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

[Busyworkingmumof4]

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?

Its got nothing to do with the school who a child invites to thier own party.
Its not excluding one child none of the girls were invited either.

You get 'invited' to a party not the other way around.
My son wasnt invited to every party throughout primary but i didnt wring my hands in despair. It wasnt up tp me who kids invited. After p3 there were no more whole class parties anyway.

If a workmate had a party and didnt invite me thats fine i am a work colleague not thier bff. There is no obligation to invite anyone.

Inviting buliies just reinforces the idea that they can do what they want without consequences and tells your kids they have no personal autonomy or place where they can feel safe from harassment and should just suck it up.

Its got nothing to do with the school who a child invites to thier own party

It is when you hand the invites out in school!

What if invites were not handed out in school but teacher overhead kid saying he wasnt invited?
Would they still put thier tuppenceworth in?

You’ve handled that well OP.

The teacher was out of line.

i think you did the right thing. your son should be allowed to choose who he invites. i hate this nonsense that everyone should be included even if they are unkind or unpleasant. i think the teacher was out of line. the birthday party has nothing to do with the school. she has no right to interfere. i think it was very good of you to call the boys mother in hope of helping the overall situation. but you must stick to the thought that it should be up to your son, if he doesn't want the boy there then having him forced upon him will simply ruin his party. i just cannot understand why anyone would want that situation for a child. (clearly you don't but it seems a lot of people do).

You need to be a leeetle careful if you are the saintly type who believes in embracing all children at all times even birthdays and bullies or even just unpleasant kids in the class who are not friends with your child must be included.

Might be that your child remembers what you did and resents you for it as an adult. "Remember the year you made me invite x and he beat up Y". Respecting your child's wishes for their birthday at 9 is more important than polishing your liberal inclusive halo.

My grandparents were like this - my mother still resentful 60 years later about the unpleasant randoms who were invited for Christmas meaning the children weren't allowed to open their presents until the visitors had gone..

I completely disagree with OP - on reading the thread OP handed invitations out at school, for a party including only class members yet excluding one child this involving the school and creating an issue for the school to resolve. At no point did she investigate what had happened or attempt to resolve it. Children of this age are still immature and don’t realise the consequences of their actions, so they need to be supported by adults in resolving conflict - they don’t need to see excluding behaviour modelled by their parents. And people here are assuming the excluded child was the bully, but OP has done nothing to investigate his and in turn is bullying the excluded child.

You mean on reading page 1, Shrimpy ?? You seem to have missed the other 7 pages... and the updates where OP explains how she resolved the issue... with the other child's mother!

READ IT ALL BEFORE YOU WADE IN PLEASE!!!!

At that age especially boys they tend to keep stuff to themselves. My DS (10) had an issue with a boy who used to be really close with him at the end of last school y3ar. This boy used to purposely wind up my DS and push him, DS never said anything but some of his friends told me on the way home from school. I had a word width the teacher and she was suppose to sort it. We still have a few issues here and there but nothing too bad. I didn’t take it to the Mum as she’s the sort that thinks the sun shines out of his ass and he’s the most nicest boy. (I’ve spoken with her several times.) op is lucky the parent of the boy is more understanding. Hope everything gets sorted 😊

Not read thread. DD either has class, girls only in class or a couple of friends. Leaving out 1 - never.

The boy didn't exclude one child. Shrimpy

In my school, only parents who are inviting entire class/all boys/all girls are allowed give invites out at school, Otherwise it has to be done privately through texts etc,

Honestly i couldnt stand there and give out invites to every little boy except one ( however mean), i just wouldn't have it in me and if i was a teacher i would absolutely think way less of that parent,

When I was teaching that age group I honestly never had the slightest idea who went to whose party.

Your son can ask who he wants surely. It is only on MN you get th POV everyone has to be included. I had a drinks party with some neighbours at Xmas. Invited the ones I liked. I know, outrageous.

Sorry. Didn’t RTFT.

The boy didn't not invite just one child though. He didnt invite a lot of kids.
Its his choice.

