School accuses 8yo of discrimination because he fails to invite two boys to his party

[Freckle]

here. So should the school have the right to intervene in this way if the invitations are handed out in school?? And on what basis is the child supposed to have discriminated?

(truggling to persuade classmates to attend ds3's party and he's the kindest kid on the planet. I swer some people think asd is catching)

If you choose not to invite one kid because theyre a buly arent you kaking it worse by increasing their sense of isolation?

Yes, but the party was for her son, so his friends surely? (and at a venue, not her house - can't remember details though, tbh).

It felt nasty at the time. She still dislikes DS3, which is a shame because the lads are still friends five years later.

making it worse by increasing their sense of isolation>>

1. It's a birthday party not a rehabilitation center.
2. you're teaching them that bullying doesn't pay

well well differ on that, i think it makes them feel bad but thats just my experience with ds1 who is a bully (sn issues sadly and yes we try to change it)

he was left out of his friends party a few weeks back, only child in class. As he's asd he doesn't understand why, but oh the tears .

standing alone in dinner queue at school because the other parents banned their kids from playing with him doesnt help his self esteem either mind, but what can you do? you cant ask kids to play with the bully, and he doesnt qualify for sn school

(sorry, report friday said he has no friends now so still a bit weepy over it)

FFS the world has gone completely mad. My Ds1 hasn't been invited to any parties since year 3, he is going into year 6 next term. And I know why he isn't invited. He has Cerebral Palsy and it scares parents, as they don't know how he can cope in a party situation, whether he is able to eat normally etc.

I think it was wrong to distribute the invitations during class time. It should have been during recess.

What if the invitations were verbal, not on a piece of paper? What policing measures would the state take for what you can and cannot discuss at school? Madness. I can't believe legal time is being wasted over this.

PeachyHidingInTheShed & SparklyGothKat, that is sad and I'm sorry it works out like that. I really don't like to see kids isolated. I just feel strongly that having the authoritiies choose who comes to a party is mad and wouldn't do your DS's any favours anyway.

If the invitations were distributed in class that was wrong anyway. They are supposed to be having lessons, not sorting out social engagements.

Ds1 is actually very popular, in both his old school and his new one, but because of his disability he is excluded from parties. He isn't too bothered about it now but when he was younger it broke my heart with the tears

I do accept that not all children will receive invites to all parties and parties generally speaking are a social minefield.

However, what happened to my son was nothing much short of cruel. I can still recall one of the boy's in DS's class in year one handing out his birthday party invites to all the children lined up before class (this lad walked down the line and walked past my son). Everyone EXCEPT my DS received such an invite. My son (who has a degree of learning difficulty, I presume this is why he was not invited) did notice and I told him what tortoiseSHELL said. Its small consolation though.

I don't blame the child so much as the parents.

BTW I felt like I was the bigger person in the end because we invited this particular lad to my son's party. DS wanted the whole class to come that year so I ensured that no-one individual was omitted from the list. I posted each invite.

I suppose you would get parents sending a note around to the children they wanted to invite, asking for their address, so that they could be sent an invite!

Don't think there's an answer to this one.

oh i think there is

partis of selected groups are fine but leaving out just 1 is cruel and can't really be justified by expense

greyriverside totaly agree with you about state involvemnt, bizarre at best. I would agree if the school took it up as it could be a form of bullying, but I wouldnt personally ask school to intervene

In my case one of the mums had previously asked each parent in class for their address so that she could give us all a printed list!.

I read this with interest.

Parties were used by the adults in teh village where we used to live, to settle scores.
One girl didn#t have a party at all one year, because her parents had been warned not to invite my dd (I am not kidding).
Another girl, very nice, who was friendly with dd, didn't get one single invite for a whole year. Her parents moved away from the village eventually.

"sometimes they'll have an invite and sometimes they won't. Get over it!"
Hmm, is that really true? Or will the same children always get invited, and teh same children (SN, foreigners?) left out?

The message here was, that you could do what you liked about the guest list, so long as you didn't do it in school time?

which is fair enough, actually.

attilla ours just get handed out in line in the mornings

even ds2 hasnt had an invite in ages, his friends told him thats because of his brothers rep . ds2 is extremely popular usually as well. we're probably sending them to seperate comps, its not fair ds1's rep should follow him forever (choice of comp being a good benefit of statements lol)

Freckle asked if school had right to intervene in this way...
Sweden is entitled to make its own rules, but it sounds loopy to me. H. had 2 men apply for a job both given a technical test. He hired the guy who did worse on the test -- because H. thought the guy had a better attitude, and the rest of workforce would just get along with him better. At what point will it become unfair discrimination to say that you think someone is a better team player? Madness, to legislate or mandate rules about personality conflicts.

Our school mostly places invitations discretely in bookbags, so generally kids don't know about parties unless invited (thank goodness, because I think my DC are invited to relatively few).

Our school (state school in usa) has a rule that you should not hand out invites during school time unless all children in the class are invited. Not everyone follows the rule and there really is not any enforcing of the rule, but it does exist.
I think it's odd that the Swedish school didn't have a policy in the first place (children being exclusionary isn't some new-fangled invention). But perfectly reasonable that once the teacher noticed that 2 children were being excluded, action was taken. If those 2 children were being socially excluded or picked on, on the playground wouldn't you expect the school to take action then? This happened to my ds simply because he is quite small and clumsy and not so good at games and he was being actively excluded from all the playground activities...I had a word with the teacher and she nipped it in the bud.

I completely understand inviting a few children 5 or 6 or 7 if you want to have a small party (we did this for ds' 7th), but to invite all but 1 or 2 is just cruel and I blame no one but the parents.

I feel for you Peachy...the first time (kindergarten) my ds invited his friend who has aspergers to his birthday party, his mother started crying when I told her about the invite (afraid it would get lost between school and home)...it was the first party invite her ds had ever had. He is a lovely child with odd behavior, but his mother always attends parties with him...there is no reason why he shouldn't be included by the other kids (parents).

Ha! Bullies at my school were the most popular kids! How is that isolation?

maybe they are the kind of bullies who invite everyone except one child to their party?

It is nasty to invite all the boys, say, except one, and i would not let my kids do it.

No actually, they invited everyone to their parties and hung it over people's heads. I went to a lovely primary school

My son has never had a whole class party, partly because he has so many friends outside his class. His school has 60 children in the year and he has loads of friends outside school.

Even with a venue rather than my house I would not feel confident in looking after more than 20 children. My son invited 15 friends from school and 5 from outside school.

I think the Swedish school was right to intervene. Leaving out two children out of a whole class is harsh. It would not cost much more to invite them. If twenty children had been left out then it would not be so painfully obvious.

It's not about cost, though, is it? It's about the state dictating who you can have or not at your party. Harsh, cruel, nasty etc etc but not illegal. Well, not untill now it seems. Social engineering.