Would you be upset if your child was not invited to a Birthday party?

[Trumpette]

DC had their party after school on Friday and invited half the class. The children have been talking about it today at school and one particular child commented that everyone should stop talking about it and it was rude because he had not been invited. I explained to my DC that it is impossible to invite everyone as numbers were limited and that whilst you need to get along with everyone in your class (like work colleagues) it is ok not to like everyone too!

I thought we were quite reasonable and I am aware that my DC has not been invited to every party either! I am aware that this particular child's Mum has been ignoring since invites went out a a few weeks back. I cannot understand why adults would be upset by this as surely you don't expect your kids to be invited to everything?!

What do others think?

Yes I do feel sad when my child is left out as he has aspergers and finds it hard to make friends

I wouldn't be upset if mine didn't get invited to everything, which is the case but what annoys me is the handing out of invites in the morning in front of everyone. There is the option of handing them to the school office and the invites get put in book bags! I know they are going to talk about it anyway but the showing off when only a few get invited is a bit unnecessary. This happened only yesterday morning. Mine got an invite and it's a fancy venue for something fun and expensive, I don't see the point of flaunting it in front of those who doesn't get invited.

I either do small parties, whole class or invite all the boys/girls to split the class in half. Having a nephew with additional needs and a son often left out I like to try to include children whi may not always be included. People should be kinder - there are children who never get invited to parties. Even children who are a bit difficult are just children!

For me it would depend on how many you left out. If it was just this child I would think it a little mean tbh.

I don't expect my children to be invited to everything and fully understand parties are expensive and inviting half the class is perfectly reasonable.

BUT, I also feel sad for my DC who loves a party and has barely been invited to any. Most of the children in his class seem to have parties for half the class or less, only it seems that it is the same 15 children who go to all the parties. And, for what it's worth, we did hold a whole class party for him.

I don't allow invitations to be given out in class unless everyone in the class is invited. And at times I have the conversation about not discussing parties or excluding people. Inviting half the class is fine, the child haughtily giving out invitations in front of uninvited students is not, and loudly discussing how much fun you're going to have in front of people who haven't been invited is rude.

Let's face it, even as adults we would feel uncomfortable if we were sitting in the office and a group started talking about how they were going to be going out on Friday night, and you hadn't been invited, then you would feel awful as well.

I think that one of the issues is that the invites are based on some random list the child comes up with (at least in Y1-2). I'm guessing her son thought he was friends with yours and she's got a bit over invested.

My son was once in the tiny handful not invited to an almost whole class fancy pants petting zoo and disco party. To add insult to injury the kid had been at my DS' relatively small at home party the week before and brought along uninvited two younger siblings who I was expected to feed and magic party bags out of thin air for. To rub salt further in the wounds the mum rang up to tell me why my DS wasn't invited. They didn't like his best friend apparently. That was years ago but by resentment continues and although my DD is invited to every one of her DD's parties we never invite back. Silly I know but it caused a lot of hurt all round.