DS not invited to his school mate’s birthday party and feels hurt. What shall we do?

[SillySmart]

DS plays well with another boy in his class and considers him as one of his good friends. So when DS had a small birthday party earlier in the year, that boy was among 10 kids invited. Now it’s that boy birthday party and DS was not invited, while others were all invited. DS feels hurt/betrayed and even cried when he told us this😂 So we said if you are not happy you should say it and should ask that boy yourself why you were not invited. So he asked and that boy said he was invited. DS then was in strong belief that he could go to that party. To clarify we messaged that boy’s mum just to make sure. But his mum just ignored the message…

Not to blame or complain, but as a parent, what should we do and what should we tell kids in this type of situations? Also, is it a big deal if you invite someone to your birthday party, but are not invited to his/her birthday party? I mean should we invite that boy again for DS next birthday party or exclude him? It’s kind of awkward now…

Me too 🤣

Gosh ,This seems a lot of drama for a kids party! Looads of reasons why he may not be invited.My Son was not always asked automatically ,to everyone of his friends parties.We took the attitude that "Wow hes got an invite" thats lovely .Rather than a "why was he not asked" Friendships come and go ,maybe he was good friends at the time of the boys party and it has since cooled off a little .No way of knowing but your post smacks of entitlement to me .Lower your expectations a little .

abblie
I would be petty as fk and take him somewhere much better than a birthday party 🤣

If it's just a case of no invite for non malicious reasons, then I wouldn't advocate this, but where it becomes obvious there is social bullying involved, then definitely& it worked for us.

I do agree with those saying it might be due to the parents choices, we had that to a hilarious degree with DDs best nursery friend when they were 4 & it carried on into school. This particular DM was a first class CF who thought we were good enough to look after her DD at the drop of a hat. She was also a first class snob who mistakenly presumed that we were renting & on benefits, as we lived in a bigger house in a more expensive area than her & we committed the ungodly sin of being northerners living south, so DD was deemed too lowly & WC to be included in party or play date invites. DH might have been a bit of a git & played it up to her, but everyone else but her knew he was taking the pee. We didn't exclude her DD, as she was a really sweet kid who was clearly embarrassed by her DMs snobby attitude to some DCs & apologised over & over for no invites

As someone who was bullied as a child I think OP has behaved ridiculously. You seem to have some serious issues you are putting onto your son

We've been there and it's hard
My second child (daughter aged 11) is one of those children who is friends with everyone. Shes really easy going and chilled and gets invited to every party going even for girls she doesn't really hang about with. She's been to some amazing things and often gets asked to tag along to theme parks etc as quite a few of her friends are only children
It's a different story with my boys who are 12 and 9. My eldest has always struggled with friendships but things have improved now he is at senior school and he has a couple of close friends but he was often not included in parties
It has happened a few times recently with my younger son too, not being invited to a party of someone he plays with daily when it seems all the other boys in his class are going
It's hard to understand why. He's a good boy at school and never in trouble and plays with everyone.
You could drive yourself mad trying to figure out what the problem is and it is upsetting for them. I always try to play it down and say its just due to numbers etc
My son is having his party this weekend and I've been the bigger person and just invited all the boys in his class regardless
I could be petty but can't be bothered with it all. They are all getting to an age where there are less parties going on and it's more common to just do a day trip with a couple of good friends
I do however have a 4 year old starting school in September so will be starting all the madness again lol

But let me ask you this question again: if a good friend of yours hurts your feelings, do you do something, you just let it go?

^ you cannot compare adult to adult relationships to childhood friendships where the parents have so much influence. Surely you appreciate the differences?!

This happened to DD a lot in primary. She has ADHD and was a handful so parents didn't want her there. If I'd made a bog deal of it, she would have been hurt.

Instead we worked on her behaviour and had wildly extravagant parties for her birthday so everyone wanted to come and it worked itself out over time.

This.

I can't believe what a drama you have made out of something that you could have used to help teach your ds some resilience.
There's lot of reasons why he might not have been invited, but even if you don't consider there could possibly be any reason why he wasn't, then you still should have acknowledged his upset, and reminded him that life can be disappointing sometimes, and then moved on.
Nobody gets through life without things happening that are disappointing, or even upsetting. One of our jobs as parents is to help our dc to learn how to cope with all of these things.......to put things in perspective...... sometimes that is to try and understand things from someone else's pov, sometimes that is learning how to look on the bright side or "look for the good" in any situation.....sometimes it is just about learning that sometimes we have to accept some thing happen that make us sad, and whereas that sadness should be acknowledged, it is never the end of the world.
But teaching resilience is really important.

