When your child is excluded from a birthday party!

[Shootingstar1115]

I can’t believe I am writing this. I never thought I’d be the type of mum who’s offended by their child not getting invited to a party - hate kids party’s anyway 🤣

But this might be an exception. There’s this lady who lives on our street she has two DC. One my eldest age and the youngest the same as DD, they go to pre school together and get on well, they will be going school together - we live in a small village.

She’s posted photos of her youngert party on social media. It seems like the whole pre school class other than DD has gone.

DD does have some degree of additional needs. She acts and behaves like a neurotypical but has some form of expressive speech disorder meaning she doesn’t talk a lot but understands everything! She plays with other children well considering and to other parents it isn’t obvious. I tend to tell them she doesn’t talk much and is shy. (She’s actually far from shy tbh)

So why isn’t she invited? First time I’ve ever had to deal with anything like this! 😭

If she had just invited a few I wouldn’t be bothered, but it seems like they all went!

We've had this with neighbours. So you speak to them all the time. They wave and call you over to chat. Friends on Facebook too. But then I see all the other kids of the neighbourhood going into a party, but mine wasn't invited. Nice, then I see it all over Facebook.

So I can only say that my neighbours wouldn't choose me as a friend or my son. He as it goes also has an expressive speech issue too, so comes across as shy. He only says part words. He is a lovely gentle clever boy, so no problem. Maybe they worry their DC will catch the issue or maybe it's just a coincidence It breaks my heart, because one day he will notice and what do I do when it comes to him having parties? Do we invite or not as they didn't invite us? We haven't had one yet.

I agree completely the party parents choice.
However as a parent of a probably sen dc it is hard to see them excluded even from nursery/reception age, even when other dc have 4 parties over a weekend.
It can be even harder when even though you do invite to your dc party dont return them.
Also sometimes it cant help if your dc seems much more immature (by age or abilities).

If they deliberately excluded him they are CFs. You can’t invite everyone except one child. It’s either everyone or a small handful of kids. Otherwise it’s terribly mean. Maybe his invite got lost. I invited quite a few kids to my sons party, never heard back from a couple of the mums. They found the invite a week/2 weeks after the fact and rang to say sorry!

Wrong thread dumdumdeedum ?

Tbh I would assume your invite got lost, either at the bottom of your child's bag or in between parent giving them to nursery staff and getting put in bag.

I have 2 children, end of primary / secondary age now and we have missed quite a few over the years due to misplaced invites. I have been pulled up by parents twice in the playground to ask why I haven't replied (no invite received ) but more usually I find it a week later screwed up in the bottom of sports bag / coat pocket etc..

I even missed a party where I had chatted to the mum on the Friday afternoon at school pick up. I phoned her a week later when I found the invite to apologise and asked her why she hadn't mentioned it and she said she felt a bit awkward as I hadn't mentioned it

It's possible your neighbour is a bitch but more likely there has been some mix up. She will probably be posting on here next week about her friend who didn't bother to reply to invite or turn up to party and is now giving her the cold shoulder and she doesn't know what she's done wrong

Oops yes I've reported my mistake .. sorry !!

Thanks all. I’m not a confrontational person so I won’t bring it up with her but I’m not sure I’ll be so keen to chat to her on the morning school runs anymore! 😭

It sucks as a sen parent. I sobbed last year (reception) when my child wasnt invited to what he considered to be his best friend. I found out later he was doing lots of solo playing or playing with his older siblings at school. I wasnt sad because of not being invited as such just the realisation that DC had a bumpy road ahead. On plus side I did lots of playdates and school made huge efforts to make him play with his own class instead of seeking safety of his siblings. Sometimes it still gets too much for DC but hes getting better

Part and parcel of being a SEN parent unfortunately. My youngest got invited to one party right through primary and that's it. You do toughen up over it and sadly so does your bairn after many years over invited being flaunted in front of them.

*tears

I'd be tempted to post on the photos of the party so that she knows that you know. But to just put "Happy birthday", nothing mean. I hate it when people don't invite you and then post on SM about it. Don't they realise that you will see it.

Either the invite got lost and she's sitting at home thinking you're rude for not replying or she's really nasty.

Has she not mentioned the party at all when you've chatted?

If she's deliberately/managed to avoid any mentioned of the party at all when you talk most days then it was almost certainly deliberate.

Every child in a class is not invited to every party - that’s just a fact of life. I never understand the angst of some parents on MN because their child isn’t invited. I never invited children my children didn’t want at their parties tbh. I really didn’t care about the reason they weren’t invited. At the end of the day it was my child’s party and there is no way in hell I’d ask them to invite someone they didn’t want there. I’m not one of those parent’s who would expect my child to invite the class bully. I’m not for one second saying your child is the class bully OP what I am saying is children are not always invited to every social occasion. That’s something children need to learn.

Every child in a class is not invited to every party - that’s just a fact of life

There is always that child, usually with SEN who is NEVER invited. Obviously your kid gets invited sometimes or you would understand what people are on about

Please ask her, if DDs best friend at nursery hadn’t asked me she and her parents would have been thinking there was no invite (not put in book bag) and I would have thought they were just too busy to attend.

I never understand the angst of some parents on MN because their child isn’t invited.

In my case it's probably due to the fact that in all the time ds was in a mainstream class he had not a single invite, despite many all class parties. (Photos on social media, invited handed out in front of him and one memorable time we were sat on our doorstep in the sunshine whilst all his classmates walked up the road to a party in the village hall at the end of our road!)

It's shit. If you invite a small group...fair enough, if you invite all the girls/boys...fair enough, but if it is a class party...invite all the class.

Sorry op. Hopefully it's a mistake.

I am sorry but I am in the not everyone needs to invite everyone. Yes you may be mystified why your DD wasn't asked but I always let my kids make their list and limited numbers depending on.type of party. Just because your DD and you might have chosen her Dd does not mean they have to choose yours. There are always odd choices. You will end up feeling worse if she says the limit was 16 and yours didn't feature in that 16. You have an older child and are already aware of how the system works. I think you hoped for more with your DD as you had assumed that DS had previously not been invoted because of his sen.

I would probably have to ask. ‘I saw your lovely birthday photos and just have to ask, is my DC causing a problem at school meaning they were not invited?’