To not invite a child to the party

[Christiners]

My son is 6, he’s having a birthday party next month for his 7th birthday and he has invited 10 (out of 30)children from his class. I asked him over and over “are you sure there’s no one else you want to invite?” “Are you sure this is everyone?” Even went through his list and said “who’s this one’s best friend” so that everyone had a friend to play with at the party. Only 3 of them are girls, idk if that’s relevant but il include in case.

anyway, today he took the invites in and I told him to give them to his teacher so that she could put them in children’s bags.. I thought that would work better than handing them out infront of everyone when not every child would receive one. The teacher told my son to hand them out.. big mistake.
A little girl started crying that she didn’t get an invite, but not just any little girl, a girl that has been very unkind to my son up until now. Every other day he comes home and says “she punched me” “she strangled me” “she pulled my shoe off” “she threw water at me”. My son now feels bad that she’s upset and wants to invite her, I’ve said no.
If it was a random child that he hadn’t thought to invite then my opinion would obviously be different and I DO understand that they’re children and they’re still learning etc but this child has been very unkind to him for a very long time.. I don’t think it’s fair that my son is guilt tripped into having to invite someone to his party. He’s upset and now really wants to give her an invite but I feel like he’s just worried that she’ll be nasty to him if she’s not invited.

AIBU?

Yes but the teacher would have been better off telling the child’s parent that instead of having him go around the class giving out invitations.

The handing out of party invitations is not anything to do with a school or a teacher. It's not part or their job and they should not be having to deal with the fall-out.
Email, post, put through doors, text, whatsapp if it isn't possible to give them out at the gate.

Exactly this, if I’d have had the invites sent home with a note to say they couldn’t be given out then I could have tried to source a plan B. Not really sure what I could have done and it would have really delayed the invites getting out but I’d have understood and taken it from there. I was trying to do it nicely, it wasn’t my intention for any children to be upset

Yes teachers have enough to do without faffing around with party invitations 🤣

I never said anything about the teacher.

although our school actually told us to pass them to teachers.

Mines doesn't , I had to send 2 invites in as I don't even know the kids parents names 🤷 the rest I did fortunately know , but I don't know them personally and certainly dont have their number

I don’t have the numbers of all parents invited, nor do I know their email addresses or where they live. I also don’t do the school run with other parents as my children are in wrap around clubs before and after school.. could I have possibly got numbers by tracking people down on Facebook and asking for numbers from there? Yeah, maybe! But as this is actually the done thing at our school, people DO send in invites to be put in bags, I didn’t see that it would be an issue. Lesson learnt for sure but I wasn’t asking anyone to do anything they don’t/haven’t done in the past therefore I had no way of knowing it wouldn’t go to plan

Take the fact that it was a bully who was upset about not being invited out of the equation - it’s all very well to say it wasn’t your intention for children to be upset but really, you couldn’t foresee this as a likely outcome of openly inviting some, not all, children from his class?
Our school rule is that they will only handout invites for whole class parties, otherwise the parents need to make other arrangements, which is eminently sensible and avoids these situations.

And I never said playground 🤷

That’s not a rule at our school though and invites do usually get put in bags. I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding and maybe my son said “I have invites for all my friends” and the teacher assumed that meant all of the class.. who knows, not me!
so yeah I had no reason to believe it was a bad idea, I tried to do it sensitively, it didn’t go to plan

…

But involving a teacher in the handing out of invites where not everyone was getting one, was not approaching it sensitively. Completely well within your rights to invite who you want, but if it isn’t everyone, you need to figure out an alternative way to go about it, if you really want to manage it sensitively.

Where else does one hand invites to other parents if not the playground? 😜

@Christiners I’m afraid you needed to hand them to the parents. Plus if a child isn’t invited, it’s life. Obviously your dc won’t be getting an invitation from her. Of course it’s ok for him to have particular friends at 7. He put thought into who he wanted to come and he presumably made logical choices. Who came last year? What parties has he been to? If she had invited him to play dates, she should not have been excluded. If she wasn’t on his radar, she wasn’t and so be it.

It’s not long before you will just take him and a couple of mates to football! Saves all the aggro. You will also know the parents by then.

Sounds like she likes him.

How is sending the invites in for the teacher to slip into bags not sensitive.. this IS the done thing at our school!
I think that’s the point that everyone’s missing, yes teachers have lots of things to do, no it might not be in their job description, and whatever the other reasons everyone else has mentioned BUT AT OUR SCHOOL THIS IS WHAT WE DO!!

it was obviously a misunderstanding, or maybe my son is fibbing and he didn’t even mention it to his teacher and he was just excited and started handing them out to his friends before his teacher even knew they existed! Because he’s 6 and innocently wanted his friends to have their invitations! I can’t say it more than I already have, at our school, this is how children get their invitations.. it went wrong today, don’t know why, haven’t bashed the teacher

but that also doesn’t mean it’s my doing

One hands them out on the digital playground, one does 🙃

I couldn’t hand them to parents as my children attend wrap around childcare before and after school and I don’t see other parents.
he has never had a party that he’s invited friends to before, he’s had birthdays with family etc but this is his first time inviting friends.. him and this girl are not friends, don’t play together, don’t have play dates or see eachother outside of school (where she’s unkind to him)

Trust me I already know the party planning gig is not for me!

"I didn’t ask her to make the sandwiches for it or anything.. but perhaps I underestimated the selfishness of me hoping she could pop 10 little pieces of card in bags"

This was bashing the teacher

OP, I feel like many posters are on here are unable to read your posts and keep up. You've done nothing wrong in trying to organise a party for your son. You didn't demand the teacher's time just asked if they could help as you aren't at any school runs.
Not every child goes to every party and disappointment is a normal feeling to experience. We don't live in a bubble-wrapped world.
If your son wasn't invited to a party and demanded an invite I'm sure you'd explain in age appropriate language. Maybe if this girl heard 'no' more often and learnt how to get on she wouldn't be a bully to get what she wants.

No that was sarcastically replying to someone else’s comment.
The teacher hasn’t called me selfish, I wasn’t defensively responding to the teacher, I was responding to someone acting as though I’d asked the teacher to play a part in the party

Honestly it’s like I’m talking to a wall, not going to bother repeating myself anymore!
Thank you! ❤️

No, it wasn’t. It makes the teacher responsible for some children being left out. ‘Why did you put one I. Joe’s bag and not mine, Miss Smith?’
Not the teachers job to have to wade in to children’s party dynamics.