If they’re as friendly as you say they are, I think this is a bit off personally! How mean. I’d want to know why too. But then we had a similar situation years ago when the mum of a new girl to DD’s class asked me to help her gather the contact details of some parents she wanted to ask to her DD’s party, the assumption being that DD was also invited, and yet DD did not receive an invitation! The DD told mine a number of times in class that she was invited but there was nothing from the mum. So rude!

@Kite22

This isn’t really about resilience though is it? Not in the normal way. We know our DC won’t be top in everything. Won’t win all the races, and will get disappointments along the way. However, when you are let down by someone who you think is a good friend m, it really hurts when you are a child. You know you have been excluded. You feel bad about yourself.

I agree it wasn’t the best plan for DS to ask but basically this friendship is at an end and that might feel close to the worst feeling this DS has ever had, excluding a death of course.

We experienced similar. Except the party child then said my DD could come. There wasn’t an written invitation. I decided to ring up and see if this was true: I would need to get a present. It wasn’t true of course. In fact the mum shouted at the child about it! We organised something lovely for DDs birthday.

Next week we decided DD would go to an independent boarding school at 11 and hopefully make real friends. We just decided to exit the toxic atmosphere. This wasn’t even a small party. I was invited to lots of coffees after school drop off (why were we doing what we were doing?). I was sorely tempted to say because we cannot stand you lot any more! I am still thankful we made this decision. DD didn’t look back, made lifelong friends (it would seem) and genuinely thrived.

Year 6 did improve for her: other DDs noticed she wasn’t going to the grammar with them, despite 1 mark off maximum, and she had more invitations out in y6 than she has in y3-5 combined. If you haven’t had to go through this, I really strongly believe it’s not teaching resilience. I think it’s a form of bullying and exclusion.

Sending your kid to boarding school because she didn’t get a party invite seems like a bit of an overreaction 😆

Very coincidental this thread popped up today.
when DS1 was at primary school a similar thing happened to him. He had a small group of friends he was very close to and one boy had a party DS wasn’t invited to. He was devastated. I didn’t say anything to the mother but she was in a tight group of mum friends I wasn’t part of. The boy told DS he could only invite so many friends and had actually asked his mum if DS could be included, but she said no. They were wealthy and lived in a big house (venue) and there were no issues between DS and the boy. They were good friends.
Sadly the boy’s family imploded a few years later when his parents separated and he became very withdrawn. He smokes a lot of weed and doesn’t work whereas DS is at a fantastic university and has lots of friends and is really popular. None of this matters, except to say that DS and I were speaking about this boy today. These things seem huge at the time but in time, they’ll hardly be remembered.

Unless there’s a huge backstory you haven’t included that isn’t bullying. Unless every child in school is invited then you’re not being bullied by not being asked to a party - it just wasn’t your time. And learning that it won’t always be your time/turn and that sometimes we have to accept that is exactly what resilience is. Accepting that it hurts but accepting that it’s also just the way of things. Maybe the child isn’t as good a friend as you think, maybe there was numbers restrictions, who knows?

@ShandaLear
There are more complications than no party invite. It was years of no party invites (except one friend). Not just that on its own either. Because we have the 11 plus, there’s a breed of very competitive parent around here. They feed off each other and expect their DC to be chosen for everything, to be top and to be feted. If you don’t want to play that game, DD and me were effectively excluded. Therefore it’s better to move on if you can. DD had tried out a holiday club at a boarding school and loved it. Plus we could afford it. She ended up not really seeing these primary DC as friends. Children do know when they are not wanted for years and we needed to start again. We discussed everything fully with her, we visited schools and she really wanted to go to this school. So she did. It was less than 1 hour away.

Exclusion from friendship feels like bullying. When dC, who you think are your friends, see each other at parties, would you really expect your DC to be happy when it’s year after year of no invitations? Yes, of course there are limits on numbers. This party was apparently 20. DD didn’t make the cut. The vast majority of DC who came here to parties didn’t reciprocate. And before you ask, DD is wonderful and now, as en adult, has a fantastic job and zillions of friends. I’m very glad we found a school where she could flourish and not look back. Who would not do that if they could?

