...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??

My youngest is in y2. She was invited to whole class parties in reception but come y1 she was handpicked along with some other girls to attend several parties. It appears she’s a little bit popular. It’s like treading on egg shells in the yard though as you never know who has been invited or not and the parties she went to were a variety of groups so not consistent with one friendship group. There were certain children missing every time though. One mum was very upset as her child wasn’t invited to some parties. She has an older child my eldest daughter’s class who is always invited to parties so it came as a shock. My daughter just had her party in August and I invited the whole class but knowing only a handful would come due to it being school holidays and a week day. I did the same last year and only a handful came. None of the boys came (there are only 4 in the class) and a handful of the girls came but with siblings.

My eldest daughter is in y5. We noticed the hand picked parties starting in y1 as well although there were still some whole class parties and some girls only ones. She did hand pick that year from the few parties she’d been invited to (plus her friends who don’t have parties). Each year the invites have become less. She’s a less popular child than her sister with additional needs and only has 2 actual friends in her class, but does play with a few others. Last year she invited just the 2 friends. This year she picked a few more, again an August party on a week day. It was tricky as some of the girls we invited are part of a bigger clique who don’t invite my daughter but she had been invited to their parties this year - girls only ones and one full class (y5). One girl not invited is a sibling of a child invited to younger daughter’s party. They don’t socialise and when they’ve both been sat at a party together which their younger siblings were invited to they could barely make conversation.

I’ve never challenged anyone over not being invited. My eldest is aware and takes it well. One time she went to a group of girls after school being taken out for pizza in 2 cars for one child’s party and wished the birthday girl a happy birthday and told her to have a lovely party. It wasn’t sarcastic or badly intended. She has additional needs (my DD) and says what she sees and feels. The parents of the birthday girl were very embarrassed though.

Sorry for the long post. 2 children and many parties later we don’t get stressed and are all sides of the discussions. Cost does come into it, and space available for the party. If I’m hiring a big room and doing my own buffet then I can manage a whole class, but if it is activity led such as bowling/soft play/skating/cinema then it will be a handpicked few.

A couple of things stick out... just because people appear to be well off doesn’t mean that they are obliged to splash their cash on whole class birthday parties. I’d say I’m quite well off, compared to many - absolutely no way is this something I could afford! My boy is just finishing his primary years. He’s been invited to lots of parties. He’s missed out on lots. He’s ok.

Reading this thread makes me think back to when my ds and dd were in primary school seems a world away now they are in Y10 and Y13 - advice is this will honestly fade and your kids will be fine in the long run it’s if you as dp lingering and worry about it they will dwell on it.

I'll add I make it clear parents are to stay at parties my children have. My kids are having a party, I'm busy with said party, I'm not a sitter for your child for a few hours. There's one child coming to dds and her mums due date is very close to the party. Her daughter is a good friend of dds and I've told her if she needs someone to pick her dd up and drop her back off (she lives nearby) then that can be sorted. Otherwise I'd not be happy with parents bringing their child and going. (Dd will be 6 BTW)

SantaClauseMightWork
BigFatGoalie
That is your side of the story though.

What do you mean by that?

We have same issue handful of good understanding parents who invite ds who is autistic adhd. Rest no invite which is fine we only invite those who are capable of having the privilege to call as friend

Up thread the people who say it's only the little sods and the bullies who get excluded and us parents are delusonal.

Yep. My son who is autistic and is excluded is a little sod and a bully. The kid who spends his time standing or sitting next to the playground teacher on duty because other kids tease him but he doesn't even get it because all he gets is that people are aroud him and laughing so he thinks they are his friends.

The little boy who before the end of term had his parents (i.e. me and DH ) called into the school because he was held down in the boys toilets and urinated on for a laugh and when I later asked him if he was okay said he was fine, because so and so the 'popular boys' had played with him that lunchtime and everyone was his friend. He didn't even really understand that he had been assaulted. He thought it was all okay because other kids were spending time with him at lunchtime.

There are posts after posts on this thread with parents saying their quirky, SEN or additional needs kids are being excluded. And others dismissing it as 'well they must just be little sods.'.

