...to think it isn't a human rights issue if some children in a class don't get invited to a birthday party?

[Midge25]

Hijacking Radio 2 discussion here - sorry if there's already a thread on this. But surely children need to learn that not everybody is going to be their friend/invite them to their party???

S'Alright

Been there. 'Tis crap.

Greensleeves, it' really brought a lump to my throat. It has happened to my dc's too.
I think the parents could explain how unkind it is to leave some children out; it's all very well leaving it to the kids to choose, but they can sometimes choose for reasons I for one wouldn't like- the popular kids are quite often so because they have a big garden or a mobile phone or something.
iu think it can encourage leaving out, bullying and things.
If it's a huge party and two orthree are left out, i thik that's terrible.
We tend to do the three or four friends thing now.
And I agree, parties are totally out of hand.
Expectations are very high, and some people can't afford it.

I do think it's a human rights issue....

If you let your child leave certain people in the class out, you are basically condoning bullying, i.e. using the fear of social isolation as a weapon of power over their classmates. That's not how it's supposed to be.

I would never let one of my children do this and I hope I would have brought them up well enough so they'd never ask such a horrible thing!

I just can't believe what some parents let their children get away with - WE are the adults - we have a duty to our children to be parents to them. You can't let them ammounce to you who's coming to their party, I just think that's absolutely ridiculous. When they're old enough to throw their own parties, then they can be in charge of the guest list. If they want to be bullying little sods when they've grown up, then that's their choice!!

so when dd had been throttled by a kid in the class it was that child's human rights that had priority?

Human rights my arse.

I'm all in favour of being polite but human rights??? Please

My ds' birthday has always slipped quietly under the radar as he is very early Sept born. I have always had a small party at home for his friends (of my friends!). But he starts school this year and his birthday will fall on the Friday of the first week back. He is very keen on a 'proper' party this year and I feel happy to do it. However, I felt it was imperative to be able to invite the whole class especially at the end of a week, which for some, can be quite daunting. It would break my heart for children to go home feeling they are missing out on a party at the end of their very first week. Thankfully, we have had a few pre-school meetings and attendances where I met the parents of children who didn't attend ds' pre-school so I have managed to tell everyone and no-one will be excluded.

To be honest, whether invitations are handed round in the playground or put into book bags, children will always be talking about the party they are going to/have been at and so there is no easy way to protect children from feeling excluded. Ds has been in this situation before and it is not nice.

I know it is not possible or practical for people to have big parties always but it seems too cruel to exclude just one or two. Small should be no more than half the class.

totally honest response - ds's birthday is almost at the end of the school year - so i know by then who hasn't invited him to their birthday. no compunction whatsoever in excluding these children.

having said that excluding a very small number of children is mean spirited and i wouldn't do it.

No! They are kids ffs. plenty of time for that kind of nasty learning curve later. It can create divisions in the class and result in bullying. MEAN How would you feel if your dc was left out of the invites?

Yup - the less than half the class rule is a good one; no it's not a human rights issue, it sounds a bit communist to say no-one should be left out, we have to make decisions about people in life and that's part of it; I'm all for letting my dd have as much choice as poss about thinga in general, i like teaching her to do things for herself where appropriate and explaining if a decision would be hurtful. She's not the sort to exclude one or two kids anyway so it's not an issue, she'd rather have everyone. Plus in a class of 30 if everyone did 'invite all' parties, you'd have nearly every weekend taken up with attending a kids party on Sat or Sun - who wants that? Prob not even the kids. Much better to make it more special if poss, or at least have kids there that care about your child as well as the inevitable party bag at the end...

BTW do they still let kids pick for teams in football, netball etc? Being picked last for that is always hurtful. Are schools now so out of touch with the real world that they don't let kids experience this any more? When kids grow up they will have to apply for college and jobs, and probably have some rejections, and personally i think a bit of experience of rejection or exclusion (these might be the parents feelings more than the kids anyway) can be a learning curve - if handled gently and explained clearly. Not to the extent that it's just one or two kids though, that is cruel and unecessary.

My dd is 5 soon and I know she hasn't been invited to all the parties and sometimes been upset. I think 5 is too young to feel obviously excluded from events, there's plenty of time for them to learn that as they get older.

For her party have invited whole class (wouldn't think of not inviting someone just because they didn't invite her ). We have just hired a hall for £20 and will be playing party games.