Yes, you have. He wasn't invited to a party 🤷🏻‍♀️
Encouraging him to confront the other boy because he'd been "treated badly" and "embarrassed in front of other boys" and "close to being bullied" is ridiculously OTT.
Draw your horns in. Nobody is entitled to an invitation to a party.

Next week we decided DD would go to an independent boarding school at 11 and hopefully make real friends
What an incredibly bizarre over reaction 😂😂😂

@Johnnysgirl
Did you read the additional info. Of course we looked at what options we had and what money we had but when you feel distant and not wanted why not change for y7 We might well have changed tack anyway but this crystallized the decision.

Being excluded can be a for

Being excluded can be a form of bullying.

Both my DD and DS were bullied at different times in their school life. My DS quite badly at secondary school - he wasn't invited to a single social event for a year and the boys pretended they couldn't hear him whenever he spoke.

Not being invited to one party is not being bullied or excluded. Its one invite. Of course my kids got left out of tons of party invites - that's life. Some they knew about, others they didn't. It is not the end of the world. As a parent we shouldn't stoke hurt and upset, or make them raise things that won't make them any more popular (who likes people who make them feel bad or says 'why am I not invited?). We should enable them to learn to be resilient and not to care about every little thing.

Maybe the day they wrote the invites the birthday boy was in a bad mood momentarily with your DS? Maybe it means nothing at all.

Maybe the day they wrote the invites the birthday boy was in a bad mood momentarily with your DS? Maybe it means nothing at all.

Exactly. Maybe they’d had a row that day and decided to never talk again then made up the next day (as they do!) Maybe there were only 10 invites but three cousins and mum’s best friends two little boys had to be invited. Maybe on the spot there were so many other boys he ‘plays well with’ that he forgot your DS’ name. These things happen and it isn’t bullying, you just didn’t make the cut this time.

@Bouledeneige
so how did you deal with your son being excluded from social occasions snd not being spoken to? Did he really just suck it up snd you insist it’s a learning experience? Surely he was not happy. It’s awful. I’m delighted to say that moving to a new environment meant a clean slate. Who on earth wants to persevere with utter bullying oiks? We didn’t and got out.

TizerorFizz - there was nothing I could do about him not being invited to things for a year when he was in year 9/10. You can't make kids be friends or invite your child to stuff. But when I found out about the bullying (its a long story) I went into school and also approached some of the parents. His teacher was extremely helpful as were a couple of the parents. They spoke to the boys and asked them how they would feel and the teacher also gave direct support to my DS. My son never knew that I had done any of these things. I also investigated moving schools but in the end the actions I took vastly improved things. He then got a scholarship to a 6th form in another school and moved on. From then on he actually had a lot of different circles of friends - more than that original crowd and a girlfriend. He would stop and chat with those boys if he saw them in the street now but he has many other friends and networks now.

This is very different to not being invited to one party in primary school. Of course that happened quite a few times to both my DC. Because you don't get invited to everything. As a parent we need to see the difference. And of course, care and support our kids.

Sometimes it is the parents and not the boy who decides for the invites. For example, my ds has a friend that always happy to play with him, seeks him out in the park, picks him to play with over other boys etc. And his parents decided to not invite my son to his bday party. I think it is because when the boy plays with my son he has had little accidents, which is not really my sons fault, but this boy is prone to accidents. For example, they were climbing trees and the boy slipped and scratched his legs. They were playing rough and tumble in the grass and the other boy got hurt (he is the one who instigated this game and I even tried many times to tell them to stop)...anyway, when my ds plays with other boys these same types of games no one else gets hurt, its just this one and I think the parents blame my ds for it. I know this boy would have wanted my ds as he is always asking me for playdates with my ds and always seeking him out and around him during school things (I volunteer so I can see it). Thankfully, my ds did not notice that he was not invited and gets invited to so many other parties anyway so I just ignored it, but I think I will "forget" to invite this other dc to my ds bday next time, as we have always invited him.

This is a tough one. They've missed so many opportunities for parties in the last two years. Are you friend with the mum? I know you've texted but do you see them in the playground?