Challenging behaviour has nothing to do with being a little sod (and there are idiot parents a plenty, looking at a thread in primary education where kids were excluded due to skin colour). But challenging behaviour definitely decreases the chances of being invited. Otherwise, it’s also the schools role to facilitate (a kid getting teases at playtime? What the heck are the teachers doing?).

And to the poster who said that their part of the social contract has been fulfilled by turning up at a party they were invited to, so no reciprocal invite is required..... I spent 6 years actively holding parties and playdates and afternoon teas and all sorts of things in the ultimately vain hope we would get a couple of reciprocal invites. Something for my child to look forward to and be happy about and plan buying a present for excitedly. Last year DS spent ages choosing a lego box at Tesco for one of the kids in his class. he wasn't invited to the party, but he knew everyone else was and he was so excited about choosing a gift for the little kid in his class. A kid who had been to all of the parties I had held. It can make you feel slightly miffed to be honest.

That’s really sad

So, to add: if a child endangers others it is justifiable to exclude them. A child being bullied is never justified (and that includes all kids - even the violent one). It isn’t hard to explain to a primary age child why a child is different. It is hard to explain why they get hurt and are supposed to invite said child who will hurt them on their birthday.

Havent RTFT but I do think excluding just two or three of 15 is out of order. All or just a few, would seem fair. Our school had whole class parties for several years although some started doing smaller things sooner than others.

@Gamerchick I really feel for you. My DS has SEN and was lucky enough to be invited to lots in the first few years - he was never excluded when they were big dos. He's Yr 6 now and never gets invited to anything which breaks my heart - but they all just have a few friends each now to do a specific thing so I do understand. However, a lad with similar SEN joined their class last year and we invited him to our annual whole-class party (yes I still do that, must be mad.... ) and his Mum said he was so excited as he'd never been invited to a party before! How can people be so cruel?

I'm too flattened / angered / irritated / saddened by his thread to engage anymore.

I think it is interesting though how there is the polar divide of those whose children don't have social issues and who cant even see the issue and those who are living it every day who can.

@girlflieshome just read your posts - sorry you've had such awful experiences. My DS is similar in that he thinks a lot of the playtime altercations are 'him and the other boys having friendly banter' or words to that effect - while in fact some of them are deliberately winding him up and calling him weird. It's only going to get worse I suspect - but least we were lucky enough to have few good years before the other kids got street wise.....

Onaswissroll, that’s really sad. What bothers me is not the silly bully mum but the fact that other mums just sat aside and watched it happen.
Something I never get around since moving to the U.K. is the teenage behaviour among adult women especially huge desire to feel included in the clique. Such that if the loud mouths are being rude or intimidating to someone else to exclude them , everyone else just keeps quiet cause every one wants to be in the clique rather than stand up for what is right. Happens a lot In The workplace too.

With the party issue, you either invite the whole class or literarily a handful and leaving a third of the class uninvited is really low.
Everyone seems to be happy their kids and their friends get along but what about that awkward child struggling to fit in - they are not my child’s friend go shouldn’t be invited.?! It’s a me myself and I selfish mentality - once my needs are met and my child is ok with only their friends everyone else can go to hell.

Hi Peace425 , I get why you are asking about this and how it’s disappointing . My experience was
much the same , big class parties in reception and then cherry picking from then on. My biggest bug bear was 4-5 kids that came to my dd party and she didn’t get asked back . I was quite disappointed initially but then realised that people can’t ask everyone and kids are fickle (
Although I do think some
Parents encourage their own friends kids to be invited !!)
The upside was that my dd didn’t seem to care at all and knew that ‘so and so’ were having a birthday .
My advice is rise above it , don’t give a monkeys and just rem who you won’t be asking next year ;)

I absolutely agree that it’s unfair to leave out a handful of kids. However, if your child is not invited to a party you owe it to them as a parent to not get angry or upset in front of them. Just brush it off. Some parents burden their kids with their own insecurities from childhood and it really isn’t fair.

