To not invite a friend to his birthday party?

[NoMoreCoffeePlease]

DS(8) has a small number of friends in his school, and his birthday is coming up. He has said that he doesn't want to invite one of his friends, Tom. But Tom recently did invite DS to his party, so it seems rude to not invite him back. Moreover, I know his mum from the school runs; we often chat while waiting for the boys to come out, so it would be awkward.

DS' reason for not wanting to invite Tom, is that he sometimes uses swear words and DS doesn't want his little brother to hear these (though I'm sure he hears worse in the playground anyway), but more importantly, that Tom keeps saying 'your mum is fat'. (I'm not, but that doesn't matter).

I told DS that I wouldn't invite Tom, and I haven't yet. But I have honestly no idea whether I am making a mistake by breaking 'birthday etiquette'. Also wondering how to tell his mum.

AIBU - Invite Tom.
AINBU - Don't invite Tom.

Kids don’t have the language or sophistication, but they can sometimes pick up when a friend, isn’t really a good friend. And your son is telling you something really important.

And 8 year old child who says to another that ‘their mum is fat’ and uses swear words sounds like an intimidating and not nice kids to be around, a bit of a bully. You have to let your DS lead on this and I would be supporting him for making good decisions on friends.

really glad you took your time with this, because you don’t want to act on your child’s vibe of the week. If you could hear the things the other friends say about your son. You should really redirect your child’s thinking if they’re persistent about small things - teach him. Unless you genuinely believe there is a problem - do not be a parent that encourages exclusion through your child coz apparently an 8yo called you fat and swore especially in a friendship group.

Dripfeed game though!! 😄

I think it's the right outcome to invite him. It's heartbreaking when you stand outside of school for pick up, realise that most of the other kids are coming out clutching envelopes meaning a party invite and yet again your child doesn't have one. Despite me doing full class parties and my DS inviting everyone (and to be fair most people came so he had a good time). But he only got a few back and was SO excited when he did. It hurts. If it was a friend who did that, I'm not sure I could forgive that if they haven't talked to me. And I would be upset if my mum friend didn't say anything to me. I've not got over that happening once as they didn't invite my DS as they thought he would find Paintballing too hard. But they never asked me what I thought about him doing it. It was a sucker punch coming from someone I considered a friend and it definitely affected our friendship going forward. On the other side, another mum friend whose DS was friends with my eldest and usually invited my youngest with SEN to her sons party actually asked me if he would be up to quad biking - he wasn't in my opinion so we declined but the fact she asked made all the difference.

Also my DS at 16 still lives in the moment and doesn't consider long term friendship implications. I am still explaining how things he does aren't good, and how he hasn't considered the other person and that maybe they can't help it. One day he will be friends, then something (often minor) happens and he can't handle it and the other person is horrible. Then they're friends again.it's about teaching him how to interact and kids with SEN often find this very hard. It's good to teach non SEN kids to accept their differences and sometimes they do need to be treated differently because they cant help misreading social cues. It's not their fault.

I would consider saying something to the other mum at a later date possibly. She might not know what Tom is up to. My youngest kept coming home from school upset as no one would play with him. I asked a mum who had a child in the group (I was already friends with her) if she knew if anything had happened. Turned out my son was running up to them to join in and as his proprioception is poor he kept misjudging it and running into them, rather than stopping short of them. They obviously didn't like it, but they weren't nasty to him, they were just ignoring him. I could pass on what she said to his TA who then observed it, showed him what he was doing and talked to the group about it. My DS worked on it on school and we could do the same at home. Sorted. But I had no idea what was going on, I really appreciated being told so I could help him sort it. If I'd not found out, how was I supposed to help him with a behavuour that was annoying to others but I had no idea he was doing?

Is using swear words really the worst thing ever? Why are adults so hypocritical about this?
I think it sounded like a good outcome getting ds to consider Tom’s feelings. If there are a few kids there he doesn’t have to spend that much time with Tom. I do find sometimes that people “hold boundaries” to the extent these days that it blends into selfishness. It sounds like OP did make it clear that she heard what her son was saying but encouraged some kindness. It would be different if Tom was actually bullying him.

People seem to have lost sight of what parenting is.

Parenting is teaching dc why we sometimes do things we don't want to because long term it's better for everyone.

Imagine if you were in a social group and one of them had a party and subbed you. Just you. Your relationship with that group would be ruined. This topic comes up again and again on MN with an OP having been left out of a group event.

Kids are random and contrary. Ruining friendships over a transient situation is what we teach against

A bit harsh about an 8 year old 😱

To be honest when I read this it screamed that your DS knows exactly what to say to you so that you don't invite this child. Are you sure those things are true? Only you know your DS but I know my DS2 would likely pull a stunt like this. He knows exactly what buttons to push and by 8 was very good at it. Equally DS1 who is a very sweet, loyal character wouldn't dream of it (even though there were 'friends' I was itching not to invite!).

The only reason he’d do this is to avoid having the other child at his party??
Does the reason he doesn’t want to invite Tom really matter? It’s his party 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'd invite him it's rude and kids can be fickle changing their minds from one week to another.

