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?

When you read that back did it make sense to you? I’m struggling to see how it did
My son comes home with paper invites in his bag that have been given to him whilst at school, both my children always have done (and I was in a group chat for my eldest and did the school runs)
so regardless of being in a chat or not, having parents numbers or not, being in the playground or not, this is how invites work at our school.. I have both sent and received them this way so I would say I do indeed know how they work

Agree with this. It’s funny how many parents on here are looking down their noses at being part of a WhatsApp group but are perfectly happy posting on a chat forum.

Trying to make some kind of social contact with the parents of the children your kids spend 7 years of school with is the very least you can do. Of course there will be some children that manage to get through school happily with very little help socially from their parents but most play dates and social occasions are organised by parents using some form of messaging. If you cut yourself off it’s not going to help your child. Most of us have to go to work, juggle family life, housework, shopping, cooking etc and still manage to tolerate a few WhatsApp messages which as many posters have pointed out you can mute.

@Christiners Im afraid you will just have to employ the tactics of the Spanish Inquisition if you want to get to the bottom of what happened. A girl cried. Not that important as you have no idea who she is. To be honest - put it to bed and invite your DCs friends round to play, somehow. Then you will get to see them.

This does not mean the teacher has to parent your child.

They should have just sent all the invitations back home with your child for you to sort out.

I agree.

I sent my ds2 into school today with 5 invitations for his party. I told him to hand them out to the children. I'm in all the WhatsApp groups but not all the other parents are.

My ds1 is going to a party next weekend that has been organised entirely over WhatsApp and ds1 has been coming home telling me all about it because they have been discussing it at school. Presumably other children who haven't been invited will have overheard this conversation so I don't really see what the difference is?

I'm afraid that children need to learn that they won't be invited to every party and that's the way it is. My ds2 was sad last year that he didn't get an invite to someone's party but we had a chat about it and he accepted it.

You can archive/ mute the chats and check in when you have time

Yes it did make sense to me and I'll say it again - unless you're there to witness how the invites get into the bags, all you know is that the invites are in their bags by the time they get home.
You have no idea whether it's a parent in the yard before the school day begins or a parent in the yard at the end of the day that hands your child an invite and they put it into their bag or a pupil hands them out (as your child did).

You just know it gets there, right? What am I missing here?

It's starting to get a bit like how do they get the figs into the fig rolls a bit.

They are allowed at ours if it is a whole class party, but otherwise I think it is a good idea to keep drama out of the classroom. Look at what this party has caused.

But you have just witnessed first hand why it is necessary!

This is definitely the case in our school. I've only ever sent and received party invitations by WhatsApp.

You did nothing wrong. Many parents work and aren't at school pick up. Many parents don't have the money for a whole class party and some activities don't allow whole class parties, or it's simply unsafe to do them with 30 kids. Kids need to learn that they won't get invited to everything.

No no, really, I do know.
And I’ll say it again too. My eldest child was always picked up from school by me. With invites in bags, there was no parent before school handing them out, as I was also there before school.. there was no parent after school handing them out, as again.. I was there. They were sent into school by parents and bought home by children. My son now goes to after school club and comes home with them in his bag, from when he was at school. He doesn’t pop out into the playground to find awaiting imaginary handing out invitation parents. He stays inside, with his bag and is taken (inside) to his club.
My children, also through the magic of ✨ speech✨ have said the teacher puts them in their bags. When it’s an invite for everyone, the teacher will tell everyone “you have an invite in your bag everyone” and when it’s not a whole class party, it isn’t announced but the invites are still in the bags.. sometimes undiscovered for a day or 2 as we didn’t know they were there, sometimes we do know they’re there as the inviting child has told their friends to expect the invite.
you can’t see me but my right hand is raised and I confirm I do know these events to be true

nope, a WhatsApp group would have changed nothing as that’s not how invites are sent out at our school but even if they were.. the children could just speak about it at school, said girl would have over heard she wasn’t invited and had the same reaction.

Quite

So when the children who were not invited find out about the secret Whatsapp invitations there won't be any drama? Or are all parties kept secret at your school?

What a load of ridiculous nonsense.

No. You are only obliged not to rope a teacher into the distribution of your invitations unless it is for everyone.

almost all parties are on WhatsApp groups in my kids’ school and everyone know who is or isn’t going to all of them. I’ve never heard about anyone caring though as they all know who their friends are. ‘But’ my kids both had a core group of friends and wouldn’t want invite or be invited to anyone else’s get together so maybe it’s different for other families - particularly for kids who struggle socially.

The fussing on here is crazy. My DCs left primary less than 10 years ago (regular sized school around 90-100 DC a year, 3 class groups a year) and for the 7 years they were in primary school it was normal for invites to go in and be changed in school. My DCs often had an invitation in their bag. No teacher took time off with stress over burdened by handling invitations, schools didn't close or newsletters threaten expulsion due to excessive party invites.
Shockingly the teachers also found time to distribute sweets and cakes that were taken in for the class.
How poor times must have been less than a decade ago when teachers didn't berate DC for bringing invites in. They should have banned the DC, banned the parents, no you cannot have a party!

You don't know that at all.

Well there has been no drama about it in 6 years.

Just like you don’t know that walking out into the road without looking will get you hit by a car. But it’s likely isn’t it. Common sense.

Here's an idea:

Perhaps children need to learn they can't be chosen for everything and there are disappointments in life.

Not to mention the fact that certain child might have got an invite if she was actually nice to others?

I couldn’t agree more. The teacher can’t be blamed for this. As a teacher myself, I really don’t know at WHAT point in the day I’d secretly go around slipping 10 invites into 10 children’s bags. I have never heard of that being a thing.