To wonder why do people do parties with sleepovers but invite some kids to different bits?

[Laughingstock1991]

DD 11 was invited to a party yesterday at a kids house - there were 10 kids & she found out at the party that she was the only one that wasn’t staying on for the sleepover bit so was really upset.

Why do people do this? I think she would have preferred to not be invited to any of it rather than be invited to a bit of it and then go home when everyone else was staying.

Seriously, why do people do that? She’s been so upset. It would have been better if she wasn’t bloody invited to any of it!!

Exactly this - this is very thoughtful of you.

I would be having a quiet word with the teacher to understand the dynamic in the classroom between your daughter and the rest of the group because to me this scenario jumps out as a bullying one rather than a no space one (how much space does one extra person take up). I don’t think comparisons to an adult party and having friends stay over is comparable

As pp said it may be that birthday girl may have wanting to embarrass your daughter and this is a great way of doing it that’s not going to be picked up by the adults as the argument would be “well she was invited to the party”

The only parents who would agree to their child leaving one kid out are wankers.

Same happened to my Dd when she was about 10. She came home and we could see and hear the party continue with everyone but her it's cruel we lived on the same street
I never bothered inviting that family to anything again.

I'm a teacher and it seems to be pretty normal to invite 10 people to a party, but then have 3-4 stay over.

I think the unofficial rule is that it's ok to exclude people if it's more than half of the original group.

My kids have been to parties like this and don't seem to be very bothered by it - they just say that they're a good friend of the birthday child but not one of their very best friends.

But leaving out one person is very unkind.

Could she possibly have made a mistake?

Could she have been a very late addition to the party (maybe even asked to attend) and birthday girl said you can come but not stay over as I can only have ten?

Could there have been a mix up whereby parents thought she had been invited but said no?

Birthday girl told parents she couldn't stay overnight for some reason - a misunderstanding, miscommunication, previous form for going home upset in the middle of the night?

I guess the only way to know is for her to tactfully ask on Monday. You can't ask without looking like a nutter.

@Frogpond she had a nice time up until the point she realised about the sleepover. Lots of ‘oh aren’t YOU staying’ - am so cross!

If dd2 and I had known this was the deal she certainly wouldn’t have gone. But once you are stuck there it’s too late.

Also I know it was intentional the mum is really weird. They had just mixed the classes up and she perceived dd2 had taken her child’s place in the class. I know this because she said so. Like the class allocation was my 9 year olds fault! Nutter.

This is the norm round here too. Party for 10-15 people, then sleepover another time for 3-4.
Leaving out one girl is never acceptable, if I knew something like that was going happen in advance, we would skip the party.

Well that’s terrible parenting isn’t it? Don’t make excuses for frankly shit parenting.

That's fine. But to have a party and tell most children they can leave now while your special friends can stay is really vile. You're supposed to model good behaviour to children. This is like inviting people over for drinks and then telling most of them to leave before a select few stay on for the dinner party. It's rude.

No one with decency and emotional intelligence could think this was OK. Its not about the principle of two tier guests, it's about just one child being left out. The parent who facilitated it is either not very bright or not very kind. Unfortunately you do get them. Hopefully they are a minority in your DDs group and that other parents will engage their brains and empathy.

I wasn’t talking about the scenario in the OP with that analogy about the adult party, I was talking about the very thing you said would be OK - to have a crowd then have one maybe 2 best friends staying so the majority aren’t staying.

EnglishRose was saying it’s never OK to do this. I was disagreeing with that, because to me sometimes it’s fine if handled properly. The scenario in the OP - and what happened to your DD - is all shades of wrong.

She is training her Dd to be Amanda from Motherland remember the Christmas drinks episode!

My lovely sister had it happen to her as an adult on a hen weekend! Just awful.

Two tier guests at a children's party is a horrible idea. As I say it means a few are in a clique chatting about the sleepover and others are left out.
Leaving one out is especially bad but the whole premise is unkind.

And how exactly do you handle chucking some kids out early and making them feel excluded properly?

I didn’t think anyone was this ^^ dense, but we’ve got the people in the OP, and you, so apparently they are.

DD’s friendship group is 8 - we don’t really have room for them all to easily sleepover in terms of beds, but that’s what she wants to do for her 13th next month, so we’ll make room for them for somehow.

Leaving some - let alone 1 !!??! - out is not an option.

OP - YANBU. Sorry for your daughter.

I feel like saying something in the what’s app group as there have now been a couple of ‘hope you coped with the sleepover’ posts from parents even though it was never mentioned before.

Or I might just leave the group!

Its not something I've ever done I agree. But i acknowledge that within a class of 11 its likely to be the case that a child has a handful of children that are their main friends. This is often well understood by the group. So if child A can only take 3 or 4 children to a theme park for example, it will be generally understood that this will be A, B and C because they're her best friends. Other children will have their own subgroups. So while some children are 'left out' of one event they're included in others that others dont attend. Its a bit unrealistic for a group of 11 to do everything together.
However, in this case it clearly looked nothing like that, so we're talking about an entirely different thing.

This reminds me of the many threads about people being invited as evening guests but not to the actual wedding ceremony. Rejection is a valid emotion.

Don’t say anything to all of them on the group chat. Just rant at home to family and friends and hate that family forever!

I might mention it in person to other mums I’m friendly with tho - but don’t post on the group chat.

So sorry OP. This was a really shit thing to do to your DD. Not sure what I would do in your situation but the other parents behaved terribly.

No, don't do that. At the moment all that happened is that one set of parents out of ten has behaved badly. There are 9 others who haven't done this and odds on probably never would. Don't make your issue with one set of parents public property and the subject of gossip, or sever ties with everyone due the actions of one.

What a horrible way to treat your DD. The only time we did this (party and sleepover), DD had her party one weekend and had a sleepover with a much smaller group the following weekend.

Just leave the what’s app group. Your daughter won’t be at school with them soon and it doesn’t sound like she will keep in touch. Just leave them too it.

That does seem deliberate then doesn't it?

What an effort to go to to be nasty!