No party invite and DD upset shall I text mum?

[helpMeWritethis]

I’m a little upset and wondering if I should say something to this mum or just leave it as I usually do. I have never had any confrontations with any of the mums ever so it’s a new territory for me to even think about texting this mum!

my daughter is friends with another little girl they both in year 4. My daughter came home upset Friday saying all the girls in class have been invited to a party on Saturday and “Emma’s” mum will call me later to give details as Emma will ask mum if my daughter can come. She kept asking me every few minutes on Friday evening and Saturday morning if she’s called. It must so heartbreaking. I’m socially awkward but my daughter is complete opposite and loves going to parties but never gets invited. She really thought “Emma” would invite her.

I’m thinking of texting the mum with a heads up that my DD might ask her tomorrow and maybe we can arrange a playdate something along those lines.

just for context my DD having birthday next month and I’m inviting the entire class.

A cool party for the cool kids, intentionally excluding some children is cringeworthy, @Mustardandchickensandwiches !
You must have absolutely zero self awareness if you're posting here about cringing for another Mum being confused about your selection criteria.

It's not cruel. I never did whole class parties...just had half a dozen proper friends.

Most schools now have a rule that party invites can only be handed out in class and put in book bags if the whole class is invited. Otherwise parents have to deal with it in the playground or ways that don’t involve the school or the teacher. Teachers try and stay out of the toxic swamp of parties and play dates.

Absolutely-I don’t have a TA to tuck invitations away in book bags so that would have to be done during my teaching time, which I won’t be doing. Our parents either give invitations out in the playground or via WhatsApp-it has nothing to do with us at school.

And it's not cruel not to invite the whole class.

From about 8 the parties tend to start really shrinking anyway- DD(8) has issued 5 invites, and DD(11) is only having 2. But we are doing much more "fancy" and grown up things with the smaller numbers.

Some people are just kinder than others , my DS was the only boy left out of a football party In Primary .. he didn’t like football .. but there were loads of football parties to which he’d always be invited .. the mums concerned really didn’t mind that he sat and watched ! The mum that left him out was a Primary School teacher .. would have thought she’d know better. I didn’t text or confront anyone though I was very hurt for him .. he’d known the boy since the age of 3 and we knew the family.

No one has said it’s cruel not to invite the whole class.

People are saying it’s cruel to leave out one or a few kids.

I think parents have other things to do than having to buy presents and take kids to 30ish parties a year for kids that their child probably has not said more than 2 words to all year

My child was not able to go to every single party they were invited too same as we didn't invite every single child

I’m socially awkward but my daughter is complete opposite and loves going to parties but never gets invited. She really thought “Emma” would invite her.

OP, I'm going on I say this as kindly as I can, if your DD isn't being invited to parties, could there be a reason? Is she too enthusiastic maybe, and other children and parents might find her a bit lively at a party? Obviously I'm reading between the lines and could be way off.

Is Emma saying she's invited to placate her in school, but the Mum doesn't want to include your DD?

I wouldn't text the mum. If your DD asks why she wasn't invited, then let the mum explain. It's not on not to invite one girl, it's bullying by exclusion. If there is one child in the class you really don't want at a party then you keep the party small and are quiet about it, not hand out invitations at school.

I have never heard of a School which enforces rules about Party attendance! Upsetting though it is this, is just life Im afraid .Unless she has invited all DC save your DD ,which seems unlikely .Then I would just leave it.Someone gets left out sometimes( as happens when Adults too) Friendship groups are fluid at this age ,and they can be "besties" one week and number 2 the next! Maybe think of some treats for next weekend for you and DD, and ask a couple round half term maybe?

Also, I think best not to confront the parent. Who knows why your dc was not invited. Some parents are strange. There is one friend of my dd, the mum never ever reciprocates playdates or invited her to her dd bday party. I decided instead to just stop inviting the girl for play dates and that dd can just play w her at school or after school in the park. The girl will approach my dd after school and ask her to play in the park. The girl also always has a lot of fun with my dd and seeks her out during school events I am at (sports days, field trips etc). I can see the girl wants to be friends w my dd and actively will go to her, so it is very very odd the mum always leaves my dd out. Anyway, it does not bother my dd because she has a lot of friends. But I do wonder what the mother's issue is. It is so very odd. I would think maybe she does not like my dd, but she is never around anyway (nanny always has the dc so she has never actually met my dd properly).

I would not being inviting Emma to my party. I absolutely don’t care if it’s petty, if all the girls bar my DD were invited, I’d absolutely reciprocate.

I don’t think 1-2 children should ever be excluded and it isn’t difficult to check on the girl/boy ratio.

The number invited does tend to drop off as they get older. This year I’m doing something with just 3 school friends, my daughter has been to quite a few that have been 5/6 kids. They need to learn they can’t go to everything but you also have to be sensible with numbers.

