AIBU to cancel after my son was excluded from the after-party?

[Snowdrops99]

DS 7 is due to go to a birthday party this weekend at a location around a 30 minute drive away, similar party to laser tag with activity then party food and cake. They've invited 9 boys and 5 girls from the class. The boys play together at school but I wouldn't say any of them are particularly close.

Anyway, it turns out there's an after party back at the birthday boys house, with 5 of the 8 boys invited to play video games and eat pizza. DS hasn't been invited to this part of the party. I know he'll be so upset when he finds out as he loves those activities. He'd choose doing that over laser tag I think. I'm thinking of withdrawing him from the party as we have relatives visiting anyway. That way I can take the blame and he doesn't feel his peers have left him out.

Aibu to cancel him going to the party to avoid him feeling completely left out?

Backstory - DS been dealing with some bullying issues from one of the boys in this group of 5 and his self esteem is already pretty low. I worry this could make things even worse for him.
In addition, I know that one of the 3 who are excluded have been unkind to the birthday boy at times recently so that feels like this boy is being excluded deliberately. My DS is quieter than the other boys so not the first on everyone's list to be invited to things.

I agree.

I'd never suggest speaking to the mother. The child should be allowed to invite who he likes.
I would, however, recognise that it's hurtful to have it shoved in your face that you're a second tier friend.
I'm a primary teacher. I'm all about building resilience in kids. There are often issues re birthdays and recognising you didn't make the cut is one thing, but getting half invited is another.
There's not a chance I'd attend a dinner with friends if they had plans for later in the evening that I was deliberately not invited to.
I'd have more respect for myself than that tbh.
What are we really trying to teach a child in this instance?

Yes, I think the issue is in not thinking of them as two separate events, which they are. It’s likely everyone will go home from the party and then later on, some of the kids will attend a separate party at their home. The laser tag is self-contained event.

It’s definitely not uncommon IME to have a bigger party for wider friends/class and then have a separate smaller event at home for close friends/family friends, etc. There will definitely be some overlap, but we’ve both held and been to parties like this and it’s never really been an issue, so I’m surprised at reactions on here. Certainly in our circle no one seems to be bothered about it!

I wouldn’t expect DD1 to be invited to a small sleepover evening with a more casual acquaintance-type friend, but her going to a bigger ‘event’ party with lots of other kids would make more sense and I wouldn’t feel she was being ‘left out’ of anything else.

OK. So as a primary school teacher, with all the background OP has given around her son being bullied and having low self esteem, you would say the best course of action all round is for him to not go to the party he's been invited to?

And if we are looking at adult equivalents, it’s more like you go a barbecue of a colleague or acquaintance you are friendly with, go home at 3pm when the barbecue ends and everyone leaves, and then at 7pm that colleague goes for an evening out with a small number of their closer friends who also had been at the barbecue. Would you feel like you were being ‘left out’? I wouldn’t but I guess perspective is different for everyone. That feels just like a normal kind of situation to me.

Would it help your son to understand the situation if you explain that the birthday boy is having two separate events; he's been invited to one but not the other one?

OP I think it's a bit of a rubbish thing to do too. For only some of them to be going back to the birthday child's house but not everyone seems a bit blah to me.

But I agree you should let him go to the party and then be breezy about the afterwards part. Maybe swing by somewhere he likes on the way home, or have a nice afternoon planned he will enjoy with the relatives visiting.

Perhaps ask him would he like some friends round for pizza and games one day at some point soon. Let him plan something nice to look forwards too.

Yep. Telling him family are visiting so he's not available to attend this party would be of more benefit to him than sending him to the first part of the party where he will automatically be even more of an outsider as the boys will be openly discussing the evening event.
Going to the first part and realising the rejection will do him no favours in terms of self-esteem.

Actually, at best, the parents are demonstrating a complete lack of savoir-faire in their party planning skills, at worst they are being unkind with their two-tiered system for sending party invitations!

So how would you feel on the situation if your son was one of the children invited back and knew they were 9 children left out?

Quite often my kids have been to a bigger party and there’s been a sleepover straight after to which not everyone can be accommodated.
people always have the debate over weddings too and evening invitations. I don’t see how it’s any different. Sometimes we are not in the closest group of friends and that’s fine. We have to accept it. It’s totally different to leaving 1-2 kids out.

This with bells on. Let him have fun at Lazer Tag...who knows what will happen on the dayabout the after party. And don't make a big thing about the after party to your DC
either... just ignore it.

To be fair, I hadn't considered the boys that were going to the sleepover talking about it during the party. Is that likely to happen at this age? My son is slightly younger.

I can see how that would be problematic.

I’m a bit torn tbh. I do think it’s a bit weird to only have a few stay over AND it be on the same day clearly this will be what they talk about the whole party I imagine) but I also think it’s not the end of the world as he isn’t the only one not invited. I think now you’ve accepted I personally would still take him but maybe decline further invites from that family.

