...to be shocked that children are being excluded from parties?

[Peace425]

My DD has just started Year 1. In Reception, all of the children had parties which involved the whole class, or just girls/boys. This year I am shocked that everyone whose had or scheduled a party (there are a lot of Autumn/Winter babies) is picking out a handful of children to attend, and the same children are being excluded time and again.

I understand that parties can be expensive, but this is not to do with money. We live in a very affluent area and the parties tend to be a little extravagant. I am in a minority, living in a small three-bed semi; most of the families are very wealthy with massive homes.

There are a handful of children who seem to be being left out - some whose mothers do not know the other Mums as their children went to different pre-schools, but also some who have the reputation of being quite naughty.

I am inviting all of the girls to my DDs party, because it feels quite 'high school' to cherry pick. My DD did not want to invite certain girls, but I've told her she has to, because 'how would you feel if you were left out?'. Luckily, she seems to be quite popular, so has been invited to almost all of them.

If you don't want to spend much, you just have to be a bit more creative about the type of party you pick. I've hired a slightly tired
village hall that is cheap and will be doing my own games and crafts.

Or go really small - 3 or 4 friends - rather than a middle number that leaves out three or so girls (there are 15 girls in the class).

Some mums who I thought were really nice and fair, have surprised me with their attitudes to be honest. Is this now the norm??

Completely agree perfectstorm

My reception aged DS was excluded from a birthday party. I discovered it was because the mother of the birthday child decided she didn't like me. For reasons unknown.

Nothing to actually do with my DS. Our children hadn't argued, fallen out or bullied one another. As far as I knew they weren't best buddies but we're friendly and they often mixed with each other.

Me and the boys mum have barely crossed paths and I don't know her. We haven't argued or exchanged any bad words. I mean, we haven't become school gate friends but I hadn't realised there was any animosity between us. But then another mum I have become a little friendly with let it slip that my DS wasn't invited to this womans DSs party because she doesn't like me. Apparently she thinks that I think I'm 'too cool'

I genuinely have no idea what she means. I'm not loud or gregarious. I just pick up my son and quietly chat to a couple of other mums & dad's occasionally at the gates or other kids parties. There's no 'too cool' about me. In fact I'm a small-framed nerd in specs who is mild mannered and softly spoken. I'm not wealthy or flash, I'm not a show off. I don't dress in expensive clothes or possess cool flashy stuff. My car is as truly as uncool as you could get!

After the party that my DS was excluded from, there was a picnic at school where parents were invited too. She actively sought out the parents I usually chat to and ensured there was no space for me & my DS on "their" picnic blanket. Me and DS ended up on our own, but I couldn't make a scene as there were 30-odd 4-5 yr olds around. So we gracefully accepted our exclusion, sat on the ground on our own (as all other blankets had been taken up by other groups) and had our own fun. Then I heard the horrible cow shout out loud "look at her, sat all on her own... Ha! Not so cool now is she!"

Still can't fathom out what she means, or what I've done to deserve it, but I'm hurt that her dislike for me caused my DS to be excluded on 2 occasions.

Luckily reception were split into two different classes when they moved up to year 1 and I don't have to encounter this woman any more.

Sometimes it's the parents that do the judgmental excluding.

The teachers advice is a sensible one.I do wonder with those who dont want their child to be upset what they are learning for the future.If they dont win a race do we give them all a prize,if they dont pass an exam do we give them a pass anyway then after when they dont get that job.Friends will swap and change throughout their school life.Its shameful if SEN children are excluded maybe we as parents need to work harder to ensure our children understand about children's specific needs..Playdates etc.. May help build these relationships

I agree @Jux
My children invite friends to their party - and actually, cause they're nice kids, some of their friends do have SEN.
If parenting is done right, children don't see SEN- they see a friend.
I guess, not everyone is like this. I would never exclude my youngest's best friend who has SEN, it's her best friend. If people do that then they are wrong. But I would not tell my children to invite children who are not their friends - SEN or not.

