school mum called to rant why her dd not invited to my dd birthday. what to do?

[pissedoffpartymum]

in brief, we have mutual arrangement re sharing school run. dd invited 7 out of 16 girls in class. school run child not included.

school run dad asked my dd about it in car - date, time and lack of invite. he then me to ask the same. we both explained no big party, only few invited. school run child gets specific from my dd. then tells my dd that "weeeellll, me and my mum think your mum is a liar".

school run mum calls me to say her dd should have been included and not missed as her dd and mine are very close, and they consider my dd as family.

as far as im concerned the friendship has it ups and downs. not unusual. but other girls tries to dominate my dd - preventing others from joining games, getting my dd to ask for an invite to any playdates my dd is invited to etc. my dd said other girl not on list of invitees as often problems with the girl in group scenario. i say fine.

so, am pissed right off re parent questioning my dd, re girl telling my dd re 'liar' and re calls from parents.

so, do i still continue to let them take mine to school? my instincts say no, but recognise it may just be my initial (emotional) reaction. i would still be willing to take ans collect their dd. your thoughts pls.

tia

what is they say on here sometimes? "Avoid avoid avoid!!!" - god no, don't let them put your child in their car again, father questioning your DD is freaky.

I do think it was a bit mean not to invite this girl tbh. However their response has been a bit ott. Are you able to smooth things over?

d'you know what cat? thanks very much for your post. says it all. that's exactly it.

agree wiht cat - think there's something really strange about an adult querying a child re his child not being invited to their party. The whole thing then becomes how their child has been treated unfaifly which she clearly hasn't , fails to teach her how to deal with what the fairly common emotion of disappointment and how to deal with it and perhaps also ignores whether or not said child is actually upset about party or not - probably she is now given the parents reaction but was she initially - maybe not!!!

Some of the reactions on here as massively OTT tho arent they?
It was the child who said she and her mum thought they were fibbing (presumably believing she was the only excluded child or something similar?) not the dad

And actually phoning someone to say 'you know what we are hurt and so is DD' isnt vile IMO, its honest.
Were there more than the

1. 'is dd not invited'
2. we are hurt by that

phonecalls? Maybe I missed them if there was

FWIW I would have invited her, I think it was a bit mean not too ESPECIALLY as you know they view your child as a special friend

Oh and criticising a 7 year old for asking if there was a present for her? My DSis 6 in afew weeks and would ask- do they suddenly get SO much better by the time they are 7?

This is probably no help at all but when my dd was heading to the 7s she was left out of a birthday party. I was upset for her but didn't say anything and now, almost a year on, I can't even remember whose party it was or when it was.

These parents sound normal in their internal reaction but a bit nutty in their external reaction and I would be inclined to withdraw from them as much as practically possible.

I wouldn't mind particularly though I'd think it strange behaviour if the parents contacted the parent - but the parents asking the child about invite is just bizarre and unreasonable imo.

not buying the 'special friend' thing dtg. my dd is constantly reminded by this girl that she is her bff. yet my dd still did not place her on the list to invite. in truth, she was not even on the list of 10, as originally was.

to me was clear that said girl would not be included that time. just to add, last month i said dd could invite 1 person join us at panto. she chose this girl; no problem, off we all went. great time had by all, said girl even won a prize!

fri lunchtime - girl asks dd re invite

fri pm school run - girls dad asks dd

sat pm - girls dad calls me re invite

mon pick up - dad comments on no invite

mon am - girl asks dd to name invited

tues pm girls mum phones re invite

surely it is this sequence that is over the top and too much non?

i do things with both girls to enable their friendship to develop in a way that seems to work. i strongly however object to being railroaded to invite her to everything.

have decided to cease them dropping/taking my dd, but will continue to take/drop theirs. feel uncomfortable that my dd may feel intimidated or that she had done wrong, or may be subject to their lecture as to why she should always invite their dd. right now, my dd doesnt understand why the girl and her parents cant understand that "everyone cant be invited to everything"
and that she is still this girl's friend.

but

the mums answer to this was "she's not just anyone".

thanks for all replies, helped me hugely.