Everyone's happy

When I did do a whole class party (in reception) I insisted that dd invite the whole class, including the girl that she really doesn't like (whose parents then tried to dump their elder child on me so they could go off shopping - I'd said parents & siblings welcome meaning that if parents wanted to stay they could bring their younger children) The girl behaved appallingly throughout, and whilst I felt, and still feel sorry for her, I don't think it is right that my dd's birthday should be ruined by a child whose parents can't teach her to behave appropriately. (And before you say it, I do know that it's not SN because I helped arrange the assessments in pre-school, that the parents didn't bother to attend)
So the next year I limited dd to 10 children from school, because I wouldn't have wanted to leave out one child. But I still let her hand out the invitations at school, because I think it's actually quite an important life lesson to learn that one isn't invited to everything, and that it doesn't mean that people don't like you, and that even if they don't, it really doesn't matter.

I have been very puzzled this year by the fact that DS2 wasn't invited to the party of a child with whom he seems to be very friendly, although he has been invited to playdates with this child (which have been reciprocated).

Ds2 is adamant that he is going to invite this boy to his own birthday party in August though. I am that he is generous in spirit!

On the other hand, I have friend whose ds has SN (social/behavioral issues) and know that it's heartbreaking when he was regularly excluded from parties because parents didn't want him to come. I am assuming it was the parents decision, as when he has attended parties the children have all been happy to see him and played nicely with him. And I do think that those parents are horrid to exclude him because of concerns about whether he would behave, when all they had to do was ask his mother, who always made a point of staying at parties with him and distracting him at potential flashpoints like competitive games.

I saw this in the paper and thought oh FFS.

Both my children have big partys, and for the first few years we invited the whole class, once DCs got older and started making stronger friendships then some class mates got invited some not.
When DS1 was being bullied by one of the kids in his class I invited everyone except the bully, (who had come to partys before) why would anyone wany to pay out £9.00 for a child to come to a bowling party when that made your childs life hell?

God help the meddleing butthole who starts telling me who my children can and can not ask to their partys that i am paying for.

I wasn't invited to every party, I was glad of it mostly because it was usually the class bullies who didn't invite me and I wouldn't have wanted to go to their party. Likewise, I didn't invite the bullies. It always amazed me though how people changed when they knew your party was coming up. People who couldn't stand you or picked on you would suddenly be your best friend from around 4-6 weeks before your birthday. I've even had other children tell me that's why they were being my friend!

If a child is going to bully another they can't expect to be included when the invites go out.

Oh and my parents would never let me exclude someone who was being bullied by everyone else. There was a girl in my class (who we eventually fostered) whose parents kept her without food, baths and clean clothes (until they fell off her) she was obviously picked on by everyone else. I didn't really get on with her although I did try to be her friend, but she was always invited to birthday parties. Only bullies got left out.

DS1 has SN and I remember once someone handed out invites to ALL the children except DS1, DS1 was not in the least bit bothered by it, but one of his class mates said to his mum, why has kimis ds not been invited, the mother turned round and said "oh only nice children get invited to partys" that was one of her better comments about my son, then she wonders why I offered to kick 9 shades of shit out of her (not over the party thing).

DS2 seems to get a party invite every week, it is costing me a fourtune in gifts .

DPs friend invited then un-invited my sons to his sons birthday party, but the mans a t*at anyway.

Seems DS1s ticking would have been embaressing [sp]

It's dd's 5th birthday in a fortnight. I'm dreading it. We've invited half the class to a bug hunting/pond dipping party. There are only 7 girls in the class, and I originally thought at the beginning of term, 'GREAT, we'll have a nice small girls party this year' but 2 of the girls regularly pick on dd. I felt obliged to invite them 'even though they're mean to me mummy' We also have 7 boys coming, who are dd's true friends... It's a minefield. We're not holding it on her actual birthday incase its not as fun as she's hoping I put the invitations in her bookbag btw.

Message withdrawn

we had a similar situation with ds this week
twelve children in his class,eleven came out with party bags & cup cake...ds did not.
Hence a very miserable little boy who thought there had been some awful mistake & his had been forgotten.
It has taken me a week to get to the bottom of this,ds was excluded for the small minded reason that we won an appeal to get ds a place at our chosen primary school & she did not

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I let my kids invite who they want but I would never exclude one or two, they are only usually allowed 10 or so out the class and then a few family friends/cousins. They choose who they get on with and exclude who is mean to them. It doesn't matter whose party they have been to as we can't afford to invite everyone. My DC have been not invited several times and as long as they go to some, they are OK. It must be sad if your DC are never invited