DD not invited to 5th party, & distressed. Help!

[ArabellaBeaumaris]

Dd1, in reception & nearly 5, has not been invited to the birthday party of one of her friends. The little girl has told her she has invited the whole class but not dd1 & all the other children keep telling dd1 she isn't invited. I'm sure dd1 is exaggerating & I have no doubt that the littles girl has invited a small number of children of which dd1 Ian one.

Anyway, dd1 is hysterically upset this evening & I am at a bit of a loss for what to say? Would love some reassuring lines for her.

Oh no that's hard. All I can suggest is simply telling her that the other girl's mummy and daddy weren't able to invite everyone, and that she herself will be able to choose which friends she would like to come to her own party, when she turns 5. If you're having a party! If not, errrm... not sure. Just lots of cuddles and "I know that makes you feel sad" and reassure her that she has lots of friends and there will be other parties.

This party stuff causes no end of stress, sorry for you and DD Arabella.

I cannot believe the party child's mother would leave just one person out so reassure DD that she will not be the only one and reassure her that parties cost a lot of money, that is why not all can go. Reassure her that she is a special and lovely child.

Also it might be worth having a word with the teacher if children are being mean at school. In my view it is a form of exclusion whichever way you look at it, it's not pleasant and if going on at school the teacher should have a word with the class.

When my DDs haven't been invited, I always say its down to a lack of places. As my DDs are also given a number and have to choose x number of guests, I usually think of someone my daughter likes but did not invite to her party and say, well you didn't invite X, does that mean that you don't like her, dd will say no, she does like X, to which I'd say, if you could have invited everyone would you have invited her? To which DD says yes. At this point, I say it's like that. Not being invited doesn't mean that X doesn't like you, but that her mummy can't afford to invite everyone she likes, just like I can't afford to invite everyone you like. So people have to choose. Dd then usually convinces herself that if X had invited 15 people, she would have been 16th on the list! And she is quite happy.

If it turns into taunting, I would think that's different though, and would have a word with the teacher.

it's so hard, isn't it! I think I prefer parenting toddlers, much more straightforward than this navigation of the social/emotional side...

Anyway, I did actually have a word with the teacher & it turns out that there is some taunting going on of DD & a few other girls (another girl's mum had also talked to the teacher), & the girl "giving out the invites" isn't even having a party!

So that explains why it was so emotionally fraught for DD.

ladylech, will definitely be using that, as have just been talking to DD about HER party & she understood why we were limiting numbers & having to choose amongst perfectly nice children!

We had an enthusiastic invite-giver in Reception! Suspicions were aroused by the utter illegibility of the 'invites', the poor mum was a bit mortified but got over it when we started to tell her tales of embarrassing things our children had done, and we still regularly have coffee even though our dds are at different secondaries.

the girl "giving out the invites" isn't even having a party!

Oh man, I remember that. "You're not going to my party!" repeated taunts, reception-yr1. You have to learn to not take it too seriously.

Friendships will be on-off in the same way:

"Amy is my friend today!"
"Amy isn't my friend any more." :(
"Amy and me made up." :)
"Amy said she stopped being my friend again, she's friends with Pam." .

daily roller coaster. They moved DD class to get away from it.

Nightmare situations, I think it gets better as they get older.

DC1 now in juniors and invites given out tend to be from children she is actually friends with rather than ones by parents who are friends with other parents.

DC2 in reception and it is all starting again.

It will pass .......

Horrible in the mean time!