like normal people. As does the other mum and her son.

Only on MN must we:

  • not listen to our children when they say they don't like another child
  • never ever talk to another parent, heaven forfend
  • never discuss things about our kids in a rational manner
Most importantly of all
  • we must never ever do something that we want to if there is a remote chance that someone will be able to say "But think about how it will affect The Poor and Innocent!"

I knew MN was full of Mummy Martyrs, threads like this bring them out to play. But I bet they aren't anywhere near as selfless in real life!

Willow2017 · 06/03/2018 13:11

Why in gods name would you invite less friends to your party just to 'look good'?

Ops situation is all resolved now which is great. But if this was a situation where some child was bullying your child regularly at school would you invite less kids to a party to spare the bully's feelings? Like hell you would.

Shrimpy1234 · 06/03/2018 13:32

if the child was bullying. That’s a completely different scenario and has only been introduced by other people, not the OP.

PorkFlute · 06/03/2018 14:05

It’s not a matter of ‘looking good’ it’s about not pointedly excluding a child because they won a game that both children wanted to play (note that the op doesn’t say at any point that her son communicated to the other child that he didn’t want to play any more!).
It is now the ops son who has behaved like a bully by giving out invitations to every other boy in front of this child. Good on his mum for being gracious enough to accept the late invitation after that. She’s more forgiving than me as there’s no way I would be taking my child to the party of another child who’d pointedly excluded them like that for no reason. I would have made sure we were ‘busy’.

OfaFrenchmind2 · 06/03/2018 14:06

This reply has been deleted

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PorkFlute · 06/03/2018 14:06

And I highly doubt that every other boy in the class just happens to be this child’s best friend. Every other boy was invited to leave one out.

OfaFrenchmind2 · 06/03/2018 14:11

PorkFlute ....let it go, let it gooooo.......... The OP came back, showed that she was a well balanced, normal person, capable of nuances. All in the past 100 or so messages. Why don't you let go of that bone and ask yourself why you need to be so defensive?

PorkFlute · 06/03/2018 14:18

Other people are still commenting so I will reply to them if I wish. Maybe have a think about why someone you don’t know disagreeing with you on the internet bothers you so much?

blastomama · 06/03/2018 14:21

It's sorted, and it turns out I was being unreasonable. We have now invited the other boy to the party too

Oh would you look at that? I do hope the posters who turned it into a case of terrible bullying and a horrible boy who deserved to be excluded come back and apologise for getting it so wrong and overblown?

Willow2017 · 06/03/2018 14:33

pork
I made it perfectly clear if it was a case of prolonged bullying....

Your post makes out op knew about the game all along and was deliberately excluding the boy out of meaness. She didnt. And she has since stated that her son DID tell the other boy to stop and he didnt. Rtft.

Willow2017 · 06/03/2018 14:37

And I highly doubt that every other boy in the class just happens to be this child’s best friend. Every other boy was invited to leave one out.

Oh get over yourself. Of course in a small class of 9 boys they could all be friends. They dont have to be 'best friends' fgs.
Out school had classes with 4 or 5 in a year at times so a composite class could have a total of 9 kids in it!

Badbadtromance · 06/03/2018 14:41

I always invite and hope they don't show but would not exclude just one child

PerfectPenquins · 06/03/2018 14:44

I think this is a lesson to be learnt for parents who act before they think. This happened to my daughter the child who was picking in her was going home crying to her Mum that it was my daughter. Funnily the little monster didn’t realise she had been caught on more than one occasions by staff. The Mum goes to playground shouting her big mouth at me and low and behold teacher steps in takes her to the class room and she comes out very sheepish jn deed- of course no apology from the foolish git after her public put down of me.

If your child says something is happening in school make an Apointment and speak to the teachers.