AIBU to feel upset seeing Year 6 friendship photos exclude my daughter?

[Yearbookk]

Year 6 DD class was asked to upload pics of themselves inside and outside of school on teams. She’s been really excited and spent ages choosing the right pictures. Class only has 16 kids in so she tried to choose pics where everyone was there so for example all the class parties she had, school concerts etc.

she’s been really upset today (as have I) as we looked through the pictures. There are tons of pictures of the girls she thought were her friends at various activities without her e.g. cinema trips, bowling, sleepovers and parties she wasn’t invited to. I know not everyone can invite every child to a party but that doesn’t bother me, the days out without her bother me. We’re moving away and the kids have been crying that they will miss her (it’s an all through school) and she has been receiving so many gifts. We finished school on Friday. It’s just really upset me that she was never invited.

plus we have invited the girls - there are 8 in total including DD to activities like when I took them cinema etc. and booked other things but not one of those pictures has been uploaded by them. She really considered 3 of them her best friends and they were hugging and crying on Friday but now to see they did all these things over the years without her. Plus the parents must know how it looks but still posted the pics. It feels to me the whole of primary was a lie as I thought these mums and kids were our friends. DD is really upset and has told me she doesn’t want to see them again. We have invited the girls to our home next week to say goodbye properly. I really feel like cancelling

Agree with north.

FWIW neither of mine (very late teen now) are still friends with any of the primary girls. They occasionally run into each other at parties and reminisce but that’s it. Both girls their real friendship groups solidified year 9/10. So try to take a long view.

Would you prefer the OP said “my daughters been left out, LOL” ?

Her child is hurt. Of course she’s hurting too.

Happened to my daughter in year 6 and honestly now shes year 9 she has forgotten year 6. Dont worry x

I understand why you and your DD are upset but I agree with other posters that this is a good opportunity to teach and model resilience.

Invites and inclusion are a really tricky topic that doesn’t always go away as you get older so helping your DD manage it now will serve her well. I’m in a group of 6 close friends and there’s been some tension around this sort of thing over the years, even though we’re in our 30s!

That’s not the alternative to framing a situation to make it about yourself.

OP are all 8 girls really all one big group or are they 2 groups? It's unusual to me for girls to have such a large friendship group. Just wondering if your daughter is actually floating between 2 groups but has a stronger bond with the ones she says are her best friends. I did this in my early teen years, had many friends but not actually a bestie. One reason was moving school a lot but I also preferred it that way. At about 15 I met my bestie and 45 years later we are still best friends.
I think I just didn't like the clinginess of girl friendships so I preferred not to do the BFF thing and was quite happy to be everyone's 2nd or 3rd best. I'm sure if we had sm in my day I would see a lot.of things I missed out on. That didn't mean I wasn't fond of my friends or them of me.
Hope all goes well for your daughter at her new school.

My daughters year book had say 100 photos of the 60 children, mostly taken at the time of the end of year show. Some children in around a third of the photos mostly very similar photos. My daughter wasn't in one.

Its cr@p of the teachers organising it. An obvious thing to do would be to have a list of the children and check each child is on at least one photo and if not take a photo of them. And if the child points it out at least have the decency to say sorry

One out of three of my teens is still friends with a primary friend, the other two haven’t spoken to anyone from primary since they left. I sent them to a different school to the majority of their peers so they don’t interact now or really think about them… I think that’s pretty usual. In other words, whilst upsetting right now your DD is going to move on and meet lots more people. It’s just life.

I get it OP, and I really feel for you and your daughter. I'm not surprised that she wants to cancel the get together either.

No, I don’t expect OP to put a LOL at the end of it. I would expect that yes whilst a parent may be upset if they feel their child has been left out they don’t make the situation worse, I’d expect them to reassure their child it’s ok for friends to different things with different friends and not everyone will always be included… unfortunately sometimes thats life

I think you would have to have a heart of stone not to feel upset at this point and just force an 11 year old's emotional reaction over to a zone of 'That's life and in 2 years' time it'll mean nothing,' even if that might be for the best.

The end of year 6 is the conclusion of the primary school years and the real experience of secondary school is a blank slate as of the end of the term, so that's also adding emotional shades to the situation at this point.

The good thing is that in secondary school, the pupils will be busier (year on year!), including having options to do a lot of in-school things such as plays, sport, music and so on, and they also organise their own stuff a lot more. To help this, please be open to spontaneous things such as 2 friends being able to turn up after school without much warning. It's helped in my family's case.

The other thing I would recommend is that you go for some activities where there are people from a mix of schools there, not people they have always known. For us it's a group like Cadets but with a lot of volunteering and outdoor experiences on offer. It was like pulling teeth, trying to get DD to agree to go through the door for a few weeks ("I don't know anybody") but it has been a really good thing and has stuck for a number of years now.

It is hurtful no one’s denying that. It’s also the human condition and happens throughout life unless you are a hermit or have one loyal friend and even then. You need to teach her to deal with it.

And yet the ‘heart of stone’ approach that says ‘No one’s invited to everything’ and ‘Tris doesn’t mean they weren’t genuinely your friends’ and ‘We will make a plan to help you stay in touch even while you make new friends at your new school ‘ will do the OP’s daughter a much better service than the OP’s outrage and hurt and rumination.

I would definitely feed back to the school about this being inappropriate. Is it a private school by any chance?

