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.

Let him go and have fun at the party.

Re the after party, if he even asks you why he wasn't invited to that you can explain that there wasn't enough room for everyone to stay overnight but it's ok because you have relatives staying anyway so he can spend some time with them in the evening. It's life that we don't get invited to everything and he has to build up some resilience to that.

It's not really a 'normal' part of life to be bullied. Being resilient is not the same as accepting your fate when being a victim of bullies. I have much older DC but the parents who sanction stuff like this always produce the most entitled and obnoxious teens IME. OP, you aren't wrong to have this perspective, it is totally normal to have that maternal Instinct about this but I wonder whether it would be ashame for them to miss out on the Tag party as it sounds fun.

Yes, absolutely and when these kids become teens and adults they go on to behave in the same way, the bullies emboldened by their parents providing a poor example.

God this "resilience" shit is boring. Think for yourself.

Just dont mention the after party. You cant have everything.

Because you need lots of kids for laser quest. And just a handful for a sleepover.

it’s very normal in our circle to have more kids for the actual party activities. Then a small few for sleep over

The boys play together at school but I wouldn't say any of them are particularly close.

Knowing a group of friends is doing an activity

Sorry if I have missed something but which is it? Either they are friends or acquaintances. Big difference.

This explains it well

Two tier parties sound odd quite frankly but as others say it's not like your son is the only one not going back.

Think carefully about how you frame this with your son and about what you do because he is learning about how to navigate friendships and social events from you.
Personally, I would let him go to the main party and brush off the significance of the "after party". You have family visiting so maybe he couldn't have gone anyway.

Don't make a big deal of it all or else he will too and he will feel that something really fairly minor is more than it is.
He's invited to a party, that's good,let him go and encourage him to enjoy himself.

Their house probably isn’t large enough to have all of them over at once so the birthday boy chose his closest friends. You admitted they’re not particularly close and to be honest, if one of the 5 is bullying him I don’t see why you’d want him to be alone in a bedroom with him anyway.

A party of 14 children, with only 5 out of the 14 being invited back to the birthday boy's home afterwards. So 9 children aren't being invited back, 1 of which is your son. Yes, your son may be disappointed but this is how children learn. Disappointment is part and parcel of life, and it's something your son is going to experience throughout his. Teach him, that yes, it's disappointing but he can't be invited to everything. If he'd been the only child not invited back, that might have been different, but he's not.

Maybe time for your own sleepover video game party then

But that’s life though! Not everyone can be included in everything. He’s 7, they’re kids. He’s not being ostracised but if you decide to stop him from going to the party you’ll be the one ostracising him! I’m saying this kindly - you’re being over protective. I bet your DS is already aware that you’re not happy about the arrangements, and that is teaching him to be unhappy about it too. Instead, he should be looking forward to the party with his friends and understand that not all can go back to the party boys house for the ‘after party’.
take him to the party, then when you pick him up take him for an ice cream or something on the way home so he can tell you all the fun things that happened at the party.
Don’t dwell on the ‘after party’, be breezy if he asks. “It’s nice that party boy has got a couple of friends going round, he only has room for a few. Do you want sprinkles on your ice cream?’

My DS wanted to do something like this as well for his party. I told him he got to invite ONE friend for sleepover and pizza after the laser game. That way the other 8 invited wouldn't feel excluded because they were in clear majority and I also told him not to talk about it and said so to the boy as well. There was no need for bday boy to invite the majority of the boys- ofcourse the few others would feel excluded. I think I would be upfront with my ds and let him decide whether he wanted to attend the laser tag or not knowing that he was excluded from the afterparty.

Thanks for all the replies. Most people think he should go to the party and I think me wondering about not taking him was a knee-jerk reaction with this background of bullying going on. It's really hard to see your child being upset about nasty comments and being pushed around. So I'll take him and won't make a big fuss of the after party. We're busy anyway so I'll leave it at that. He'll know it's happening as the others will be talking about it and he's not stupid, but I'll just brush it off with a brief explanation and some computer time at home.

There is probably a maximum that they can fit in cars if they’re driving the boys back afterwards. I’ve never been keen on after parties- mainly because the kids are already so hyped they often need down time. in this case I think you’re being over sensitive as there are lots not going and I suspect they will all crash at some point and be a bit hideous once home.

I’d also say 7 year olds can be horrible little things. They are learning social rules, trying to assert some independence, finding their own personality and friends and often trying to be a bit more grown up than they can handle. I think it’s really normal to be having some friendship issues at that age.

That’s a horrible think to do to the kids who aren’t invited! Do the get together another day when the other kids clearly aren’t being singled out as not good enough to go to the after party! Talk about teaching your child how to be thoughtless and unkind and bully other kids!

Hard agree with all the suggestions to go to Laser Tag. Focus on that.

It’s so hard isn’t it? And we want to protect our kids! I guess the equivalent I’m thinking is being invited to the afters of a wedding.
definitely talking him through it and allowing him to make the decision - too many posters think building resilience is plonking a kid in a tricky situation but they need scaffolding - you sound like a really thoughtful mom and he’s lucky to have you.

If you take the attitude of missing out on everything if you can’t join it all, then you will end up missing out on loads.

This is very good advice!

My kids are older now and looking back I can see that fretting about my kids’ friendships / intervening where I felt there were sleights or issues was never a positive thing.

It didn’t satisfactorily resolve any issues - it just created new problems. It prevented the kids dealing with things by themselves (the resilience point). And it made me stressed and worried a lot of the time.

If I could do it all again I would take a much more hands off approach. You should definitely send your son and don’t raise the after party at all. If he raises it, brush over it and move on to something else.

I'm glad you're starting to get perspective on this. The fact that you have relatives visiting surely gives you a very straightforward way of moving on from the laser quest thing, and if he mentions the pizza event, you just say that her wouldn't be able to go anyway because of your visitors.

And again, there are nine other kids in the same position. He's by no means a sole individual who's being actively rejected.

I’ve been that parent. Big party at a location that can accommodate it (and my budget considered to pay for it) then a smaller gathering/sleepover at my house. The smaller number at home is due to my considerations of how many I can practically/safely/financially host and still be present without my own overwhelming kicking in.

On these times, and it still happens now with my teens, it’s because they have their own ideas of how they want to celebrate but don’t understand the financial and practical logistics, so we work on compromise and finding solutions that can do both.

Try to not take this personally and chat to your child about boring practical adult stuff that may have created these decisions. I’m sure he’ll understand that he is actually wanted there but practically can’t be there for all of it for reasons beyond his or the birthday child’s control. Yes, there may be friendship dynamics that have come into play here, but try to discourage focusing on that.

It’s no different from adults trying to plan a wedding and navigating firstly, their budget, then x capacity at the ceremony, y capacity at the sit down meal and z capacity at the reception party.

So 14 people are invited and less than half are going back to the house? I think you are overreacting by cancelling it all

I'd let him go to the laser tag, if he was the only one not invited to this after party I'd get it OP but as he's not yabu.