Invited the wrong child by mistake

[Oopsididitnotagain]

What to do-if anything?

Dd is having a party at a play place, ten children including herself, allowed. It was hard for her to narrow down her invites as she likes so many in the class and also has family friends to include.
I asked the class representative to please send me a list of the children & parents names & numbers. I made a group invite and sent via WhatsApp. One mum has replied to say her child can come-a boy Dd likes, but isn’t particularly close to, all the other children are girls, aside from one family friend, another boy. It was obviously a mixed up number, I thought I was sending the invite to one of her best friends.

Dd is disappointed and I think the mum was a little surprised too 🫣

Would you do anything?

Thank you x

The op is saying the cost of one extra child is too expensive

it’s soft play.

I will pay extra if needed,

so pay it

It includes all the food, entertainment etc. I will of course pay if it comes to it, but this is a special party we’ve saved up for, it’s been a stretch as it is.

But then she will probably think it means you don't really want him to attend and feel obliged to withdraw although he has already said he wants to go.
I don't see why it matters that there will only be two boys at the party. They can all still play together.
I think the best friend should also be invited though. One extra child can't cost that much. Surely OP could cut back on something else.

In my twenties I went on a date with the wrong guy cause I had two Nathans in my phone and I texted the wrong one. I just got on with it and I'm afraid you'll have to, too (sorry Nathan)

Agree with PP why not hand out invites? Kids know they don't all get invited to things especially by 8years old. Most children enjoy writing party invites it's part of the buildup. They can just hand them out quietly or put them in the kids trays and most of the time the other kids don't even know or care about the party. I don't know anyone that does party invites by watsapp it's not very personal and what do you do with the parents who aren't in watsapp groups? I personally don't know anyone who's in a parent watsapp group (I can't think of anything worse).

At Least two of them probably won’t even turn up on the day so you’d probably be safe to just invite her.

Because the invites have already gone out via WhatsApp. Sending them this way means not having to spend money on paper / card invites, not having to supervise your primary aged child writing every single one of them to make sure they write your phone number correctly, and not having to spend a lot of time when you’re busy working child caring mental loading writing stupid bloody cards to people you don’t know just to appear “personal”.

Sadly not rich 😂

Year before there was no party due to me having major surgery, so promised a big party year after, and it was a very limited number of friends. I couldn't have been adding any extra people on after the guestlist was decided for sure!

Everyone I know is in a parent’s WhatsApp group

Just pay for 1 extra. You can’t leave her friend out because of your mistake.

Clearly, it's needed. 🙄

Absolutely - this mistake is on you. Reduce the expenditure on something else, party bags, cake etc. very little sympathy, you can’t know these people that well if you don’t even have their numbers and you decided to invite nearly half the class with an arbitrary number of attendees in your head so just change it and add an extra person in. Really think people should invite a small group or the whole class.

So have you even got the number for the girl your daughter wants to invite?

Could you give mum a get out? "Just to let you know, only girls have now said they're coming so X will be the only boy. Its going to be a very girly themed party too. With this in mind, we're not offended if you think he'd rather not come but wanted to let you know...". If she takes the hint, great. If not, you're going to have to find the cash for one more kid.

All birthday invites for school parties are done on Whatsapp for every birthday party from school. Most however send the invite along with a short message, eg Claire would love to invite Sarah to her birthday party. Hope she can make it. This makes it a little more personal. Everyone has a phone and is on Whatsapp.

How close are you to the boys parents and how easy going are they. If close maybe just explain that you were given the wrong number by mistake. They might even be relieved 😅

If you think they will tell other people their son was invited and be all drama about it then just pay for one more child and let them know he will be the only boy.

I think telling mum there's been a mix-up is the same as uninviting though, because if it wasn't a problem you wouldn't phone and tell her. It would not be mentioned. She will know that you are hoping that she withdraws him, making her the bad guy. It puts her in a really difficult position - no-one wants their child to go somewhere they are plainly not wanted (for whatever reason) but she'll be the one making the decision to prevent him from going.

The boy the OP mistakenly invited is NOT going to be the only boy at the party, that info is in the OP's first post and in her later posts. I don't know why posters keep saying this. The OP can't use this as an excuse to exclude him.

He was invited and has accepted, it would be so mean to give him or his mum any hint at all that he might not be wanted there.

I would mention to the boys mum that her son will be the only boy there from school - and checking he will be ok with that and if he didn’t want to come you /dd wouldn’t be Insulted

no need to say he wasn’t meant to be invited

Why should she answer? It’s irrelevant.

You could say he is the only boy coming, doesn't mean the only boy invited

Lots of girls and boys play together at primary school, and hang out together at secondary. Unless that's changed recently - which would be a shame. I think it's a shame to assume the boy will be unhappy because there are no other boys.

Not really that hard. Just text the mum to say oh just t o let you know all other kids are girls, you know how it is. Not quite sure if I got the right number. Etc. I tend to cover up other people's mistakes by pretending I'm just a complete klutz and own it. Also not sure what is so bad about doing paper invites, it's completely normal at 8. Kids understand not everyone is invited.