He's not being excluded though, he hasn't been invited - and yes, there is a difference. It's not about being nasty or playing flavour of the month. They are two separate events happening on the same day, and your son has been invited to one of them. It isn't difficult to understand, it has happened to my son and we have did the same on one occasion. Trampoline and bowling party, then everyone went home except for 4 friends that came back to ours. He had 15 friends at his party, I did not want 15 kids running around the house. I genuinely don't see the issue with it. Ironically DS is now 15, he's going to a party on Saturday - barbecue and gaming until 9ish followed by a sleepover for the boys 5 very close friends - about 20 people invited to the main part.

Apologies I’ve only had time to read the first few pages. My lesson is to always have at least two or three friendship groups for your child so that when one goes wrong they have back up friends. For me this was 1. School 2. English club 3. friends with kids the same age. My child is now 21 but having this tripod of groups helped navigate things. ( later on groups changed eg horse riding and then tennis)

I'd be sad for my DC if this was a friend they regarded as being a very close friend, or if he were the only one excluded. But I think you are possibly overthinking this.

Chances are the kid has wanted all 16, but also likes the home idea and it's just not always possible to invite 16 kids to your house so they've tried to facilitate both.

It is tricky, there are some really mean exclusionary actions and sometimes they are excused merrily by parents with the not everyone can be invited excuse, but I tend to feel like this is more individual

Have you contacted the school about the bullying? It sounds as if that's what is really upsetting you, not the party plans. If the school was taking the bullying seriously then the party might be a good opportunity to see if the dynamics have improved and to see whether the bully was behaving well towards your son. Assume that given it's a drive away, parents would stick around so you could stay and see how they interact, without it seeming weird. Whereas if DS went to the after-party you wouldn't be there. I'm not sure I'd be hugely comfortable with him going to that without me, as the hosts would be busy hosting and wouldn't necessarily be able to supervise 100% in case of bullying.

FWIW, my DS had a party with about 14 kids, and then we invited 3 of them back to our house afterwards - they wanted to play on the switch together so we thought it best to limit the number to 4 (for 4-player games). One of them was his cousin and the other two were his best friends from school. I didn't feel bad "excluding" the other party guests as we couldn't accommodate everyone at home.

OP withdrawing him is worse. If he’s had friendship issues but he’s been invited - that’s brilliant. Let him have that moment.

9 kids didn’t get invited to games - at 7 they don’t really do boy V girl separation. There are 15 there, 5 are going back. More aren’t going that are.

It’s absoloutely fine not to be invited to everything - in the next year or two it shrinks to max 8-10 kids so this won’t be the last party he isn’t invited too. He needs to accept that, and being on the invite is a nice way to realise that it isn’t personal.

Saying no has him miss out entirely.

kids don’t really speak about it at school so he won’t hear about it Monday either.

the same thing happened to my dd
i was more upset than she was i think
tbh i think we both thought it was strange but i didnt make a big deal of it.

it would be a shame for your son to miss both but I think you need him to get to the laser tag and then explain that not everyone could go to the after party bit. Honestly I would put it in any way that you feel will sound best, just so long as you know he's got at least the opportunity for the first bit. I'd explain it in whatever way you can best dress it up and see if he's on board. I do think it's a bit tough on teh excluded ones but I guess the parents had some issues with everyone going back to theirs. Try not to make a big deal out of it. Best wishes.

I'd ask your son to see what he wants to do. Just tell him what the whole plans are. It would be better for him to know as if the children start talking about this party then he might be confused and then feel like he was missing out. I can imagine as a child finding it awkward if the other children were talking about the later party.

You’re being hugely unreasonable.
He hasn’t been invited to the after party, so you’ll stop him from going to the actual party. Like, what?
What does your son want to do, as
surely that’s the most important thing here?
Also, it’s surely better to teach him some degree of resilience.

Yeah, that's usually what happens. The kids in the 'inner circle' enjoy the VIP nature of it and make a point of it to anyone who's not. I've seen it a lot, unfortunately. Kids tend to be very insensitive and cruel tbh.

I feel this is escalating quite a bit - if you'd read my latest update you'll see that I've said he can go to the party and I'll talk to him briefly before so he knows what's going on. Thanks to those who have been understanding of why this might be a bit difficult to navigate. No need for some of the nastier comments here, I don't have some underlying issue or unresolved trauma. I was literally asking opinions as this is the first time I've dealt with a situation like this. I'm just balancing him getting very upset versus him learning to deal with difficult situations.

To those who said it's entitled behaviour, respectfully I disagree. I'm trying to make sure my DS doesn't feel like second best on a background of ongoing bullying issues as it really won't help him longer term rather than expecting to be invited anywhere.