My rule of thumb is either all the girls or less than half. That is going to start getting tricky for us as it looks like we might only have 10 other girls in the year next year and there are 3 that my daughter doesn’t really play with , 3 she is very close to and 4 she plays with a lot but aren’t bffs. I think it would be hard to invite 7 and exclude 3 for example but also a bit tricky to split the middle group of 4.

It’s a good time to teach your daughter resilience around social matters. It would have helped me and saved so much embarrassment to have discussions about this as a child.

I still cringe from when I was about 8 and had invited classmates to my birthday party (had to stick to a number) One girl I had invited approached me and said they couldn’t come unless “Molly” could come too (Molly I didn’t invite because she had never acknowledged my existence).
I had to go home and grovel to my mum for Molly to come - thinking she must really like me - and I was given a hard time over it but she very reluctantly said Ok. I rushed over the next day to tell them and they were like “great thanks!”
Basically I had just given 2 bessie mates a free day out together (was either theme park or ice skating) and I still feel embarrassed about it now.

3 things I’m afraid Op -

1. Are you sure your DD is really a friend of this girl or did the party just sound like fun?
2. Please don’t encourage your daughter to say anything to girl or mother in case girl had also had to grovel for an invite and was refused
3. 8 year olds can be manipulative, confrontational and bitchy too

If you insist on asking for a play date do it next month or over Summer so it doesn’t look like it’s linked to the party.

For all those saying it’s not “cruel” to leave kids out - the definition of cruel is “wilfully causing pain and suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it.” Being left out is deeply hurtful and painful to small kids- whether you chose to accept it or not- that’s the reality. You may say it’s justified for x, y, z practical reason, fair enough, but it certainly can be cruel. Own it.

As a PP said, some people are just kinder than others 💁🏼‍♀️.

80s at home parties were fab ☺️ the whole class squashed into the house, jelly rabbits, dead lions and musical bumps (not enough chairs). Everyone included, nobody left out ever, and no extra expenses of bowling or swimming or anything! Sometimes when birthdays in class were close the church hall would be borrowed for a couple of hours and everyone went there. Happier times, easier times. So much better than the modern way of showing off and needing to be the best, or excluding children.

DD is year 4 and this year there is a marked difference in party politics amongst the class. Previously whole class was the norm or all girls/all boys, this year they are starting to form closer friendships and starting to bicker a little. In the run up to DDs birthday she had several girls say "I won't be your friend if you don't invite me" and similar.

We decided to give her the choice of either all the girls or just 2 or 3 for a small outing. It took the pressure off her to explain why some of the girls who aren't nice to her wouldn't be able to come, because it was only a tiny outing and she wasn't allowed to have everyone.

But parents may well not even know! Our school has more than one class per year group, and they are mixed up each year. With covid, most now 8 year old will have missed out on big parties in their first couple of years at school so parents don't know each other (or the other kids) so well.

I'd have no idea whether my kid has managed to invite 10/11 girls or 10/20 girls. And the proportion also varies depending on whether you count just the class, or the whole year group who will all know each other because they keep churning them up 🤷🏻‍♀️ there's often a lot of overthinking and offence being looked for on these boards, when the inviting parent is probably just doing their best

(and am saying this as a parent whose kid has been left out. We just dealt with it at home in a bright and breezy way, and although is did raise questions for me about the quality of her friendships, and I asked school to support her in widening her friendship circle further as it was a child she thiught was her BFF who excluded her, it never crossed my mind that it's anything apart from the hosting family's choice)

I really can't feel bad about this at all.

I don't care if my DS isn't invited to every party. I help him deal with the disappointment and I spend less money on gifts for kids I couldn't give two shits about.

My DS gets to invite the amount of children I can afford to entertain. Who gets on that list is up to him. I only want him to have people there thay he likes and wants to spend time with.

Your all very precious about your little darlings missing out.

Leaving out 1-2 children is definitely unkind but OP you don’t actually know this has happened. I wouldn’t be following up with a play date.

It’s quite common to have smaller parties as kids get older and it’s possible to do so without excluding a small number.

Why are people assuming Emma or her mother have "intentionally" left someone out? Firstly OP has no idea if all girls were invited. Secondly, children shouldn't be obliged to invite a whole subset of children based on their sex. What if the child wants to invite 9 girls and 1 boy - who are her actual friends?

Numbers can be limited for various reasons.

As long as the party thrower isn't being rude or mean about not inviting someone then it's just a lesson in resilience, isn't it?

Jesus Christ is this a real post 😂

You could ask the teacher.

I guess if there was a potential bullying situation it would have to be flagged up with teachers.

Where is the potential bullying in not getting a party invitation?