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.

I’m sorry your daughter was upset OP but like others say good time to build up resilience. Don’t make a big thing of it just keep it simple and explain maybe there was a cap on numbers or spaces and that’s why unfortunately she was unable to attend. I stop inviting whole classes after reception as the activities my DC wanted to do for their birthdays became more expensive. I never leave one child out but only invite DC close friends. I usually just text their parents the details no invites sent into school.

Your all very precious about your little darlings missing out
That's what you took from the negative reactions to your post? 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I remember when my daughter wasn't invited to a party/treat. I was so angry. There were only four girls in her year at primary and they did everything together. Problem was I was friends with one of the other mums but she was friends with the other two, who clearly did not like me at all.
I remember asking mum friend when x's party was (this was last year at primary and up to then it was always the four if them at every birthday) and she was very vague. On the day of the party, they all piled into one car and drove off as fast as they could, obviously hoping to get away before we saw them. My daughter was devastated. Turns out the mums had decided it was a good time for them to have a get together as well, and as I was not in the clique...

We just dealt with it at home in a bright and breezy way

Curious how this idea of just being upbeat and “not making an issue”/ big deal when your child is hurt at being left out tallies with the modern day advice of validating , not dismissing, small children’s emotions? Of course social rejection hurts - there are very basic evolutionary biological reasons for this. Just being “bright and breezy” in response might not be the simple plaster you think it is.. @Canyousewcushions

Sounds like it's all about money for you. You want to show off by having 'cool parties' (bleurgh) but you can't really afford it, and you'd rather exclude a couple of boys and gloat about it, than have a party you can actually afford to host.

I would be surprised if your child was the only one (girl?) in the class not invited.

We had a large primary (70 in the year) so inviting 10 or so was the norm. Ds always invited the boys and girls who were his friends. Even in his class (35 in juniors) that meant about half the boys didn’t get an invite, though DS has friends across the year (as they mixed up the classes every year in infants and had 3 classes so everyone got to know each other).

Throughout primary there was only one girl who invited the whole year (in year 6). The hired the sports hall and had a disco. No food.

This happened to my daughter about the same age. I took her out to a museum for the day and I felt miserable the whole time we were there, on her behalf. If it is any consolation I mentioned it to her recently (she's an adult now) and she really didn't remember it at all. All she remembered was having a fun day out with mum. Maybe something to bear in mind for another time.

Someone suggested that if the whole class was invited except for OPs DD it could be seen as bullying. We don't know if that is the case however. And I very much doubt it. From OPs post I feel DD may have got the wrong end of the stick. Who knows? I'm sure more will be revealed.

Pretty spot on, other than the gloating.

I don't socialise with school people so no opportunity to gloat, even if I wanted to.

Agree @AsphaltGirl

I'm really surprised so many PPs feel like the OP about this. My DD is Autistic and eager to please everyone. She has not been invited to many parties. She always has 10/12 friends to her birthday each year and goes to 2 or 3 others each year.

Similar for my more popular DS. I have never fished for an invitation or explanation, even when it is the DC of my good friends, who have been to DD's parties. Everyone has their own financial limits and preferences that are none of my business.

I have talked to all 3 of my DC about favourite friends of theirs not treating them very well.

It is very cruel to invite all the every girl and leave one out.
I don’t let my class hand out invitations in the classroom as it leads to a lot of upset.
I don’t think any of my Y4 have had a whole class party though, they seem to get smaller in KS2.

I’m sure you were a real delight to go to school with.

Back in the real world, or at least at the Primary School my kids went to, teachers and school staff did not get involved in party arrangements .

The policy was crystal clear- no class lists would be provided, no party invitations would be handed out by teachers. Parents had to make their own arrangements with other parents. Teachers have 101 other things to be doing rather than party planning for 8 year olds.

We all know then men who were given the gift of superiority like your son is having modelled.

Im so glad I’ve shown my kids to be thoughtful of other’s feelings. I’ll never regret that.

Sorry that reply was not to you @Clementinesucks !

