Excluding one child from birthday party bags

[seaclaidte]

Would you blame me?

This child has targeted my DS with his nasty comments, including calling him a Paki.
He also put his hands around my sons neck. The teacher brushed both items off as boys being boys type of thing but that's another story.

Both boys are 9 years old.

I think party bags are the biggest waste of plastic tat ever

party bags are way OTT, It must be really expensive to bring children up now!

^^ This, 100%. If I was ever invited to appear on Room 101, party bags would be very high on my list. I once found myself in the position of having to give a party bag to a child who hadn't even been at the party! When the parents came to collect at the end, one of them had an elder sibling in tow who refused to leave unless she also had a bag.

"The school like to bury things like this as its will affect their perfect ofsted score. They don't ever inform me. I usually hear it from DS.*"
*
Your DS needs to tell the teachers what is going on or you do. They're most likely not informing you because they don't know.

In answer to your question - no you cannot exclude one child.

Personally I would just include the child or I would omit bags to 4-5 or sons best friends. I’d never leave just 1 child out ever.

Sounds like there might potentially be an issue with his behaviour more generally which could be as a result of a multitude of issues.

I wouldn’t want to exclude one single child when I have no idea about the context of their behaviour.

It must have been a awful for your son. The school not addressing the behaviour or racism is a matter to take up with the school and is separate to the party bag issue.

My DM did stuff like this on my behalf when I was in primary. Excluded one child in the class from my party, and even wrote a poison pen anonymous Christmas card to one girl who had physically assaulted me (different girl, different school, it wasn’t sustained bullying of one person).

In retrospect, I look back and think she was fucking mental. Honestly, your children will lose respect for you in the long run if you behave like this. They are children, you need to be an adult.

I notice the OP hasn’t come back today. I do wonder how her son will feel when the bad behaved child has his birthday and returns the favour.

Absolutely exclude him. I wouldn't stand for that poor excuse of boys will be boys I'd be taking that further. And did.

@Chaiandkaafee

Wow. Some of the replies on here don’t surprise me at all! Forget the racist behaviour - let’s just concentrate on party bags! Party bags! Oh no! Because the majority of us don’t want to ever give out party bags, let’s just attack OP for that! Ignoring the racism. As for those who are telling OP she is an awful person for even thinking this.......I can bet if your precious child came home upset after name calling (not even blatant racism) your behaviour would be worse than OP’s!!! OP - mentioning party bags was the worse thing to do on Mumsnet!

Totally agree with this.

Wow. Some of the replies on here don’t surprise me at all!
Forget the racist behaviour - let’s just concentrate on party bags! Party bags! Oh no! Because the majority of us don’t want to ever give out party bags, let’s just attack OP for that! Ignoring the racism.
As for those who are telling OP she is an awful person for even thinking this.......I can bet if your precious child came home upset after name calling (not even blatant racism) your behaviour would be worse than OP’s!!!
OP - mentioning party bags was the worse thing to do on Mumsnet!

I agree, well said. Poor diddums not getting a party worse is apparently much worse than him calling another child Paki.

P*.

Be the bigger person.

In DS previous school, there were homophobic and racist comments from a couple of kids. The parents of these children were vile.

But you are the adult, and as a gay parent of mixed ethnicity children I always try to be impeccably nice to show they are the problem not me.

Actions have consequences.
I wouldn't indulge a kid that had physically attacked mine. No matter how miserable their home life.

This child isn't bullying my son.

He absolutely is.

@Sillyduckseverywhere

Actions have consequences. I wouldn't indulge a kid that had physically attacked mine. No matter how miserable their home life.

A parent deciding not to give a birthday bag to one child is one things, and I can certainly understand why the op doesn’t want to give this child a bag.

However expecting the school to hand out bags to all but one child in a class is another thing. No decent teacher would allow that to happen.

If I were the teacher I’d tell her she needs to arrange the handing out of bags herself if she wishes to exclude one child. She should not expect the school to facilitate her exclusion on one child.

There are two separate issues here:

(i) is it wrong for a child to be aggressive and racially abusive towards another child? Absolutely, and the school should come down on it like a ton of bricks.

(i) is it wrong for an adult to attempt to deliberately exclude one child in front of their entire class? Yes. Two wrongs don't make a right.