Nothing worse than to ask a child what would be a dream come true in an emotions lessons and the response is, to be invited to a party.
We hold parties in my department as some of our kids have never had an invite to a party. It doesn't mean they don't have friends in school but often the parents don't value that frienship. Oh it won't last long they will soon grow apart.
Parties can be so devisive and children can be cruel when they deliberately exclude someone then taunt them at school. Party onvites are ised to gain favours and to be accepted.
This will be the first year dd wont have a whole class party and that is because it will be away from home so just a few of her friends and her sisters friends.
On the flip side there are the kids who no one turns up to their parties 😢 because the parents don't like that child or their parents. We were at a party where the whole class of 22 had been invited and the wee one waited on their friends appearing and only 4 came. Then the question no one can answer, why?
Choose who you want for parties it's your right. But please be mindful that some never get invited and can't join in the talk of what a party is like because no one is willing to give them that experience.

Busy honest childcarer

«maybe we as parents need to work harder to ensure our children understand about children's specific needs..Playdates etc.. May help build these relationships«

YES!

Talk to your children about disabilities. Encourage them to get to know those who are. Actively include those children.

It’s not enough to not explicitly exclude. ACTIVELY INCLUDE

I'll never forget a mum coming up to me nearly in tears saying how grateful she was that DD had invited her son to her party , he had Downs Syndrome , my DD loved him and I was so saddened that he was often left out.

Kids parties are a bloody minefield .

YABU

Children aren’t entitled to be invited to a party. You don’t get to pick and choose whose party you are invited to.
My daughter has ASD and is regularly not invited. We invite everybody to her party. That life and she accepts it happily because I don’t make it a big deal. If you make it a big deal your kids are gonna have big issues in adult life...

DS's first school had small classes (infants only, bigger, better reputation schools not too far away). Everyone invited everyone (in the higher years, even more than one class, because kids would leave early to get a place at a combined infant/junior school, so the classes were tiny). Including the kids with special needs. We all knew everyone, we knew that X would bring his own food, or Y might need to duck out early, or take some time in a quiet room, or to listen and rush if Z needed the toilet, or to keep an eye on W because he got a bit over excited around the balloons etc.

TBH, this is why we picked a small school rather than the big ones - the big ones were too anonymous, and we knew that DS would do better where everyone knew him and he knew everyone. But I know that we were lucky to be able to do that.

I’ve always told my kids to wait for an invite and not assume they can go just because their friend said so. Including play dates too.

My go to response is: ask Olivia’s mum to send me an invite and you can go.

Tbh you can’t know every parents financial situation to decide that they can afford to invite the whole class.

I personally have always kept the party plans hush so avoid my children from inviting too many numbers. They may not be close friends with the whole class and I know my DS doesn’t even remember every kids name in reception.

Ofcourse i don’t make a big deal of my SEN kids not being invited to other kids parties

To other parents ( far too upsetting and embarrassing)

And especially not to our children ( teach resilience and continued kindness and self suffiency)

No idea where you all live where class parties or 'just the boys' parties are the done thing! Post pre school/reception where they dont really have defined friendships, my two eldest have always been invited to the parties of their actual friends whom they play with somewhat regularly and get on with, and we've done the same. And yes some of their friends have sen. This is normal. No way would I invite everyone just so someone doesn't feel left out - we don't go through life being friends and socialising with absolutely everyone we meet, we have every right to choose to hang out with just the people we like best. Why would kids be any different? My children have never complained about not being invited to someone's party because it would be someone they're not that close with and going to a party is not an entitlement.

I genuinely am not bothered if my kids don't get invited to parties. Sometimes they might say "X is having a party but I didn't get an invitation"
I remind them that sometimes people can only invite a few kids to their party it doesn't mean X isn't their friend and we get on with our day.
There are several parents from DS2's class who never respond to our invitations or worse say they are coming but don't turn up. I don't invite those children anymore.

Whole class parties don’t need to be expensive. Hire a community hall for an hour (£20) . Go to Lidl and buy bread, ham, cheese, tangerines, fairy cake and birthday cake ingredients , squash, balloons, crisps and sweets (£30) . Bring along music player to plug in. Play musical statues, musical bumps, musical chairs, pass the parcel etc. Send folk home with a piece of birthday cake . done. £60 tops if you want to spend a extra tenner on amazon buying some crap for party bags.

Kids are not going to be inclusive until the adults in their lives invite people with SN, disabilities, mental health issues, social awkwardness over their friends.

I'm an Aspie with popular, NT kids who pick who they want to invite. I can't tell them who to include as it's not something that I or any other adult does. It doesn't take long to find adults on MN who are lonely, marginalized, stigmatized and desperate for friendship.