You shouldn't have to explain anything. They are trying to bully you and your daughter.

They don't sound like real friends to me if they can't accept it is a private party without the whole class invited! If they were decent people they may have suggested arranging an outing/tea party to mark the occasion just with their daughter if it really really mattered to her.

Pissedoffpartymum!

Yes, they are really over the top. I think the fact that you invited just 7 people should have sent her a clear message that you were not going to invite everyone your dd knows and it is not about just leaving her DD out. As well, although I would not do it myself, asking you once was maybe ok but getting on and on about it is really bizarre! That would worry me TBH.

The 7 yo told your DD "me and mum think your mum is a liar!"??? What sort of parents discuss another grown "friend" in those terms with their 7yo? sorry but they are a bit strange.

Question for those who think the whole class should be invited, would you be of the opinion that if all children can't be invited there should not be a party at all?

was supposed to be a , noy a !

Sorry, you 'arent buying' the special friend yet it was this girl she picked to come to the panto with you?

My DS would only have invited a child he sees as a special friend to do something like that, and I can see why they were rightly confused by this sudden unexplained change of heart.

Just to be clear, this girl is a friend, yes, but not a special friend. during the last 12 months i can recall dd choosing friends for the following:

panto - said girl

local theatre - 4 friends

cinema - 2 friends

playdate - 2x 1 friend

birthday - 7 friends

only 2 friends have been invited to more than one of those things. so no, i wouldnt say this girl is a 'special friend ' and certainly no 'change of heart' - am bemused how they could be confused tbh.

anyway, i called and explained that id be more ease by making alternative arrangements for my dd, but willing to still take theirs. girls dad suggested that this may not be part of the solution in the way i suppose. he has asked to keep to our arrangements and see how things pan out over the next couple of weeks. (he did offer to take on all the school runs, incl my share, so i dont consider that he had any gain or motive).

thanks again all. off to do school run

pissedoffpartymum - you have said several times that this girl likes to tell your dd that she is her best friend. It sounds to me as though the other parents' dd is the sort of girl who makes "best friends" and wishes to keep them, becoming possibly a bit needy and clingy in the process, whereas your dd has a different personality and drifts in and out of close friendships without hard feelings. The other parents' dd is therefore likely to be extremely upset by what from her perspective is a colossal slap in the face which couldn't have been designed to be more hurtful - almost half the class is preferable to her "best friend" than she is. Maybe her parents worry about her ability to make friendships and have therefore taken it personally. It is very hard to have to realise at any age that something you view as special and are a bit clingy about is actually not considered that special and even a bit of a turn-off by someone else. Obviously I might be wrong, but you have described quite a bit of manipulative, clingy behaviour on the part of the other girl, which makes her sound a little bit socially insecure and therefore likely to have been quite badly upset by not being invited to the party.

Despite all of that, even if it is the case, the parents reacted in a very unacceptable way. You appear, unwittingly, to have got yourself into a quagmire of other peoples' insecurities and emotions!

thanks for yor pot rs, though can assure you that there was no 'design to be hurtful', but maybe I have interpreted that part of your post wrongly.

also to note, there are a total of 30 children in class, so only a quarter were invited. i figured it would be harmless, it the literal sense. clearly i figured wrong.

have agreed to continue with previous school run arrangements. my dh will return to uk pretty soon and original arrangements of us dropping their dd 5 out of 5 mornings and 4 out of 5 afternoons will resume.

Pissedoffpartymum I don't think for a second that there was any intention on your part to be hurtful to anybody but rabbitstew hit the nail on the head - you have, albeit unwittingly. It is quite clear that this other family consider you more of a friend than you do them. I think the way they're going about it is childish and pathetic though but just do bear in mind that they are hurt.

