Party Invites causing upset

[Horseskeepmesane]

Hi, first post!

non judgey, non cliquey mum here who is just confused by Year,1 party invites.

my son is literally the kindest, mild mannered boy, can be quieter with others he isn’t familiar with.

party invites in his class seen to be the biggest issue I do NOT understand

i see chunks of invites being handed out, my son does get them sometimes, but there are also many times when he doesn’t get them, from parents of kids I know he plays with???

what is going on? I’m very happy and chatty at the pick up and drop offs, no issues I can think of, never had any behaviour issues mentioned from school. Why do some kids seem to get invited to all parties? Is it to do with the parents being ‘pushy’ about climbing the social ladder with other parents? I know this sounds petty, but it isn’t. It’s getting under my skin, and upset for my lovely son.

I have one child who has a close group of friends so party invites are more infrequent, although she does get them.

and another who is a social butterfly and gets invited to EVERY SINGLE ONE.

I prefer the former. So expensive and parties are hell.

Parties are a family thing in our family so we invite relatives, siblings, cousins etc first and maybe a handful of school friends. No one owes someone else’s kid a party. I booked an expensive activity party for one DD and she invited some friends. When I left one friend home her mother confronted me as to why her younger sister hadn’t been invited!!! At £25 a head I don’t think so 🤦‍♀️

Except for full class parties, usually it will be best friends + kids whose parents are friends with the birthday child’s parents.
From Y3/Y4 parties get smaller, we move on from full class to all the girls / all the boys and then 3-5 best friends.

Some kids are just more outgoing, friendly, chatty, fun, approachable - in other words, better company than other kids. It's just the way it is.

Invitation numbers are usually restricted because maybe the parents can't afford to invite so many, want just a smaller group as more manageable, know the other kids better than yours as they're closer friends with their kid; ordinary, non-offensive reasons like that.

You shouldn't take it personally and you should encourage your child to not take it personally. We neither like everyone else nor are liked by everyone else. It's being human.

I understand how you are feeling, I'm new to all this and think it's a bit ridiculous.

What I have noticed is that a lot of the parents that are 'friends' at the school gates are the instigators. They are choosing the kids to go to parties and are choosing them wisely so that they can hang out with their friends rather than the kids. Odd.

Either way, my son seems to be invited to the odd party that I know the parents seem nice and he plays with the kids.

Makes me feel better that I don't have to invite everyone to his party either, think of it as win.

This is how parties go ime

"Betty, you can have 8 friends from class to your soft play party. Who would you like?"

I write down 8 names. The day before the invites go into school "who are you inviting?" Write the names on and send them in.

I'm not managing who she wants at her party. Names she gives go on slips, end of.

Unless he is the only child being left it, you just have to suck it up I am afraid.

I am having it with DC2 at present, she was invited to all the "class parties" when they were a thing but now the kids are older it tends to be just friendship groups and she has only had one invite this whole school year.

I know she mixes well overall but she is just is never invited. She isn't the only one and she doesn't seem to care (she understands as the kids get older they have smaller parties with less people, she is very forgiving bless her) but it does make me sad as she is such a sweetheart.

It is what it is I'm afraid.

Thankyou for the Real Talk, definitely agree that I have approached this from a probably untrue angle. I think he does have a smaller group of long term friends, and then moves around other groups.

The only thing that I think should be the standard when it comes to party invites at school is that they should be given to the child's teacher/TA and placed inside the invited child's bag, rather than being given in front of children that aren't invited.

Yes, people can invite or not invite whoever they like, and it's part of life, not being included in everything, I just think it's a bit kinder to young primary age children to not have it rubbed in their faces - most young children love a party.

I still remember how I felt after seeing the look on my eldest child's face when the friend she was playing with at the school gates got handed an invited from a classmate, but not her.

She probably forgot about it within the school day, but it cut me deep 🤣🤣

I love your username!!

Sorry this was meant for LovelyLovelyWarmCoffee 😂😂

I do think giving physical invites out at school is a bit off though as kids will see who is/isn't invited. For the smaller 'friendship group' type parties it's all on WhatsApp/text in my experience. I have no idea what other parties take place other than the ones DD is invited to.

Not mad on the politics either. I agree can get tricky how many to ask. I remember a dad asking were we car pooling. I said mine wasnt asked!!! Gets awkward

I think your post would be understandable if all kids were invited but not yours. That’s not the case, you are heavily invested and want him always invited and feel that if he’s not it’s about Social climbing adults.

can you see what’s wrong with that thought process.

Yes, you are correct, I need to separate my feelings from this. I cannot control it, so I need to step back. He is happy and that’s all that matters.

Most ask their kids who they want to invite, obviously they don’t want to invite yr child.
Don’t take it to heart, it’ll happen a lot.

Ah god - I’m dreading all this when dc starts school. I wouldn’t wind yourself up about it though op- maybe take him the park/ bowling/ cinema anything to take his mind off it. Like you say he does get invited sometimes, so he’s not being excluded by everyone. I think it’s just a case of you win some you lose some.

It is hard if it’s not a whole class party. Does your kid have play dates with the children who don’t invite him? If he does then it’s a bit off of the parents imo. You have to balance the list of names your sometimes fickle kid gives you to invite with who they actually play with most of the time.

If these other kids are just ones he plays with at school now and then but never sees out of school then I guess it’s to be expected.

My son wasn't invited to any parties after the age of 4. The only time anyone should be annoyed is if the whole class is invited and yours is the odd one out. Parties are expensive and with siblings, cousins, friends kids there isnt much room for any more kids. Places like soft play parties can be limited to 15/20 kids and that's no way a full class. My son had lots of other places to choose friends from when he had a party and he could only choose 2/3 friends from each. Kickboxing, cubs, school and dance. It may look like alot of invites are given but probably isn't as many as you think 15 in a class of 32 doesn't go far x

What a cruel thing for that child to have done and that parent to have allowed - awful. What on earth are some people teaching their DC?

if you really want him to have more invites I’d suggest that throwing a whole class party and then youll get reciprocal invites. But honestly I wouldn’t bother - he’s clearly getting a few invites, so that should be enough.

Ugh only on Mumsnet is this such a big deal. Kids aren’t friends with literally every child in their class, just like you’re probably not friends with literally every adult in your workplace.

whatever is the reason, I think you need to not let it bother you. A life lesson your son can learn, and at least you can do something nice as a family instead of being with loads of shouting kids!

Just out of interest, do you do full class parties every year? I only ask as I tend to invite my child’s friends, and then ‘return’ the invites that they’ve received in the past year?

My son doesn’t particularly enjoy parties, even his own! Too noisy and busy. So I do go for more low key activities (8 at most!). I’d hate anybody to be upset, I just simply couldn’t afford to pay for 30 kids to go climbing and my child would hate a community hall party.

Im sure your son is well liked and happy if he’s content at going into school. It’s ok to have these feelings tho, the early years of primary are the worst.

We don't have any WhatsApp groups so they have to be given out at school. I don't know who half the parents of my son's friends are.