Ooh. This is really tough. I disagree with other posters that you would've heard about it already if it was that big a problem - this could've been the 'right' time for him to talk about it or just given him an opening to raise the issue with you - kids often keep quiet about stuff like this. It was probably a faux pas handing out invitations in front of him but if your kid doesn't like this kid, he shouldn't have to have him at his party even though it is mean inviting all but one kid. It would break my heart to think of that happening to my son even if he was being a little shit Although maybe more digging about why they don't get along - did they have an argument that day which resulted in your son being pushed - was it a one off or is this kid doing stuff all the time? Possibly needs raising with the school if this is this case. Why not ask your son again if he still doesn't want him at the party? Kids are fickle and they may have made up by now. Or it could've exposed something deeper going on between them.

I think you’ve handled it badly op. I don’t blame your son for wanting to leave 1 boy out if he doesn’t like him but you, as the adult, should have thought ahead to how that would look. If he was adamant he didn’t want this boy there then iwould have told him he could invite 5/6 children because it would be unkind to leave one boy out. I doubt it is a serious bullying situation if nothing has been mentioned until party invites were being written so your ds has now made himself look like he is bullying this other child by exclusion.
I can see why the teacher has got involved if the invitations were given out in school and it was made obvious to this boy that he was the only one left out.
What a lot of drama that could have been avoided by inviting a couple less children!

Why should he have to exclude his friends, as to not hurt the feelings of a boy who is being unkind to him. Sometimes I think only on Mumsnet, in real life, you would not invite somebody who is mean, to your child, to their party.

I wouldn't have handed the invites out at school n leave just one out (that was prob why the teacher intervened & maybe the other boys goading him etc n was affecting the class) I think you handled it well after though.

I think handing out the invites at school in front of the child you are excluding is mean . Most 8 or 9 year old children would be upset by it.

I think most adults would be upset by it! It would be humiliating for the boy. I think it's cruel.

I'd have either invited less kids or made sure there was no way the uninvited child would now he wasn't invited.

Our kids school did not allow invites to be handed out in in school which excluded one child.

The other problem with doing this is that I can't imagine it will help with the bullying.

Personally, I think to exclude one child at this age is not on. For one thing, the party will be supervised, so this child will not get a chance to be mean to yours. It will give you an insight into the dynamics in the class too. If there is any bad behaviour, then you are there to deal with it. If there has been bullying, then deal with it with the school. At this age, many children are “mean” to each other. They tend to remember children being “mean” to them, but are not so good at remembering being “mean” to others. If you are going to exclude one child, please just do invites with some consideration. I speak as a parent of a child who was never mean to other children, but never got invited to any parties. Because if learning difficulties he was perceived as “odd” and “uncool”. I often wonder what all those lovely kids told their parents in order to repeatedly exclude my increasingly heartbroken, sad, lonely DS.

Jeaus wept now we have to tell our kids "you cant invite your 6 friends you can only invite 3 cos x who is bullying you might get his feelz hurt".

Only on mn! Out there in the real world our kids come first before some bullying kid.

I’ve never heard of a teacher getting involved like this. When I was at school, my DS and Dd teachers never did anything like this related to birthdays. And there was a lot of people getting left out, I never took it personally if my DS wasn’t invited which is very rare as he’s been invited to almost most of the party’s but the ones he wasn’t it wasn’t an issue IMO it’s non of the teachers business regardless of the invitations being handed out at school. They dictate enough things, and who goes to what party Is defo nothing to do with them.
A/n : I went to school in london and my kids in another town so not all the same school.

Since he’s only had family parties before In sure he would have been more than happy with a party with 6 of his friends.
Is he REALLY best friends with all of the other boys in the class so he couldn’t have possibly just chosen 6?
Plenty of times my kids don’t get to invite everyone they want due to cost and I have to put a limit on it.

I think bullying is a bit much if it’s not been mentioned by the ops son before and the school has no concerns! He doesn’t like the child and he may be boisterous but it is the op who has behaved like a bully.
The child had no need to invite the child he doesn’t like but inviting every other boy was mean and unnecessary.