It's a chidren's party invite one (aia)

[leopardprintisnotaneautral]

Sorry I know they're a little tedious but rather than trawling previous threads on the subject I thought I would garner some specific opinions.

DC goes to a very small educational setting (well under 30 in total). It's ages 3-6.And has a lot of very specific goals and aims around compassion, community and developing children's self-esteem and making sure all the children respect, feel respected and are secure, that are more touchpoints.....and they like to talk about them a lot.

Very recently one of the parents was stood at the door almost at pick up handing out what were clearly birthday party invites directly to most of the children as they walked past (basically all the parents are to wait in one area and the children come to us IYKWIM so they were at the head of and slightly in front of this area and the first person the children would see - they'd clearly gotten there early to do this). Whilst talking about what was going to be at the party and later again loudly in the play as families were leaving.

No, my DC didn't get invited, along with a very small number of others, no I am not enraged because I am jealous. I fully agree with responses I've seen on previous similar threads saying children should be able to invite who they want to their parties...although come on they're 3-6 yo (this child being in the middle, a 5-6 yo I agree may have more of a say)....and it wasn't like it was a select few to half, it looked like most, and there didn't seem to be any correlation between those that did e.g. same age/started at same time/same residential location. As I said fair enough but I still think it's shitty at those numbers, there's got be a point where you think sheesh does this look a little mean excluding a few and my word is it not ultra, ultra mean/cruel for it to be done in this way, I mean it's 2022, there are a multitude of kinder ways to have a selective party, it was so mortifying. My DC is too young to have noticed thankfully, but I know one of the older ones who wasn't invited noticed and asked....awful.

What I'm wanting please is a steer on whether my outrage is correct A) and B) should I say anything to the nursery, not an all guns blazing but a come on this isn't right is it.

This happened to my son first week in reception. A boy he was at nursery with who he had played with many times gave out party invitations with his mother supervising ! Every other child from nursery invited .
My poor son stood there waiting for his invite and didn’t get one !!
I was absolutely bloody furious…his mother is a church warden and was head of PTA …you can imagine the type!!
This happened 16 years ago and I have never forgotten this !
My son was firm friends with him throughout primary school and this child was invited on every birthday treat my son had …his birthday is in the winter so big trips to London going to various football stadiums,ice skating at Somerset house etc
I resented this mother throughout all my sons primary years and occasionally see her in the village..I still get angry about it now ..!!

@HotWaterAndLemon lots of the younger ones were invited though an yes as initially in my op I can certainly understand a 6yo having more say but this wasn't on of the 6 year olds.

I think you are being totally precious. It's inevitable that there will be some parties and social occasions to which your child is not invited. Your child will need to learn to deal with this.

There may be a very good reason the other parent is doing this. Perhaps they don't have contact details for the other parents, perhaps they can't afford to invite the whole class, perhaps their child doesn't have a good relationship with your child. Perhaps it is something else.

Anyway, the kindest thing to do would be to teach your child not to take it personally and deal with the disappointment. I'm sure the childcare setting doesn't need to be dealing with petty shit like this.

A similar thing happened to dd1, about three quarters of the year were invited to a party. I mentioned it to the teacher to be aware that if it got mentioned on Friday afternoon / Monday morning she’d know that a handful of kids who hadn’t been invited might get upset.

As kids can't be relied upon to give their parents the invites (a few times I've cleaned out a school bag to find a long lost invite shoved in, well past party date), and to save hurt feelings, the parent should either email or send or drop round invites individually, not at school. Every class year my children have been in there has been a class contact list.

@Doggydreaming there is a nominated guardian contact list and everyone plus both parents where applicable in most cases are on there, so it's a absolute hogwash to say that was the only way to do it it, it unequivocally was not.

And although thi isn wholly about inviting and no inviting, rather in the way it was done versus the thos of the very, very expensive setting.

And whilst as I've said its not about the party itself we can most (if not all) and especially this family afford to invite an extra 4/5 children!

Well, while I agree it was pointed, unkind and unnecessary to do it in this manner, inviting guests to a party isn't about whether you can afford to! I think that's quite an unedifying point on your part op! People are allowed to invite who they want. It was the way for sure. And I repeat, your child is completely unscathed. My dc understood from early on that everyone can't invite everyone. It doesn't prevent disappointment but is accepted at the same time.

[quote leopardprintisnotaneautral]@Doggydreaming there is a nominated guardian contact list and everyone plus both parents where applicable in most cases are on there, so it's a absolute hogwash to say that was the only way to do it it, it unequivocally was not.

And although thi isn wholly about inviting and no inviting, rather in the way it was done versus the thos of the very, very expensive setting.

And whilst as I've said its not about the party itself we can most (if not all) and especially this family afford to invite an extra 4/5 children![/quote]
But maybe the child does not want to invite your child? Maybe they don't get on? Just because it is a very very very expensive setting and the parents can well afford to invite all the kids, it boils down to who their child actually wants at the party.

On the other hand I absolutely do not agree with the way it was done. At all.

