Excluded from bday party - aibu to text the parent?

[RealReginaPhalange]

Reception. Its Feb so kids know each other well enough. Bday party tomorrow, idk how many not invited and how many invited but my son has been excluded. They do play together at school but i dont know the mum. They had chats today about party tmrw, my DS feels he is invited and he is fully aware of the party. Apparently invitations went out by whatsapp directly. I am on whatsapp group so it is not an error. Fine not to invite everyone but in reception? They dont have own little circles of friends yet. Invite everyone or no one at that age. And then talks at school and some kids end up upset. I am so so angry now and will need to have a chat with ds. should i text the mom it is hurtful or should i leave it?

just to add. I dont really know parents there and not sure if she is well known, i am worried i will be a gossip no 1 afterward and it would lead to my ds being excluded more.

aibu - dont text
not aibu - text

It’s a cost of living crisis. I Couldn’t afford whole class parties. So you are saying only the rich kids get to have a party as they can invite the whole class.
Do not text the mum you will look crazy. And every one at the school gates will know you sent the text.

Don’t text OP but I agree with you that all should be invited in reception. Thank goodness that was the approach at our DC school.

As far as you know.

How do you know there weren't smaller parties your child wasn't invited to?

Well I hope the school are paying for all these partys then. No school can tell a parent how many kids can come to party, that's ridiculous.

2 reception classes of 30 kids each. Even doing a whole class party of just 1 class, that's 29 invites in 1 year alone.

If you budget £5 per present, that's £145 in gifting presents before you have even factored in your own child's party.

This will be a terrible burden on some parents who may feel obligated for their child to attend but maybe struggling financially.

Then you will have the holiday season birthdays where not everyone is going to be able to make it and possibly an upset party child because only 10 could make it but everyone else pretty much had full attendance.

‘No i am not entitled at all. And i didnt plan on demanding an invitation obviously, i wouldnt go now even if she would end up inviting him.’

Op why wouldn’t you go now even if she did invite him? My kids are told party numbers are often limited. My son got invited as another girl couldn’t attend. I told him ‘that’s great, it will be so much fun, it’s a shame her best friend is away but you’ll have a great time, you are lucky’. He went, was polite, chatted to everyone, got to know the group better, the parents said how nice he was and he got an invite to every party she had for the next 5 years at primary school.

If I’d have been bitter and said no you are not been an afterthought he maybe would not have developed his friendship with her.

Why would you stop him attending because if he ends up on the ‘reserve list’?

And I say that as someone who did whole class parties until age 9 or 10.

Yes you do need to calm down. It happens, and it won't be the last time. you have to take a step back and manage your son's disappointment. I know it's hard and we hate to think of them being left out, but honestly in reception they will have all forgotten about it next week. Maybe she has only invited kids of the parents she knows - it might just be 5-10 kids. Being petty and not inviting them to your son's party doesn't help either, I would do the opposite, then next year the parents may remember this and invite your child because they will realise they are actually friends.

I said class - not the whole year group! You make it sound like everybody has 100% attendance. Most people have stuff going on and usually it’s about 55-60% of class max can make it to each birthday so hardly the numbers you are talking about.

My numbers and figures were based on 1 class.

Granted that not every child will get 100% attendance and less so during holiday season.

My point stands that parents should not feel obligated to invite a whole class of 30 kids. What if the parent of the birthday child wants to do a party at home to keep costs down?

As nearly everyone has said, do not text. It would be a completely disproportionate and inappropriate response from you to the supposed crime. You don't have very many details and you are acting emotionally. You also sound quite immature and mean when you say that you would purposefully exclude children. If you actually knew that the entire class was invited and only your child wasn't invited, then I'd probably ask the teacher to keep an eye on whether my child was being excluded in the school/nursery setting but you can't control who someone does and doesn't invite into their home. Of course it's hurtful that your child hasn't been invited but if you make a big deal then your child will be more upset.

In the nicest possible way of saying this, you are in my opinion massively overreacting to this. It’s ok to disagree with leaving children out, but there are many reasons why parents do. Cost, over stimulation in big groups, parental comfort in supervision, or simply not wanting to. You say that at 4/5 kids don’t understand and will get upset, but they could equally not care at all because of age. Our daughter is now 9, and has always preferred smaller groups, should she not have had a party because the rest of the class would be potentially upset?

That's shitty advice you're putting the other parent in a position and the OP will look like a crazy person!

I would message her and say
“my son tells he has been invited to your child’s party tomorrow. He’s very excited. But he isn’t sure what time it starts, could you let me know ? Thanks so much”

If I got that I'd message back that your son is mistaken.

Why would anyone issue an invitation based on that?

While it's perfectly fine to be upset, it's really not good etiquette to text. There were only two all class parties in our reception class, one of them DD's. She wasn't invited to many parties at all that year as a load of kids had come up through the school nursery together. DD honestly didn't give a stuff, even when a load of kids from her class walked down the road with us straight from school to a party down the road she wasn't invited to! That upset me but she didn't care.

I had a message from the mum of a lovely boy in my DD's class recently asking if there was a party being held as her son told her he was invited and she was confused. I confirmed a girl in their class was having a party and said I thought it was mainly girls invited looking at the what's app group. Turned out this girl had invited a load of extra kids from their class last minute... caused a bit of a nightmare for her mum!

So you say everyone should be invited - are you paying for this party, maybe they can only afford a few. Stop being so bloomin childish.

If you haven’t been invited to their party you are under no obligation to invite their kids. Your child doesn’t have to be the ‘bigger person’ if they’ve excluded him and if they actually did want to go to your son’s party it’s actually a good lesson for both the child and the parents about invitations.

Eg at DC’s school, most parents included the whole class (as a minimum) at reception, but from Year 2 onwards the kids who had big parties invited each other ( kids became friends at the party) and the kids who didn’t have big parties only received invitations to smaller events.

Surely you ask the child who he wants at his party and that’s that.

Yes though from reading original commenters comments, there aren't just a few invited-She's mentioned there's only a few "uninvited"
💚

Most schools do have rules you can't hand out invites at school if you don't include everyone.
But that wouldn't matter with private invites.
Ultimately, you can invite who you like to a private party.
Definitely confronting the mother will get you labeled as to be avoided.

If it was a whole class party and one didn't get an invite you would do well to wonder if the child has had behavioral issues or conflicts at school.
Just because you haven't heard from the teacher doesn't mean there haven't been small personality clashes.
We didn't invite a specific child because she had a history of being very judgy with some classmates and my daughter chose the kids who she irritated over her, although she did like the other girl.

When I volunteer in school there are often kids whose behavior is no fun for the others. The kids are kind in school but I can absolutely see why you wouldn't invite them to your home.
Plus some parents get a reputation for being obnoxious or the type who drop kids off and leave and don't return for an extended time.
If only a few were excluded then that's something to consider.
If they only invited half or less then they are just choosing their besties, and that's ok.

YABU. You sound entitled. Use this as an opportunity to teach your child some life lessons (sounds like you would benefit from this too) that you are not automatically invited to everything and there will always be things you aren’t. Take him to the park that day or have a special breakfast but do not message the other parent.

use this also as a time to self reflect - has your child not been invited for a reason. Is it time to work on kindness, sharing etc?

I personally invite the whole class + friends outside of it. I don’t pay attention to reciprocal invites for close friends or the class but I do for friends who aren’t as close or whose parents took the piss. For example of my child’s friends’ parents brought 5 extra kids to my child’s party & then didn’t invite my child ‘because they aren’t friends’ — that child won’t be getting another invitation from me.