Playground party invites

[Shinyletsbebadguys]

Firstly I do accept maybe I'm being oversensitive about this and I have no intention of bothering the school with such minutaie (I don't rate ds1 teacher very highly but I do believe teachers work extremely hard and it's insane to ask them to police the playground politics)

However

Three times in the last three weeks , discounting half term , I've seen this but today was the most overt

Standing today waiting for the class door to open a mum handed her dd a pack of obvious party invites , she loudly said " go and give them to the lucky ones "

The little girl then went and gave her invites out to a few children then went to one little girl and went to hand an envelope then laughed and said "oh I forgot not you " ...the poor child she had played this trick on was crestfallen , The mother smiled and said " oh sorry not everyone can be chosen and lucky enough"

The little girl approached ds1 and I could see what was coming (please see explanation below and I have never seen her interact with ds1 so they are not friends ) I glared at the mother with an absolute death glare (after years of prison work in my early career my death glare is second to none ) and kept her eyes ...she wisely stepped in and told the little girl another invitee had arrived. I was so angry , Ds1 bless him is oblivious to things a lot and I doubt had seen the interaction or understood it really (He prefers to live in dinosaur land sometimes )

So I am not accused of drip feeding ds1 has extra needs and I fully recognise (not that I would ever ever indicate to him) he isn't the most popular boy in the class, he has struggled making friends and I know the other children find him odd and a bit unusual

He is lovely kind and funny and imaginative but I get the dynamics and I'm teaching him that he's wonderful as he is and doesn't have to be included in everything , it's not an entitlement and to believe in how wonderful he is and play with the friends he wants to play with.

I don't believe people should have to invite everyone in the class at all , I really believe child's choice but whilst this was particularly overt I have seen similar

Aibu in being annoyed that this dynamic is being encourage by some parents ? I guess I feel if ds1 was only inviting a few to the party I would ask him to be considerate on how he gave the invites out and I absolutely would not allow him to play such a trick on another child

It's hard to translate tone but the mother really had an exceptionally nasty tone and thoroughly enjoyed her dd being the purveyor of the special invites publicly excluding certain children.

Of course really what would I do about it ? Nothing is what , I'm not going to make a scene , it's not the little girls fault she's encouraged to behave like that , and it's not the schools problem ,so I will continue teaching ds1 that he is wonderful and lovely and doesn't need others approval but it did make me angry

I'm usually the furthest thing from PFB honestly but perhaps I am being silly being annoyed about this
It's not the biggest issue in the world , hell it's not even the biggest issue for me this hour but it does niggle a bit.

I'm genuinely curious as to perspectives , it's not about the lack of invite but more about the encouraging children to be so exclusive publicly and not just being a tiny bit considerate ?

Great minds and all that downcasteyes!

High fives betty!!

she is setting her DD up to be a nasty little bully, much like herself. Only one day her DD will come up against someone like you, OP, only that person, adult or child, might not limit themselves to a death glare. Bloody well done for doing that, btw.

Absolutely I agree I wouldn't say anything to ds1 , we work very much on resilience with him because in reality he is going to have to be robust with these things.

I am going to have a plan in my head to handle it if I see it again , honestly I think we all were probably thinking the same and everyone waited for someone else to say

I'm usually very upfront and direct but there is something about being surrounded by all your DC that o think causes us to pull our punches so to speak but that's not ok

I will say something definately next time , I'm not shy or hesitant or nervous so no reason not to

The school isn't great in a lot of things and have a history of encouraging parent cliques so I really don't believe they will pay any heed whatsoever but if it continues then i will raise it

Vile mother. YDNBU, op and your little boy sounds lovely.
Fuck her and her little precious daughter's party. When you act like a vile human being, you can expect the party to be the same.

I remember this from primary school. A couple of mums did a joint party for their dds after school. The kids queued up to be picked up from school and the mums had the lovely idea of putting party hats on the lucky ones in front of the other waiting children.
Another time a mum handed out invitations on the playground with non invitees standing among the lucky ones with invitations in their hands.
We always did parties but managed to never be so shitty about it.