I also don’t understand this playground clique bullshit that some parents on MN complain about. Surely you drop your child off at the school gates and bugger off. It ain’t a social club. Why do you care who is talking to who/if you’re not involved. Your child is there to get an education. It’s not about you expanding your social circle.

I get how some people may feel their kids are left out but my dd has never had a whole class party as I couldn't afford it. She's never had more than 15, usually 8-10 kids. Why should she not have a party unless I can invite 30 kids? I would never want her to have that many gifts either due to the timing of her birthday.
I have taught her not to be bothered by things like parties and she never has. She gets invited to most parties and I say no to ones where we don't reciprocate. I think it's parents that are more bothered by these things and projecting.

I work full time and dd never gets invited to parties. I think it’s because the mums (and it is all mums) hand out the invites at pick up and I’m never there for that. The school won’t facilitate handing out invites (which i understand, the teachers aren’t social secretaries). I’m torn between relief I never have to deal with the school gate cliques and sadness for dd. It doesn’t bother her at all yet (she’s 5 and likes to plough her own furrow anyway) but it might soon.

I guess August birthdays are an advantage for several reasons. You have the whole year to see if your child is invited and then can reciprocate. You can also decide which additional children to invite too. My DD has had quite a few new children start in her class this year. One parent was over the moon we invited her DD to the party. The new child hasn’t settled to a group yet and we didn’t know who she was friendly with but as soon as it was mentioned that there was a new child we included her. A second new child also started the school and it soon became apparent she has behaviour difficulties and friendship difficulties as well as learning difficulties. She’s targeted a lot of children violently. My DD has decided to play with her at school and is one of the only people who does and one of the only people who doesn’t get hurt by her. My DD is the one mentioned up thread who has additional needs and just a couple of good friends and isn’t popular. She does get how it feels to be excluded so always tries to make friends with new children. We invited the new child to the party but she didn’t come. I heard on the grapevine her mother avoids even telling her about parties as she’s not comfortable taking her to them due to her behaviour. I know a couple of my DDs friends’ parents would have refused to bring their children if they knew I’d invited no her but I didn’t mention it and would have dealt with it on the day if she did come. She’s always lovely and polite when she’s near me.

Similar thing actually happened in my youngest daughter’s class. The new child didn’t come in the end for personal reasons but the parent was very grateful for the invite and we received a card with a gift inside when they returned to school after the holidays.

10 or 12 is a fairly typical number to invite because lots of party packages cater to that size crowd, I understand it. I do think leaving out 2 or 3 kids from a big friendship circle is always going to be problematic and a lack of all-class parties is going to be very hard on kids who have difficulty socially at school and never get invited to anything selective. But all-girl and all-boy parties can be quite excluding too and I don't think recommending them is much different to any other non all-class party.

One of my DDs found the all-boys & all-girls invites to be really hurtful as she plays in a big group of boys and rarely got invited to the parties all her friends were going to. She found it really confusing that she doesn't get to do the things her friends are doing but did get invited to parties she had little interest in by girls who were often quite rude to her at school and who didn't actually want her at their parties.

@qumquat that's a bit rubbish. Our school dish out the invitations! I've never hear a school wing before!

i had a fantastic 6th party for ds2.invited his whole classcusins +outta school friends.,a week before it(which wasnt intended but)specified rsvp by text-everyone did-and as those who accepted did-i then extended invite to include any siblings(tho only if adult came too)id booked a magician who did 2 and half hour shift-including disco,dances,prizes and i provided a rattled together crisps,fruit, sliced watermelon strawberries apples,mini sausage rolls n ham n cheese then sandwhiches.jugs of juice n premade party bags which included cake.i neither knew nor cared .it was an absolute brilliant party 9still get asked for guy i used)in a lovely hall..i neither know or care who then had party and didnt invite my boy.and graciously rsvpd and took along to them that did. your wean will not know or get over it.unless same 1 man standing repeatedly left out which would be shite your hitting them with how you feel...

Well at some point you are going to have to choose who you really want to invite. What year do you think you will be okay with a selection of real friends?

It is part of life.