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.

You sound like a lovely, caring mum.

I probably wouldn't approach the mum, it could be extremely awkward and I think it will come across a bit pushy, especially if Emma doesn't actually want your daughter there but is saying she does to appease your daughter.

Instead, I would focus on your child. Explain to her that lots of parties have limited numbers, especially as they're so expensive. Isn't your daughter lucky to be able to have everyone at hers. Isn't your daughter very mature for understanding. Because she's being so mature about it, you're going to treat her to a lovely trip to XYZ.

If you can come out of this, having taught your daughter to be kind and open, and not judge herself by her friendships, then I think that's better than any party invite.

And things may change, perhaps she's having a tricky time socially now, but she may find the best of friends at secondary.

If she is rarely getting asked to parties and especially for girls she thinks are close friends, I would have a quiet word with the teacher to see if she needs help with social skills. Or if there is some low level bullying going on that the teacher can help sort.

A whole class party isn’t necessarily expensive if you hire a bouncy castle or similar, the kids are very unlikely to all turn up. Our rule was either all the same sex children or half or less. Inviting almost all is quite unpleasant. But you can’t control other people and she will have to get used to it as it’s unlikely to be the last time something similar happens. I wouldn’t text

I think there's some things you need to consider here.

1. Is your daughter OK socially at school? It seems there's an issue somewhere if she is getting left out of parties regularly.

1. You CAN control an 8 year old approaching parents in a school yard and making them uncomfortable. I find it a bit 'red flag' that you feel aspect of your daughters behaviour is uncontrollable.

1. If you are inviting the whole class to your daughters party , the number of eventual attendees will tell you how 'popular' your daughter is with her peers. You may have some work to do if half decline, for example.

1. Under no circumstances do you pursue an party invite. It's awkward and embarrassing. If your daughter hasn't received an invite it's because she didn't make the original guest list. There wont be a mistake, and the party girl in question here will be just trying to be kind.

Yep bullying. So glad it’s against your school rules @SoupedUpSue

The invitations handed out at school, the party talked about at school before and after ….. how could this ever be anything but bullying? Weaponising a birthday? Shame on any parents and schools that enable this

I wouldn't text. Not getting invited to a party is something that happens.

Help your dd to find a narrative to understand it e.g. Emma would probably have liked you there, but some parties can only have a certain number of people. But we can have a nice time doing X instead.

I’d be really surprised if just your daughter wasn’t invited so I’d want to be 100% certain that was actually the case first. Only then I’d have to say something to the mother, from a position of “Is there anything I should know about that’s happened between them, as my DD is also oblivious if there is and was really heartbroken to have been the only one not invited?” I’d also speak to school so they can keep an eye out on anything.

But I really don’t think this will be the case. I’m sure there was a numbers/logistics/cost obstacle. Kids that age are fickle sometimes with their friendship groups and they change them often. They are too young to have a sense of reciprocating invitations too. All too often, they also think someone is their best friend and it’s not mutual. Indeed, they change their best friend frequently too. Although I’m not saying it’s not still hurtful when it’s a smaller group invited and your DD is excluded for whatever reason, whether logistical or not.

You have the right approach: all the class is invited to your DD’s party. I’m sure some will rightly say about keeping costs down with a smaller group but having seen how hurtful it can be for some little ones who never get invited to a party (I’m a teacher), I just wouldn’t do this kind of party personally. But that’s just me. We have however gone really small with a tea party for just a handful of my little one’s cousins - they only have those few so nobody’s left out.

and potentially escalate it

Don’t be ridiculous it’s a kids party, not the Geneva Convention!

Bit we don't knkw this is the case. To an 8 year old it might seem "everyone " else is invited when they mean 6 people are.

Not everyone gets invited to everything. She's done quite well that she has gotten to y4 and nearly end lf school year for this to be the time this realisation kicks in.

It doesn't matter what you plan to do OP for your DD's party. This was obviously a limited numbers one.

You must have a huge garden/ house if you can accommodate 30 children, 30 parents and a bouncy castle in it

I am struggling to understand why your solution to this is a play date with Emma?! They didn’t invite dd to the party, so wouldn’t be getting further invites from me.

In your place I would be boosting dd’s confidence with lots of play dates with other children that value her and the friendship.

