ticked if kids distribute party invites at school?

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in the class, in front of teacher and only to less then half the girls in class who subsequently open, hide in desks and say 'its a secret but nothing' to the rest of the losers watching?

It is better to teach children to hand the invites out discreetky, not wavcing them about, shouting about it, etc.

But really I can't see the problem with invites being handed out at school discreetly, so long as there is not just one or two not being invited. But then I disagree with excluding just one or two.

But where the invites are only going to a handful of children I think it is down to us to make sure our children realise it is just one of those things. You can't go to every party.

I can't imagine children not talking about a party at all though. I would never ask DD not to mention her party at all, that would seem odd. But again - I would remind her to be sensitive to others, esp iof they could not come, etc. She is 7y - her 8th birthday party is in 1.5 weeks time. She has invited the whole class (ony 15) but obviously some can't come. But I won't stop her from mentioning it to them.

ok, YANBU -I just figuured t out. thank you I like lljkk's thought that the deeper sentiment is the school's roll in pastoral environment, yes that is why it felt bad. My dc (6,9,10) have also never been the type to blather on about peroples parites or feeling slighted. infact just the opposite sometimes they are relived they are not invited and also have mature commentary as in"so and so had her birthday at this resteraunt,she only took four girls but they said the chips were delicious so we should try it"...i feel better TY

oh god forbid your precious child not get invited.
they'll all end up severly depressed and alone because of the rejection.
GET.OVER.IT.

what happens when they get rejected at job interviews, would you storm down there and tell the boss they arent being fair to the other applicants?

SIBLINGRIVALRY...apparently you are not familiar with ten and 11 year old girls. Much more drama,intensity then any toddler stuff,please get real.
I will happily admit to being insecure -dont think there is any way outta that in this life babe! And this despite the fact I have a perfect figure, a PHD, hot hubby and major career success to name a few on my brag sheet ;)...now what am i ? a liar, arrogant and insecure mum...?why does anyone need to take an "incident" up for discussion and turn it into personal bashing. You were probably one of the girls who would intentionally leave someone out to humiliate them at age ten. You are right though. I have taught my dc that they move on and let it go but watch out bc those girls who play dumb and mean(you?) typically burn out fast and grow into adults like the ONES who throw barbs of" you have security issues" to anyone online with a concience instead of discussing issue at hand. GL

At DCs school parents are told to only send invites if all the class (or all the girls or all the boys) are being invited. Otherwise parents should e-mail.

In practice everyone just e-mails whether it is a big party or small one. We have a class list of e-mails, organised by a class mum. All the classes in the school have an e-mail list and it works very well.

But do children not have to learn to cope with a bit of rejection or disappointment early in life? Otherwise, their expectations are going to be unreal and they will get an awful shock the first time they are told 'no, you didn't get into university/offered that job you applied for/invited to your colleagues wedding or whatever. I really think 10 is old enough to start realising that you're not always going to be on the A list and sometimes you will get left out or rejected.

Better to learn that you are not the centre of the universe and will not be accepted/liked/invited by everyone to everything when you are a kid and have your Mum around to say "Nevermind, move on". Than to have a Mum who tries to make the world nice and then find out the truth when you are 20 and it kicks you in the teeth.

DS is sometimes not invited to parties, he doesn't care because he knows it isn't all about him.

Siblingrivaly - security issues - No. I, personally, think its about diplomacy. There is a difference between not having been invited and people rubbing it in your face.

This is a difficult area. I have twins (boy and girl) in Reception and have just done their party invites. I told them each they could invite a certain number, asked them who they wanted to invite and checked with their teacher that they hadn't missed anyone they play with a lot (they hadn't). I then handed the invites discreetly to the Mums. It is inevitable that kids will find out they haven't been invited to some kids parties but hey, that's life and as a number of you have pointed out, its the Mums not the kids that worry about it. I think it's ludicrous inviting a whole class so as not to offend anyone - why should your child have to invite some kid they don't like/play with? I've already started telling my two that they won't always be invited to the same parties/teas etc - they are fine with that and understand they have their own friends

Can't understand why teachers get involved with all this - haven't they enough to do without sorting their pupils' social lives. Meet the parents/kids at school gate with invites or phone them.

i thought it was polite to invite everyone in their class? ds always does..

I have never invited the whole class.

Seriously, 30 people at a party? Anyway, all my DC are in years with 2 classes, and have friends in the other class; oh all that class too - 60 people?