No one is saying that leaving a child out is worse than the abuse the OP's DS has suffered - they are clearly not comparable. But there is a right way to deal with it, and it's not by facilitating bullying of this child in return.

@Sillyduckseverywhere

Actions have consequences. I wouldn't indulge a kid that had physically attacked mine. No matter how miserable their home life.

It's a moot point. As a primary school teacher, I can tell you this would not be allowed to happen in a school. If a kid brings sweets or treats into class, I always count them to ensure there are enough for all the children present- if not, they all go back to the child who brought them to take home (same as if treats come in that contain nuts or are not vegetarian).

@Sillyduckseverywhere

Actions have consequences. I wouldn't indulge a kid that had physically attacked mine. No matter how miserable their home life.

But those consequences have to be immediate or they are meaningless to a child.

Thank you for all of your responses.

I absolutely agree with those that have said that it's wrong to exclude a child.
However as a mother, repeating this child's behaviour to mine in my head, I don't want to hand him a treat.

To those that are concerned about whether the gift bags are allowed at the moment, yes they are.
They are given out by the birthday child or the parent at the end of the school day, in the playground as the children are leaving. So it's nothing to do with the staff.

To those who think a 9 year old is too young to know better, this 9 year old swears in the playground on a daily basis, however knows not to speak like that in the teachers presence.

All acts of aggression from this child have been carried out when the teacher has been conveniently not in the vicinity.

And to those that are choosing to ignore the racism part, I can surmise that are from a point of privilege where you have never been racially abused.

Bullying or having said something nasty to you is on a completely different level to being abused for your skin color.

For those who are asking how my DS would feel if he were to be excluded, how would your DC feel if someone told them that they don't belong and need to go to a Muslim school? I mean since when does being brown skinned automatically mean you are a Muslim?

Regardless of all of the above, I have decided to wait until restrictions are lifted to give DS a little birthday party with his close friends.

What are you going to do to get the school to confront the bullying and racism?

I understand your anger, but public humiliation and exclusion will only reinforce whatever racism his parents are telling him to believe. It will be proof to him that your son as a minority is less than and justify his bullying if your son. It would also give cause for retaliation. The best way to deal with a bully is to fight back in the moment...ie they push you, so you hit back directly and to ignore the rest.

Oh, and yes report to the school and make sure they take action. I have had to do that for all my DCs at some point as we are Asian and so it’s sadly been a universal experience for them.

Regardless of all of the above, I have decided to wait until restrictions are lifted to give DS a little birthday party with his close friends.
That's a much better solution than party bags in class.

The child who was bullying your child needs investigating for racist bullying and it needs reporting every single time
A child using 'p*ki' has picked it up from somewhere and that would also be a concern from a teacher perspective, or it should be.

Moving forward, if the teacher dismisses bullying as 'boys being boys' again then it would be wise to speak to someone more senior in school. Ignoring the problematic acceptance of unpleasant behaviour as being an inevitable part of being a boy, no teacher should be minimising racism.

OP I’m with you. At 9 he is well aware of his actions. I would have out the bags in the playground to the other children and not him. I hope your child is ok.

Op one thing you haven’t addressed is what you are going to do about the bullying

Ok so you have tried the school and it hasn’t worked

If you ate as concerned as you seem to be, why the heck aren’t you seeing this as your primary focus above all else. LEA, ofsted... there are avenues available to you to pursue this!

Ignoring the party bag side (considering doing here - it’s allowed, but I’d say you can’t leave one child out)I’d escalate with the school any bullying or racist acts and ask them to respond saying how they will deal with them. Put it in writing, straight to the head cc’ing in the teacher. I’ve found that having things in black and white, and asking if it is being logged and how they are going to address it is the only way to stop things being brushed under the carpet.

If it was an actual party then I'd have no issue with excluding a child or several chilcren who made it very clear that they didn't like my child and went out of their way to hurt him.

But the sweets/party bags in class thing is much more tricky. I doubt the teacher would even agree to give them out unless there was one for every single child present. They certainly wouldn't allow you to exclude just one child. It's too obvious to the child that they are excluded. Apart from the fact that making that child feel humiliated/excluded in front of
his peers is only likely to increase the bullying of your child, not solve it.

At that age, with no accompanying gentle explanation of cause and effect, it will not make that child contemplate his actions and change his ways, it will just make him angry and vengeful.