You need to help your daughter to process this and talk to her about how it wouldn't help/would be inappropriate to bring it up on Monday. She is 8 not 4. It's a good time to start talking about how some people don't consider us friends as much as we do etc. and that friendships change etc. Yes it is painful but by avoiding it and 'keeping her busy' you aren't actually helping her.

None of my children have had whole class parties due to cost. They just pick who they want to be there.

Sound advice OP just to arrange a playdate and say no more about the party.

The key word in this is “wilful”.

If it a finance issue or a capped numbers issue it’s not wilfully designed to upset this particular child.

Its just disappointing and unfortunately, part of life.

But there's also a real need for children to develop the resilience to deal with setbacks.

An element of this is acknowledging that you feel disappointed, but then learning how to pick yourself up and move on is just as important.

A more bright and breezy approach has always worked well in this house- acknowledging that it's disappointing but also out of our control. So let's cheer ourselves up and have fun doing something else rather than moping, dwelling, and feeling hard done by and struggling to move on.

Just leave it OP. You won't say whether or not your DD was the ONLY child not invited, and you've been asked directly more than once - which makes me think, others in class also weren't invited. You should've been bright and breezy and taken her out somewhere really nice and special for the day.

I never did whole class parties when DC's were younger. I couldn't have afforded it. They have cousins of similar ages, were friends with my friends' DCs etc I'd have ended up doing a party for 50+ children. .
So they invited close school friends only. It was fine. They weren't invited to every single party either. I can't recall that any child in class was. You don't know Emma's circumstances ie her family members could have been making up the numbers.

The competitiveness and entitlement over class parties nowadays is ridiculous, parents need to stop fuelling it. I think it's bad form to contact Mum generally.

Great if you want to do it but I think that expecting a whole class party in Y4 is being a bit precious tbh. We did a whole class party for my YR dd this year and I'm already done with it. About a 3rd of the class didn't make a response either way so that's 10 kids I'm having to factor into numbers and buy food/party bags for wtc because I don't know if they're coming or not. Then I've found out that quite a few of the kids I invited had large parties but didn't invite my dd. Next year I won't be inviting anyone that didn't even have the curtesy to respond to my invite or who had parties and didn't invite my child. I refuse to waste the money. I'm planning 1 or 2 larger parties but by junior school age I'm fully anticipating that my dd will be able to tell me herself 5-10 kids she really wants at the party. Junior school is the age at which friendships really start to cement and where kids might want to do something a bit more pricey as a party eg sleepover/laser quest/bowling.

In response to pp being responsive to a child's emotions absolutely isn't to mirror their emotions and over-reaction. This is exactly why so many kids are growing up mentally unwell and lacking basic resilience. The correct response IMO is to acknowledge their emotions but mirror an appropriate reaction to their situation. In this scenario staying calm is absolutely the appropriate reaction not going mental at the school or the other kid's mum. Maybe talk to your dd about what is good friendship and what is unkind and gently encourage her to seek out other kids to play with but otherwise let her make up her own mind. When it comes to kid's friendships I personally think that the best approach is to let kids be their own judge of character as this is half of what being a school child is all about. I definitely wouldn't be forcing my child to have an all-inclusive party with kids who don't include her to things. I'd let her decide

If it really was all the girls except your daughter, that is very thoughtless but there isn't anything you can do about it. It happened to my DD (almost 20 years ago, but it still makes me cross!). It was only a small class, and this was an at home party so no reason for a limit on numbers that excluded one person. I know for sure she was the only one not invited because it was such a small class and one of the other mums noticed she wasn't there and we talked about it afterwards. What I never worked out was whether she genuinely wasn't invited, was forgotten, or the invitation was lost. How we dealt with it was by holding out own mini party at home - party food, balloons, games and fun. We still talk about it after all this time.

I remember being the kid that was left out and it’s fine

I remember being the kid that was invited, but got told by the child in question that she didn’t want to invite me, but her mum said she had to! Still stings!