What kind of party is this? DS2 is going to the cinema, we are having 10-15 guests, they are coming back to our house, no way do wehave room for 30.

One thing I did say was that he had to ask all his football team (8 other boys). I think that's fair enough (tho actually he wanted to anyway).

Our school has a rule that all party invites have to be sent by post/e-mail; they cannot be distributed via school. Saves all the grief.

I think my DCs can cope with the idea that they are not invited to things. But I still think the situation in the OP is rude, and I wouldn't allow mine to give out invitations in this way.

'SIBLINGRIVALRY...apparently you are not familiar with ten and 11 year old girls. Much more drama,intensity then any toddler stuff,please get real.'

I am, however, very familiar with Y5/6, having over two decades of teaching them. So 30x20=600 experiences at least. And I have teenagers of my own, and nephews and nieces.
We spend a lot of time and effort trying to give some of them a sense of proportion about events, triumphs and disappointments, and encouraging them do develop a mature and appropriate response to challenges.
Some some children already have it by the time they hit KS2.

Those that struggle tend to have parents who do not support this at home, and who are often drama queens themselves.

I'm well familiar with the drama of 10 and 11 year old girls, have one myself in year 6 and they are all over the shop at the moment (I blame it on hormones).

DD has got to the stage where she tends to invite one or two people to her birthday and I just speak to the Mum's. However if she wanted a few more of the girls in the class I would dispatch her with invites as I would have no way of contacting the parents. I'm sure many invites have been handed out in front of DD, but she knows she won't be invited to everything and it isn't an issue.

Having said that I can imagine some of the girls in her class making a big thing of it and possibly being a bit unkind as there is a lot of that going on at the moment but I'm trying to help DD concentrate on her good friends and ignore all the petty sniping, good skill to have in life I find.

Really bizarre that kids can't hand out invites at school. Kids should learn to feel ok and even excited for others getting the invites. Shouldn't be a secret and kids shouldn't be taught to be secretive about getting an invite.

My colleague has 2 daughters (8 and 10) and says she has to buy 2 lots of birthday presents at each of their birthdays, so that the other one doesn't feel left out. Maybe she should buy the whole class presents as well.

Ridiculous.

SK

The problem is that some parents for whatever reason exclude just one or two from a class or from a natural group eg girls or boys or those in a year group from a party.tta very small minority from a party.I was coincidentally talking to a friend who is a teacher about this the other day.She regards it as adult-sponsored bullying, and it is.I can well understand why schools ban it.

And what if...
All the parties are small, so never a case of just a few excluded. And yet some children never get invited to any of them. So they could see small lots of invites being handed out frequently, but they are never among the select few (and let's face it, a few children always seem to be among the select few).

See what I mean? It's just a lot more sensitive for the thing to be done very discretely every time.

I can't afford to invite every child in the class. Most places you can book for parties have a limit on numbers as well, and once you've invited people your children know from outside school, there aren't enough places left to invite the whole class.

At our school the teachers put the invitations in book bags. We don't have a class list of contact details. I don't actually know who all the parents are of all the children that my children want to invite so it would be quite difficult to find them and hand them out to the parents myself in the playground.

I agree that the way it was done in the OP is horrible and unnecessary.

I agree that it is healthy for children not to be invited to every party so that they can learn about little rejections instead of having a big shock when they are older.

I feel sad for children who are never invited though.

Good thinkin, Wyken...;)

YABU so what! This used to happen in my primary over 20 years ago, how else are they going to be distribued! In life we cannot have everything and life is not fair, the sooner that children learn this the better. I personally would not invite the whole class just about 6-9 that dd is most friendly with.

I think YABU. Honestly, it's what I did at school. And I remember handcrafting my invited every year, putting them into envelopes and being really excited to go and hand them out and then start chatting to my friends about the upcoming excitement. Having them send out by mum or even having them put into book bags would have not had the same excitement in my opinion. It's part of being a child, I don't get as happy about handing out invites anymore .

And yes, some kids don't get invited. In my times when you were only allowed to invite a few kids that was never an issue. Sometimes you were invited, sometimes not. Sure there was disappointment but we got on with it.

What I think we should rethink instead is the whole stupid inviting the whole class issue because then being left out does hurt more. I don't get why you have to have 20 5 year olds at your party, what's wrong with only inviting your very best friends for something exciting? That way it would also again be easier for children to not get an invite.
We just screw with our kids heads, being invited to something should be treated as something special and a privilege and not just something you should be because everyone should invite everyone.