We were the first to do this about a week ago! (Y2)
I was worried about it, I have a very close group of mum friends in the class. My DD chose 10 from her class and three from out of school. It’s all we could afford, although at a very expensive school with very affluent friends. I wished she had chosen the children of my friends () but I totally left her to it.
In the end the party was so lovely, all the children she chose were kind, they were so nice to each other, did the activity so well, shared and we’re just generally a delight!

The mothers who were there agreed it was a lovely bunch of children. So in the end my DD knew best and chose the children she got along with. I was worried about the parents’ reactions and if there would be repercussions, but I’m proud of her for being able to choose well. And she’s by FAR the youngest in the year.
I was more worried than she was!!

I think YABU.

This year my ds wanted a certain type of party, had whole venue so could have invited the whole class but he didn't want to.

He chose about 20 out of 30 kids (boys and girls) who is friends with and likes.

He chose not to invite the boys or girls who are mean to him or who he just doesn't have anything to do with.

I'm not going to force him to invite a load of little shirts whose presence would make him miserable, just for the sake of playground politics.

He has been invited to 2 or 3 parties in the last year. All of them were parties of children he is friends with. I would much rather that than a party every weekend where the party boy/girl doesn't give him the time of day

With regards to SEN, the schools that my kids went to didn't explain it to the kids until much older. I think that quite rightly some parents may want to keep a diagnosis private and some conditions are diagnosed later so it's not possible to know if a child's behaviour deserves patience because of their SN or they are NT and taking advantage of other kids. Some people insist that small kids can't be in the latter category but there is definitely some.
The only SN that was obvious was the child with type 1 diabetes and his mum accompanied him to parties just in case.

BigFatGoalie
That is your side of the story though.

Chipshopninja
Playground politics? At that age? He chose 20 kids and left 10 out. Either do a very small group or don't exclude like this.

Some SEN conditions are not particulRly visible and may come across as naughtyness

Sadly, sometimes there is a lot of intent re: exclusion. Parents who don't practice inclusion will typically have children who don't understand inclusion. School is one of the worst times.

Last year there were two official complaints put in at the same time, about my ASD son, and that the teacher was paying him more attention than the other kids (!!!!). He had an assistant who helped him, plus extra time in tests, plus he missed a lot of class time due to external therapies. Two mothers, who used the same words and phrasing, said that their children felt the teacher favoured DS, and as the school said, it was clear that the complaints were not coincidental. The school nurse offered to talk to the class children and parents but to be honest, I was already so upset that I didn't want DS (who is an exceptionally happy 9 year old child, adored by all the staff and most of the parents) to be talked about more than he already was. (Small village, he is the only SEN kid currently).
This is a kid who smiles for everyone, says hello to everyone, and can chat to adults and little babies for ages but has spent every single breaktime since he started school walking around the yard, alone. He thinks everyone is his friend, even when kids are mean to him (he just says 'they weren't so nice to me but they are still my friend') but doesn't get the rules of play/socialisation so isn't included.

He moved to a specialist school this year, class of 8 and has already had two party invites. When I sent my dad the photos of him and his friends from the first party, my dad cried. Hopefully he will now get to experience friendship with his peers.

Teaching inclusion is a complex issue. It's easy enough to teach children not to judge by appearances or quirks. It's very hard to teach them not to judge on behaviour and I'm not sure that's a good idea. I have drilled into the dds they are not to tolerate unkindness or bullying from other children

I find a lot depends on the specific disability. Looking at my son’s class, the lovely little boy with the severe learning disability gets invited to all parties. So does the absolutely hyper but friendly boy with ADHD (who occasionally hurts others, but never intentionally. Just no impulse control) and the girl with hearing impairment. But not the violent boy who hits and spits (no idea which diagnosis he has). And I wouldn’t ask my son to invite him. His parents have no control over his behaviour, neither does he. A disastrous party isn’t going to help anybody. I can just about explain this behaviour to my son as it is, and ask him to be understanding in school, but if he would spit on the birthday cake, or throw presents (both very likely), that would be it. As it is, children understand he‘s not doing it intentionally to be naughty, and are playing with him at school with the 1-1 directly involved, but birthday parties without the professional 1-1. ..

Santa - playground politics of the parents, not the children. Also I didn't say how old he is did I?

So he is friends with 20 children, but should only invite 4 or 5 (what exactly is the magic number? Must have missed that bit at the reception welcome meeting) and not invite the rest of his friends.

With all due respect, that's bollocks

Leaving out 1 or 2 I would absolutely not be ok with, but 10 kids is not remotely the same.