I haven't seen it yet but my son is in year 6 and the teacher usually does a slideshow with photos of them from over the years. Not sure if they check how many times a particular child is featured, but the photos are collected from their time at school only. They use trip photos, photos from shows and photos from when they started school or nursery. The only exception is for anyone new who they will ask if they have a home photo from their first day at school.

At our school it was just pictures taken at school. Looks like someone has tried to go the extra mile and has put their foot right in it in the process.

Thank you, that's a point that's been raised so I'm sure OP has had the counterpoint to think about too. I didn't think what I'd written was going to kick a wasp's nest, but if so, I didn't intend it to.

I have a friend who had this kind of thing happen but with a lot of points in early life when she was excluded by people who she wanted as her friends. Her parents were very dismissive about it, as with a lot of other things as she got older. She is now a very senior mental health specialist and has had a lot of training, but periodically has difficulties with her parents' reactions and her sense they either dismiss things, or move on without being aware of whether something was a big issue or a small one for her age (11, 22, 30, 47... and so it goes on). Where there is a trigger, she works on it and doesn't feel that one reaction is automatically wrong.

I have been a Primary Teacher for 40 years. One thing l noticed is kids put up photos etc of children they aspire to be friends with, children they look up to as the cool kids. They often forget the reliable steady friend that they have had for years. It's like they feel secure with them and use an opportunity like this to increase they class cred..especially in final year where they are feeling insecure about Secondary.
These friends your dd has are probably genuine friends and their upset at her leaving is probably sincere. The school should have more cop than to be exposing their students to this kind of rejection.

Try and move on and hopefully your dd will have a very positive experience at Secondary. I would go ahead with the leaving party as hopefully that is what your dd will remember and not the pictures. Hopefully they are not staying up online..l would object to that .

Talking about resilience: Growing up my feelings were often dismissed by my parents, they still are! This did not make me resilient at all in fact the opposite. Being constantly dismissed also made me settle in toxic friendships and relationships as I was told all my life to ignore my feelings, not to “make a fuss” and “just get over it”.

I am going to acknowledge my daughter’s feelings and I am going to help her through this by focusing on the happy memories she’s had and the new ones to come. I think it’s very bad for our mental health to feel our feelings are “too much” whether we feel them as a child or a grown woman

I relate to this completely. Feelings dismissed, little attention paid to me generally. Never asked about my day. Told me I shouldn't be proud as it's boastful. My self esteem is not great and it took me a while to realise this is why.

Whenever I’ve felt left out I’ve then organised an even better thing for myself! So when a group I know locally went on a girls trip I felt a little sad but used it as a spur to set up a similar trip with some old friends and we had a ball.

Sorry you grew up like that too it’s hard isn’t it, watching my friends parents reactions to things their kids were going through always made me feel jealous and inferior. I grew up thinking I’m not as important as other girls hence my self esteem was rock bottom and I put up with so much crap. Had I parents who cared about the “little things” I would have grown up so different and would have felt stronger.

Thats why I am letting my daughter express her feelings. Obviously I will not let her wallow in this till she’s 30!! I’ll let her feel her feelings then make a plan on what next steps are.

It’s not realistic that 8/16 children would be invited to everything. Realistically, a few mams are friends and see each other with their kids. Unless there is consistently pics of the 7 girls or 15 other classmates together without your daughter. Did you never do things with just a few of the mums you know better?

My daughter only sees kids of parents I’m friends with outside of nursery/school. Unless it’s a birthday party - this is where I’d also get to know other parents. As she gets older I’m sure she’ll have play dates with kids who’s parents I don’t know, but ‘outing’ are most likely going to be the parents I want to spend time with, otherwise I’d spend all my time hanging out with randoms and never see my friends!

I was jealous of friends whose parents would collect them from school and say "how did your day go?" and then listen to them.

Also, I was at a friend's house once and her little brother had got back from a trip away. Their parents were like "I missed you" and "we missed your jokes". I remember thinking "my parents never talk to me like that".

I make sure I'm the parent I wished I'd had. And when my daughter has difficulties at school, I listen to her, I share my experiences, I tell her things will get better... and I tell her she's an awesome person and I'd have definitely wanted to be friends with her at school.

My youngest was actually very popular until y4. Then it went sideways and now shes hardly invited at all!
But overall i think its parents or kifs and only takes one to find you or your kid annoying.
But my eldest had a friend who would at 12yo talk about inviting the other 3 to her party but not the other z2. She knew she was being mean and doing on purpose.
I think at a private school the parents and kids will be more subtle and not talk in front of others who they are not inviting.
(Which is the way society says we should behave) however like in op situation it can be there is some intentional leaving out but the op hasnt had the oportunity to try harder/try to meet up with the closer friends as they dont realise.

If dd is a bit adhd possibly its a bit much for some kids or parents...
Certainly in our case mine is prone to tears. But also things like kids being into or not sport or football. Asd kods can struggle woth froends as they want to do the activity as they want or not at all.

Some parents are very pushy for their kids to be onvoted to everything.
Consider if one child or parent doesnt like you or dd?

I get it OP, I went to a wedding with photos of the guests (school friends wedding) but I wasn’t in the photos! It did hurt a bit.

i would support DD in focusing on her new school and opportunities for friendships rather than looking back at what she wasn’t invited to.