[quote leopardprintisnotaneautral]@thewhatsit so not a primary school....but much much closer to a primary class in set up than private daycare.....pick up is at the same time for all children. It would be like 80/85% of your DC's individual class being invited.[/quote]
Ok so I do think it is probably rude then BUT not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. I would find it a bigger deal at a primary school because if a few children feel left out that could impact on the rest of their years at school.
Assuming you are in the U.K. and we are talking about some kind of Montessori setting then there is a strong likelihood that a lot of the children will leave at 4/5 anyway to join mainstream schools (state or independent) at the reception year so there will probably be a lot of movement anyway. Maybe I’m reading this wrong but I know a LOT of parents who used Montessori 3-6 schools just for the nursery year. They definitely didn’t feel as invested in the school as they did the primary schools they ended up at.

Absolutely mention this to the nursery.
It's not on and completely against their values.
Personal party invitations should not be given out at the nursery.
It's such a shame these important values aren't being nurtured at home.

Why do you keep pointing out how “expensive” the nursery is?! It’s like you expect rich people to automatically ‘be kind’ and would expect this from poor people but not at the expensive place surely

I think I would say something to the school. I don't think it's outside their remit to have a say on how their premises are used and the behaviour they expect of parents. When mine were at (state) infant school we were reminded constantly in letters not to have mobile phones out at pick up and to pay attention to our children not our phones. Likewise, constant reminders on parking being respectful to residents. I think if the school's ethos is about inclusivity and increasing confidence in children then this parent's actions go against it and there should be some kind of reminder that it's not acceptable behaviour going forward.

I think the price of the school is totally irrelevant to this.

Why do you keep pointing out how “expensive” the nursery is?!

This bit has made me curious tbh as all childcare is bloody expensive. Our bog standard, big chain nursery (about 10 of them in every U.K. town) that was nothing special at all was about 21k a year and this was some years a go. DS now at private school and it is actually cheaper than nursery was.

Staff at the nursery I was paying £1,800 a month to were still on close to minimum wage and I’m not sure if I’d had a complaint about what other parents were doing the fact that it was expensive wouldn’t have held much weight. That’s just how much childcare costs..?

If you do want to complain the values are the way forward.

My kids school would only allow whole class invitations to be dished out at school/via bookbags etc. Was made clear that anything not including everyone had to be done away from school for this very reason. Worked quite well. If any consolation this is only a problem for a few years, once they are slightly older its easier (and they prefer) to limit to eg 6/8 pals - then they can do more interesting stuff.

@thewhatsit not from 3 in this part of the UK it isn't.

Absolutely not @PurpleBaskets it was in response to a couple of people saying there were possibly financial motivations a) and b) My DC could go somewhere fully funded, with a lot of decent options to choose from, one of things we are supposedly paying for is the ethos of this setting....not simply the daycare...staff on minimum wage etc. Is simply not the case here.

The cost and "exclusivity" of the setting is completely irrelevant. DC are allowed to invite whoever they want to a party and there may be many reasons why they were limited to a certain number. However, I agree the way the invitations were given out was insensitive and would be better done by email/ WhatsApp or similar.

It's appalling and I would absolutely say something to the nursery.

Our schools and nursery had a rule about invitation dispensing, couldn't be done in front of children. So rude.

I used to post invites.

Do the exact same when it's your child s party. Stand at the door and hand out invitations to every child but hers in front of the mother. Petty but deliciously satisfying.

I’d imagine the nursery won’t deal with invites and that’s why the parent had to do it that way. Also, just because they could afford to invite more doesn’t mean they either wanted to or that the venue would permit it.

I’m glad your child didn’t notice, but I think YABU although I do also understand how you feel.

@Katya213

Do the exact same when it's your child s party. Stand at the door and hand out invitations to every child but hers in front of the mother. Petty but deliciously satisfying.

Yes, nothing more deliciously satisfying then making a small child feel terrible.

I still don’t understand what the cost of the nursery has to do anything or what the staff earn.

Talk to the nursery about it. I’ll bet that will get your kid invited to more parties in the future.

@SoftwareDev

The nursery will have a policy in place that they will not hand out invitations unless ALL children are invited. Alternatively they may have a policy that bans the practise altogether. Either way - they have done nothing wrong.

You cannot seriously expect nursery staff to attempt to stop parents issuing invitations after hours.

They’d laugh at the suggestion! Don’t be that mother!

As an aside - it was crass of the parent to issue the invitations in this way but what can you do?

Totally agree. My DC’s school had the same policy. It is shitty, but we’ve all been there with our DCs, I was particularly ‘there’ w DD. School won’t do anything.

Perhaps the Mother doesn't like you or your child.

Whilst I agree that watching the parent hand out the invitations isn't very nice, you cannot say anything to the nursery about this. They can't control what happens outside of their setting, and you'd be laughed out the door (no matter what their values are)
This may happen many more times in your child's future, and it's not worth blowing up over. You just need to let it go.

At my children's school, you can’t send in party invites or hand any out at the door, unless the whole class is invited. Parties with a select guest list have to be arranged out-with school which I think this is fair.