TBH I sympathise with the other family. If we had such an arrangement, and our DD considered the other girl her best friend, then it would be really hurtful not to be invited to the birthday party. Obviously your DD doesn't feel the same way about the friendship, but I am surprised that you have no empathy.

Their questioning may have been a bit OTT, but I'm sure they thought that it was initially a mistake.

Hi, pissedoffpartymum - yes, you have interpreted that bit of my post wrongly. It is quite clear that you never intended to be hurtful and are rather upset to realise that your actions have been viewed in this way, but from the other dd's perspective it couldn't have been much more hurtful even if you had actively tried, because she viewed your dd as a special friend. That was her mistake and her lesson to learn in life, but it is a painful one. As I said, some people are socially confident and can drift in and out of a series of friendships, whereas others have a more limited range of friends with respect to whom they will always be "faithful" (ie always be constant in the degree to which they like the other person). The "faithful" type can appear clingy (unfortunately, as this increases the risk of people pulling away from them) and will most definitely take personally any sign that the other person does not view them as particularly special.

ps if you are lacking in empathy for their position, the other dd's parents are clearly lacking in empathy here, too! They seem to be incapable of understanding that your action was not at all calculated to upset. It is a little bit offensive to find that people refuse to believe your explanations. I'm sure it can be resolved if both sides manage to explain their points of view without letting emotions get in the way.

I think you did the right thing. Your dd doesn't see her as a friend, and father speaking to her in that way is bang out of order. Even if its a complete pain sorting out another lift share.

I used to be a right softy about issuing invites because I liked a mum/lift shares/don't like leaving anyone out, even though my dd had mixed feelings about the other girl. In retrospect, I should have trusted my dd's judgement. The perception of friendship at age 7-8 is very different to age 5-6.

at that age you can't give them carte blanche to invite who they like.it isn't just a case of inviting 7/18 in the class, it may be that they exclude one child out of a friendship group.
I think if teh girls are giggling and having fun together in the car twice every day and brought round a present for your DD , then I do think she should have been invited.i can understand the little girl being very hurt, and parents do silly things when (they imagine) their DC get slighted.

so, if you saying dd shouldnt have had total decision on who to invite, how would suggest that decision is made? unless can invite all class, someone is bound to be disappointed, surely?

A similar version of events happened to me, so I fully sympathise with the OP.

Last year, I invited the whole class (over 20 invites sent out) to a soft play centre for my dd birthday party. Only a few accepted the invitation and attendance only managed to hit double figures because the few who bothered to turn up brought along their siblings.

This time round, I decided to invite the same few who turned up to the party last year, and who were in any case, the same children dd wanted to invite anyway. This time round, I had organised an ice-skating party for her birthday.

Well, when word got round, I got a few "why wasn't my child invited?" type of calls. I have never experienced anything like this is my life. I actually ended up asking one of the parents, "Whose party is it anyway?"

One of the (not invited) girls who had ignored dd, was suddenly wanting to be dd's "best friend" and was all over her like a rash.

Anyway, the ice-skating party has been and gone, and everything has returned to normal (said girl above is back to ignoring dd!) and hence my advice to OP is to ignore the call if possible. Once the party is over, it will all be forgotten.

The other mum has been totally OTT with her ranting and general behaviour.

However, I think she was within her rights to feel upset about the fact that her DD didn't get an invite. She should have just ranted to her DH and forgotten about it.

I know that you share lifts for convenience, but really I do think you should have invited her to the party. It just doesn't sit right with me somehow that the girls have a giggle in the car and then one has a party without the other. It's feels a bit horrible - just to talk to someone because you have to and not want much to do with them outside that situation. I wouldn't want my children to share lifts with someone who couldn't be bothered with them otherwise. Personally, if it had been one of my kids in this situation, I would have explained that the child should be invited out of politeness and consideration for the feelings of others.