Teaching dd to run after those that are clearly not as invested will give her low self esteem and lead to people pleasing behaviour.

I would not be contacting the mother, and would find out if it was a whole class party or not ( bullying issues need to be thoroughly checked out)

And it’s definitely okay for your dd to tell Emma she was sad if she wants to, it’s okay for your dd to be genuine about her feelings and not feel the need to remain silent.

Why would parents be invited to a primary school party?

Wtf? How is it anything to do with the school?! They can't enforce this rule; how would they check who had been invited? How would they necessarily even know a party was being held? A parent giving out invites to a few in the playground or outside of school cannot then be expected to hand over all the details of their child's party to the school so it can be "authorised" by them.

Any teacher should be addressing any bullying that takes place in school and helping children to make friends. But their powers are limited when it comes to a child's interactions outside of school.

Schools are not responsible for everything in a child's life.

I agree with not texting about it. Was it really all the girls? If so, that’s awful behaviour by the mum. I would never have done that when mine were me. It was either a small select group or the whole class/all the boys.

primary school parties are brutal. Young children make decisions flippantly - ‘I’ll invite Claire because I played with her yesterday, I won’t invite Emma because she took my pencil.’ Decision one day is very different to decisions another day. Parent preference is enormous at this age and friendships/play dates are often entirely manufactured by parent friendships or geography. And an 8 year old can appear ‘vicious and mean’ as a pp said because they are still learning and if no one educates them on kindness (kids survival instincts are naturally selfish) then how can they learn? I have definitely seen for myself that often children who display unkind traits have parents who are bossy/dominating/difficult - it’s not hard to see how the whole thing is circular.

im split on how to handle this. I always managed my kids preferences by saying they had to have a certain number or all the girls/boys, for example, saying that leaving out one or two was unkind. I personally was not prepared to have an event that felt mean. They are all just kids after all.

however I regret this in one way as it meant ‘
kids who displayed unkind behaviour to my kids sometimes got invited to their parties and that feels wrong in retrospect. But my kids could have chosen to trim numbers to avoid that and I felt two wrongs don’t make a right and that ultimately these are all kids and I personally didn’t want to be that parent, or bring up those kids, who didn’t have kindness and consideration at the forefront of decisions. I don’t regret that.

however neither of my kids made or make all the party cuts and I did teach them to just suck it up. Honestly, it pained me more than them. A lot of this is projection and I say that from experience.

and it’s worth noting that ‘social currency’ changes massively secondary. One of mine was often left out of party invites at primary but is very popular at secondary. Take out parental influence and given a larger pool of potential mates and things often turn on their heads. It’s fascinating to watch from the wonderful vantage point of no longer having any influence at all!

Because most parents don't tend to drop and run till around Y4/5 at least and then you still get a lot who insist on staying

*when mine were wee

@helpMeWritethis

I'm with you in that if it's a small party gathering with just a few kids it's different but to invite the whole group bar one is just really shitty adult behaviour

It's always been a thing for some reason and another reason why I never did big parties for mine because I would always internally remember the ones that didn't spread their invites out.

Wow y4/5? When mine were small it was generally drop and run from when they were at school!

I find this very odd. We dropped and ran from yr1 and even at reception parents stayed mainly to chat and get to know each other rather than because they were actually needed. Having 10-15 plus parents to entertain/be polite to/feed and water adds so much work and cost, I’ve never understood it.

And as for policing what the children talk about... Are teachers supposed to ban party talk in the playground? Fair enough, no party talk in the classroom, but not in children's breaktimes.

We can't start policing what people talk about in their free time. Where would it stop? Not allowed to talk about your holiday because some children don't go on holiday? Not allowed to talk about your mum and dad getting married because not all children have two parents?

Most parties these days are at venues though such as soft play, trampolining etc so it's not just the party children in the hosts home to supervise is it

I'm with you, I find it odd but even now you will find parents in those year groups who still insist on hovering round their child when the food comes out to make sure they eat etc

When my oldest was at school her best friend's mum was really upset to get a text from someone saying that "my dd is upset because everyone except her have been invited to your dd's 7th birthday party"

She was heavily pregnant at the time, had invited five girls (out of a class of 30 children, 14 girls) as the maximum she thought she could cope with, and she'd invited by text because she'd wanted to keep it low key.