Why are you even considering forcing your son to invite someone to his birthday that he has categorically said he does not want there? We would never put up with this as adults. So do we expect children to? Its invasive and unfair.

also, why does it matter whether or not the swearing is the “real” reason he doesn’t want this child there?

Also Toms swearing ect obviously not ideal but might be part of his additional needs, I'd definitely invite him and explain to your son, that he can't help what he does and also it will help him to mix with other boys who don't do this.
His poor mother would be devastated if he is the only boy in the friendship group who doesn't get invited and straight away she will feel it's because he's different

Glad you are inviting him, missed a bit of the thread.

Invite Tom. Your son happily accepted the invite to Toms party but won’t invite him back? It’s worth considering the message you are giving him if you go with the “his party he can have who he likes attitude”.
Or if he’s ok with being excluded from party’s in this “small group” in the future, don’t invite him but prepare your son for the consequences of this decision.
8 year olds are weird and say weird stuff. It’s good that he recognises what is and isn’t acceptable.
Address the rudeness or swearing directly with mum when / if it happens.

You will be with Tom and his mum for several years at the same school and probably same class so I would think this one through.
Invite Tom - as they have been friendly, however as you are giving Tom's mum the invite tell her that DS has been upset that Tom has been swearing and calling you fat. Tom's mum will know what to do.

You can explain to DS that you've had a chat with Tom's mum and it won't be happening again and that it's always good to give people a second chance in life. If he doesn't stop then next time you have a good reason to leave him out.

I would just be concerned about your DS being excluded for most things in future depending on how much influence Tom's mum and Tom have on other children and parents.

He is only 8 - if your DS was 10/11 I would just stick to his closest friends and keep it moving since you'd be about to leave anyway. I did that for DD this year - we didn't invite all the class or girls as we usually do. We also didn't invite people who have invited us in the previous years, we just invited 7 friends for a sleepover. 3 girls in her class and some girls from other classes.

Exactly this

Sorry but I think your sone is being precious

Has Tom got older brothers?
my 6 year old has been saying stuff like this at school. My older boys have been a bad influence on him. Poor mum probably hasn’t got a clue it’s happening. Poor kid probably just wants to fit in. There’s a massive lack of maturity on Tom’s part and if he’s being alienated then it will be even harder for him to work out what’s going on.
he probably thinks the your mum comments are funny and he’s seen sketches on social media.
teach your son not to alienate people. It’s hard at that age to be the more mature person but someone needs to be as poor Tom hasn’t got a clue.

Can you talk to your son about how you appreciate him looking out for you and his brother but someone is either your friend or they arent and if he plays with tom at school and goes to his party then he really needs to include him. But it's fine to decide to spend more time with others or stop playing with tom if he is upset with his behaviour.

Try and agree with your son that you will have a conversation with the teacher about Tom's unkind words at school to deal with it.

How comes your ds went to his party then if he is not keen on him? He is an 8 year old child and there is always 2 sides to every story.
if its leaving just one friend out of a group thats a bit mean

I think mumsnet is very OTT when it comes to kids , they are 8 years old. Do people honestly think their 8 year old has never once said something mean etc
i find it funny how he went to Tom’s party and seems to still play at school but doesn’t want him at his. Why do parents get so involved in kids friendships at this age these days. Next post will be Toms mums saying how he has been left out and accused of saying mean things but only did it in retaliation etc
many of your writing off an 8 year old kid

Thank you everyone for the additional comments 🙂Who knew this was such a contentious topic! I posted the 'resolution' a while ago; I had a chat with DS, who changed his mind. Some people weren't happy with this, as they think I forced DS to do something he didn't want to do. I can't tell you whether they are right, but DS seems perfectly happy, and I feel much better about not leaving Tom out. After the party, I will post a short update to let everyone know how it all went.

PS - they are not in the same class, they sometimes play together in the playground as they used to go to the same football club (quite a while ago now as both have since stopped playing).
As far as I know Tom's SEN are minor which is why I didn't initially mention it -- leading to quite an epic dripfeed apparently! To me he's just one of the boys, doing well in school, but sometimes acting impulsively which can have unpleasant consequences (think jumping from a roof and breaking his foot, or shouting something vulgar during church assembly to be funny, or indeed, swearing a lot). I wasn't sure if this would warrant being treated differently. He seems like a sweet kid to me, just very loud and active.
I am not sure if Tom has older siblings or not. I am not super close to his mum, but as a mother myself, I can imagine how heartbreaking it would be for your child to be excluded from a party.😊

Just wanted to say i think you have handled this really well. It's such a hard one because you want your son to grow up feeling empowered about who he has relationships with and who he is happy to have in his life, who treats him right etc. But at the same time, Tom is a child and has some additional needs, kids say things that are wrong and just need some guidance sometimes, it doesn't make them bad. He would be hurt not to be invited. I think the chat you had with your son sounds perfect and this is the right outcome.

Well done OP used common sense and all are happy

You’re really going to regret it if you don’t invite him. Kids fall out over the littlest of things and in a weeks time he’ll be his next friend, but if I was his mum I’d be really annoyed he wasn’t invited and it’s going to create bigger problems further on.