It's a kids party, not the second coming!

What a horrible, horrible woman. My DS1 has complex special needs and he was always the one not invited to parties or play dates or anything else, but for that mother to behave like that in the playground is beyond nasty. And she's basically teaching her daughter that it's acceptable to be a bitch. Wow.

People saying you would have said something, what would you have said?

that's awful and very spiteful/sadistic behaviour from the mother. I expect the child doesn't fully grasp why it's a mean trick but the mother sounds like she got enjoyment from it

God I agree with this 100%. How can people live with this level of spite in their souls and still sleep at night?!

I’ve seen and heard of invitations being used in a similar way - it’s indicative of how the parents behave and often their children as they don’t know any other way. It’s been part of another form of bullying. I’ve mentioned it to the DH as it has been part of a series of bullying instances. Other parents will be or become aware of it and take their measure.

Don’t beat yourself up about it - it’s quite shocking to see adults behave in that way - not expected so you don’t realise in time plus it may have made it worse for the little girl. What year is this?

i am rather proud of my death glare but 20 years in health and social care including prisons, Detoxes and Rehabs means you get good at stopping people in their tracks without a word that skill is not popular when I use it on DP though

I rather thought the same about it not being the second coming ...unless that mother has a sodding unicorn at the party I am going to guess it won't be as exciting as she thinks

Of course if she does have a unicorn ......it would still make her a giant dick

Pinkfluffybunny a teacher doing it ? Oh hell no...that I may well have gone nuclear , somehow I find it worse a professional who should know better doing it

You are not being precious or U. The mother is a nasty cow.

I completely understand that the school have a million and one things to deal with, however I don’t see the harm in a carefully worded email to the headteacher about this, perhaps the school newsletter could contain a short paragraph about discretion and care from parents with regard to handing out invites.

In all honesty I wouldn’t have said anything to the mother unless her little ‘darling’ had tried the no invite trick on my child. She would have got it both barrels then! She would have got my beady evil eye however

What a fine example she is setting to her child.

What a nasty parent, lucky your son has you!

This is really cruel. Both of my sons have been lucky enough (so far) to be able to invite their whole class to parties, however they both want smaller parties this year. I would just give the invitations subtly to the parents instead of letting my child hand out to a select few, just because I wouldn't want to upset any of the other children.

That's disgusting. No wonder some children grow up so horrible if that's the example they're set. What kind of mentality must that mother have to deliberately do that to a child?

That’s horrible

Really cruel. That girl is going to grow up to be a bully

My dd is having a small party in a few weeks. Only 6 people have been invited.

So my dd’s teacher discreetly slipped them into each child’s drawer.

She is probably the kind who would paint some poor horse pink and attach a horn to its head.

I dont think all class parties are necessary but that women is beyond vile.

What a dick, kids got no chance has she?

YANBU that's disgusting that a mother would encourage her child to be deliberately cruel like that. Well done on your amazing death glare, I clearly need to practice mine.

If you can't invite the whole class invites need to be done as discretely as possible. I try to avoid actual invites and send messages directly to parents. I did make the mistake once of trying to discretely hand out thank you cards on the playground and some kids saw and came rushing over thinking they were invites, I felt so bad, and I won't do it again.

That is nasty and unforgivable. What a shitty way to behave. If you feel able I would definitely work on something to say if you see this woman in action again. I’m all for not kicking up a fuss but some things like racist behaviour or bullying need challenging. Glad you employed death stare. What you describe is straight out out of a film like Mean Girls 😡

Wow I think that’s quite ... unbelievable

Hollowvictory I said what I should like to have said in this scenario. I also note I would avoid swearing as a terrible playground example.

@Hollowvictory - I'd have walked over to the Mum and said "you can't let your child hand out invites in the playground to only some of the children. Did you see how upset that little girl was when she thought she was getting an invite and didn't? I'm sure the teacher can put invites in bags or trays so the other children don't feel upset and left out. Hang on, there's the teacher, I'll go and ask her for you now."

But then I'm not known for my subtlety!