DD1 has a love/hate relationship with another girl in her class. Best friends one day; sworn enemies the next. Last year DD1 absolutely refused to invite her to her party (maybe I should have made her? but she was not happy with this girl at the time and it seemed mean - parenting fail on my part?). By the time this girls birthday came round (a full month later, so clearly a long time in the life of a 6 yo) they were friends again so DD1 happily went to this girls party.
DD1 has got on okay with said girl so far this year. Invited her to her party, all got on fine. Now this girl has invited DD1. Party theme if you will is right up DD1's street. But because they have fallen out this week, she says she won't go. It isn't for a few weeks yet so I'm not hurrying to RSVP, but for this reason alone.
Do I tell her she needs to go? If I say it's okay not to go, I can guarantee that they will be friends again. Conversely, I also know that I could RVSP yes now for them to fall out.
This is now the third year of this nonsense and I must confess that when the family moved and would probably be moving schools too I was not displeased. They haven't yet.
I'm not for a moment suggesting DD1 is perfect at the old friendship thing, but this other girl is hard work: she wasn't invited to many parties last year (largish group of girls who seems to get on beautifully together for the most part) and other mums have mentioned their daughters have had fallings out.
I remember being forced to go to parties I didn't want to attend as a child and I don't want to be like my mother (!) but I'm not sure what to do here.