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.

This!
I think calling it an after party makes it sound more dramatic than it needs to be!

As I said earlier my daughter has been to a few parties where some have stayed over. She has never come home upset or feeling left out, or said that everyone was talking about the evening! The parties she has been to have been at home so it would be even more obvious people are staying (bags with them that would be visible) but they focus on enjoying the actual party aspect.
With this laser party kids will be collected at the end so there will be less stress over who is staying as surely everyone will be leaving the site.

I can't believe how many people get hung up in this.
Also surely only half the class is invited to laser....isn't anyone upset at them being the third rate citizens who haven't been invited to anything?!!

Talk to your son and explain. Collect him and maybe do something fun together. It’s called teaching resilience.

Agree!
Running away from things by making up excuses about family staying etc is not going to help here.
Talk about it in language he can understand because this won't be the first friendship "issue" he encounters and this isn't even a particularly big one.

Hahahaha. After party 🥳 LOL 😂 Yes YABU - you don’t get to pick who goes to someone’s home and it is clear that your son isn’t invited because the other boy is going, and nobody wants that drama in their house

Agree with this point of view. I'd take that your son has been invited to the main party and that the birthday boy likes him. They''re just having the after party with the five closest friends. You mention your son and the boy whose birthday it is aren't that close, so not unreasonable for him not to be included. Your son may well not hear about/notice the second part, but if he did i'd just explain it's a separte thiing.

if he was the only one left out I’d say fair enough, but he’s not so I’d still take him to the party

I've just asked my 7 year old son what he would want to do in this situation and he said that he wouldn't want to go to any of it as he would feel left out at the end.

Then maybe let him game more? If he doesn't get to game much that may be one of the reasons he isn't invited.

This. I was going to say that perhaps it makes sense just to pull him out and do the relative thing to avoid all
compmciations. But having read this response, I agree with this.

We also do after parties where I invite non-school friends and the one or two school friends that are in our already established parent and children friend group - it’s really a get together for the parents and a play date that would probably be happening anyway on a weekend afternoon.

I would let him go to the party and then say you have something planned with visiting relatives later, so that if any of the boys are unkind and tell him his isn’t invited to the after party, he can say he has plans then so wouldn’t have been free anyway. It would maybe soften the blow a little if he has a comeback ready for any spiteful children.

I really don’t get this after party stuff. Just enjoy your party. End. Obviously it’ll lead to discomfort in the classroom when they all talk about it. It’s just a bit crap.

This is distorting it!

Your experience isn’t remotely the same thing though!

In the OPs story, 9 out of 14 children haven’t been invited back. Her son being one of those nine.

Let him go to the party. Don’t make a big deal of it if he realises the other boys got to go to the after party. If he mentions it, just say oh no big deal we’ve got your family over to see you anyway. Disappointments happen in life.

It’s really not. The OP’s child is not invited to something. Neither are two thirds of those attending the birthday party. The OP, because she is socially insecure, sees this as an unwarranted ‘exclusion’, despite the fact that it’s an ‘exclusion’ being suffered by the majority of those attending the party AND despite the fact that, if he attended the smaller event, he’d be spending time in a small group with a child with a record of bullying him, something she’s mysteriously uninterested in.

This was a thing when my DC were at primary over 10 years ago. It was accepted that the closest friends of the party kid would often stay over.
Def allow him to go to the party.

Except usually means there is a difference.

We had the same, as in there was two parts to the party EXCEPT the DIFFERENCE was that my son was the only one who wasn’t going on to the second part, so we made excuses.

You're a psychologist and you’re telling @Snowdrops99 to lie to her child - and a lie that a bunch of other people, not necessarily well-intentioned towards him, will know is a lie?

Why do you think that’s a good idea? What will that do to his trust in his parents, as well as to his own “reputation” among his peers? He’ll be like the child who believes in Santa after everyone else because their parents keep confirming it to him. And over such a minor issue too.

I do get the point that resilience is about being the safe space for the child - I just don’t really believe that actively lying to him is being a safe space. Not after they find out the truth anyway,

But then I’m not a child psychologist. I’m open to being told which theory of child psychology says it’s a good idea to lie to a child to save them minor discomfort. What about a major issue like the death of a family member? Would lies about that be ok?

It shouldn't have been on same day with all the other children knowing about the after party. Not well thought out.
If dc is not into laser tag I’d cancel.

None of the other children know about the ‘after party’, as far as we know. The OP specifically says her son doesn’t. There’s no reason to think he’s going to be ‘damaged’ by it, any more than he’d be ‘damaged’ by not being invited to a play date. This is the OP projecting.

Rather the reverse. Would you like to attend an event with only five other people, one of whom is your bully?

I agree. It's crap when people do that and have an A list and B list.
Its like me going on a day out with a group of adults and saying "The following people are now invited back to mine for dinner and the following aren't."

I’d be upset about this too OP so I get it. Ignore the twats on here. I’d allow him to go but I’d make a point of telling him I’d be collecting him straight after the laser tag as ‘we are so busy.’ Don’t worry about resilience lessons for now - Christ, he’s 7! Plenty of time for that

I’d then big up allowing him iPad / computer time for a few hours to take any focus off after parties and just make sure he’s feeling happy and settled

I’d also be trying to sort this low level bullying too by involving the school. Can’t they do an assembly on kindness or something?!! I dunno! But they are ideally placed to monitor this and suss out what’s happening there

thank you so much for this, you hear so much rubbish about children learning lessons, being manipulative et cetera these days it’s really good to have somebody put it so clearly about what children need and it’s not being put in positions of hurt, worry, confusion and at times bullying.

OP, I would invite a couple of the children back to yours afterwards for pizza and games.

If there were 20 kids going to laser tag and five to the after party it would be fine. But to leave 3 of 8 out is unkind. And it can't really be argued that there is no space. 5 or 8 makes little difference.

Also if they are leaving out the unkind boy from the after party you have to question why they are bothering inviting him at all, given there are only 8 going in total.

Edited to say, sorry I misunderstood, I see there are 14 in total going to laser tag.

I assume it's only OP calling it the after party (doesn't sound like the language 7 year olds would use).

So basically there is a party, which OP's DC is invited to. And then the birthday boy, in something entirely different to the actual main party, is having some friends over to play video games at an entirely different place.

OP's DC is not invited to every single thing that children in his class do. Children talking about things they did that didn't involve him is a normal occurrence and not something that needs avoidance, separate activities planning, or huge amounts of explanation.