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?

What on earth?
Physical party invites were always handed out before 'technology' enabled people/parents to stop actually having a conversation.
We didn't have to invite every child in the class - we invited our friends. We didn't have to hand out invitations to our friends discreetly because we understood that we shouldn't expect to be at every birthday, nor should we expect to be invited.
We didn't have meltdowns if we were not invited to johnny/jane's party, because that was how it was.

Perhaps parents and should be teaching children that they are not the centre of the universe and there will be things in life they are not invited to, and that just because you know someone doesn't mean you are automatically entitled to be in their life at all times.

Why do you have to invite the whole class?

Absolutely do NOT give her an invitation. She needs to know that it's because of her behaviour is why she isn't getting one. I would also speak to the teacher explaining everything and to keep an eye out incase things escalate.

I reckon majority do. I point blank refuse to join. I was in one once and didn’t like it.

Whatsapp wouldn't help me here.

I'm in a year group WhatsApp with 60+ other people (2 class year group, I think it's basically all the mums, plus some dads). They mix the classes each year so there isn't a separate WhatsApp for each class.

If DD said "can I invite X to my party" I likely have no idea which parent on the WhatsApp that actually is. DD (in year 1) often doesn't know a child's surname, the suggested name on WhatsApp sometimes doesn't include a surname, and if it does, it may not be the same as the child's anyway.

As an aside, the school is also mildly disapproving of the WhatsApp groups. The only thing in there is people asking if PE is on, or someone saying their child has chickenpox so be aware etc, but I think they think we all just slag off the teachers or something.

Nope, none of my children's classes have WhatsApp groups.

I think you've missed the part where OP's child is not at your local primary (and so did loads of other posters on this thread apparently). So it doesn't really matter what they allow or don't allow there.

@Christiners It sounds like you don't really know the child and base your judgment on what your son has reported over the past few months. I would give her the benefit of the doubt, rather than a "bully" she could be the type of child who is a bit socially awkward and tries to get others attention in the wrong/annoying way.

I might be wrong, but I think it would be worth understanding better from your son what happened if you don't have the details. Obviously if he is scared or her or upset by her behaviour in any way then clearly she should be kept away.

I don't think I've seen a paper invitation in years! At our school the teachers would not hand them out and it wouldn't be recommended you send them in for a child to hand out either.

You'd be expected to get them directly to the other parents yourself at the school gate. If you can't ever be at the school gate do it via whatsapp. You don't need to be on the class group to message parents of your child's friends to invite them, the same way you'd message them to organise to have another child over to play or to offer to share lifts for football etc.

I find it so weird when people don't know any of the other parents at school. I'm a working parent so not at the gate every day but i'm pretty sure I know and have got the phone number for at least one parent of every child in both my DC classes! Maybe its a city/country thing. I live in a village, you tend to know a lot of local people/neighbours well. It makes life a lot easier, no shortage of people to call in a crisis if you are late on school run & I'd help others in return too.

You do a call-out on the WhatsApp group if you don't know who the parent is. "Could Alfie's parents PM me please?".

Though on our group, all the parents introduce themselves with their child's name in brackets at the beginning of the year, which helps with this issue.

Your child would be missing out on quite a lot if you weren't on ours. Though we're quite nice people so if we knew you weren't on it, we'd probably make some effort to pass on important stuff.

Do your kids go to their dads every week? Seems like a shame if you never get the fun bits, just the school run etc 😩.

I would say to my DS something like ‘it’s lovely that you have empathy and you didn’t like feeling like you’ve upset someone but this little girl has been unkind to you and you’re allowed to not want her around especially on your birthday’. I think explain about relationships and boundaries in a child friendly way.

Have a great time 🥳

As others have said, in future do invites theough parents via WhatsApps. That's how it's done at our school. My child would be so upset not to be upset to EVERY party. Obviously no child can be invited to everything but that's how he'd take it.

Even if the invitations go out on the Whatapp group, do you then swear your children to secrecy so as to avoid upsetting the children who are not invited?

Some managed to communicate without WA.
Some taught out children that they are not always invited to everything, and that if, for example, they were present when someone was invited to an event and that invitexwas not extended to them, that's ok. That is life.

I don't think it's unusual a teacher handing out invites, we do it at my school and I can assure you most children only invite up to half of the class (I am not in reception). There is never going to be a completely discreet way of doing it, even some of the children when they hand over the invites to the teacher will then go and tell friends that they will get an invite later.

Not all children get invites every time, actually it's no different to Christmas and the cards being handed out - some got more than others. The crying girl will get over it and your child shouldn't invite them because of this.

Also to those saying use WhatsApp, that also doesn't always work. In our group we frequently have 'is X's parent in here?' it's clear from that they are wanting to organise a party or playdate. We even had one mum outline the details of a party she wasn't sure about, asking if people would go, but then must have invited people separately as we never got invited (so I think this was ruder as I had another friend ask me whether my child was invited as hers wasn't and she had put in the group chat her child would enjoy it, and she wasn't sure to ask or not).

She doesn’t see the parents.

In my children’s school you were expected to give the invites to the teacher so they could subtly put them in bags and avoid kids getting upset at not getting one. I don’t know why the op is getting grief for that.
I have my youngest classes parents on a group chat and we will often mention it there if it’s a full class party (small class so usually is) but still get invites sent into school which their teacher puts in the bags.

This just goes to show how different everyone is/communities can be.

I don't know any parents that opted out of the what's app group for a class - there must be some, but the numbers suggest not many. You could just mute it?

By 6/7 parties are all drop off where we are. That would be weird, if you expected to stay.

Re invitations at school: depended on the teacher, but I can see both sides of the argument.

What is the school doing with this "intelligence" they are gathering on the parents and kids?

That's a bit weird, if anything.

She needs to meet them, particularly if she's inviting their children to her home. School gate? Email? What parent let's their little kid go to someone's house without meeting at least one parent.

And life nowadays is that WhatsApp is very heavily used.

The teacher does not have time to put invites into bags. When do you envisage her doing this? Not while she's teaching the class so when? During her break which will be snatched as it is. Also, do you have any idea how hard it would be to identify the correct 10 bags? Have you ever seen a classroom cloakroom?
Just move past the girl crying. She's not invited. End of.