4 year old not being invited to parties

[dual90]

Ok, so here goes. My child is happy, confident and friendly, she’s extremely sociable, but one of the youngest in her year. For this reason I was kind of expecting a few more party invites, especially as I had noticed on the board at school most birthdays are actually in November and December. She seems happy at school, but it was only yesterday I got chatting to another parent who dropped into the conversation that they’d been having 2 parties a day at weekends and it was getting a bit much. I was slightly surprised as my DD had only had 2 parties since stating reception. One was a whole year thing right at the start so everybody was invited, the other was a smaller girl party with a closer friend. She’s starting talking about parties that others at school we’re going to have, but no idea if they were just fictitious or sometime in the future. I’ve actually been checking her book bag expecting invites to be in there, but none! I came away from
the what’s app group as it started causing me anxiety. A friend mentioned her child was loud and my child was quieter ( which I don’t necessarily agree with) she’s not particularly quiet - but I have no idea how she comes across at school. That she may be getting over looked. She kept asking about another girls party who I know she plays with occasionally at school, but I had to explain we can’t go unless invited. I intially thought I may be missing invites by not being on the what’s app group - but have been assured there is nothing going on there party wise. It’s old fashioned invite in the book bag, but to date we’ve had none! I know it’s a stupid thing to get worked up about. I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to this kind of social pressure and the whole fabric of school due to my own difficult school life. But I honestly don’t remember the party thing being an issue when I was a kid, it was either around somebody house and you invited a couple of people from school and maybe a few from the neighbourhood, there simply wasn’t this type of pressure. I’ve been told I should be glad we aren’t being invited to cold community halls with crap food - but that’s easy to say when your child is being invited!

There you go again, OP. With respect, and based solely on what and how you have written on this thread, you are modelling considerable anxiety around school settings, how your daughter is viewed (why does it matter if one parent described her as ‘quiet’? Why would it matter if she was in fact quiet?) a perceived lack of party invitations, the parents’ WhatsApp, the school run, ‘competitiveness’, a minor conflict on WhatsApp, what you term ‘social pressure’ — four year olds are clever and pick up on even unspoken parental attitudes and moods.

Im sorry you had a miserable time at school, but you sound as if that’s not dealt with at all, and while you say you’re not projecting, it sounds very much as though you are.

My child was also a summer-born four year old in Reception, and was the youngest of his intake of 27 kids, and while we were concerned about him dealing with the length of school days (he was exhausted for the first couple of months) and I wasn’t even invited to join the parental WhatsApp (worked FT, only one of two WOHMs in the class, and as a foreigner in a fairly insular village, was a bit isolated as nearly all other parents had gone to that same village school), I can honestly say that none of this caused me anywhere near the anxiety you are feeling about parties.

@dual90

And yes the head got involved.

I would go back on group but just don't comment on anything. At least you're in the group & can find info out. I assume you must have commented negatively about the teacher on the group.

I think it's no surprise that people don't want to teach with parents all piling in on WhatsApp groups commenting on something they have said!

I don't think you can expect DD to be included if you're deliberately avoiding speaking to people.

Just be nice to the teacher too 😉

You may be hiding your anxiety but modelling is about what you don't do as well as what you do do. You are modelling to your daughter not to chit chat, not to hang around and socialise, not to engage with peers.

Thank you all for your comments. I will join the what’s app group.

it is all early days ! So I’m sure this is all just an over reaction x

I believe Prisecco2 is telling you not to worry so much. Her older DC tends to play with the older kids in the class. Your younger child will likely play with the younger ones. So your party invites may have more from about mid year onwards.

Does your child mention any names from school? If she does, ask on the WhatsApp group for the parents. Then arrange something after school. Since your child's birthday is late in the year, your whole class invite will likely have return invites for next year.

You need to learn to cope with the WhatsApp group. Most our invites come on there and no paper invites anymore

My kid got very few invites to parties in reception then loads the year after. I wouldn't worry about it. Also some parents wait until reception to start having parties. And for those who have already, perhaps the kids/parents already knew eachother?

When you hold her party, invite who she wants to be there/or the whole class if you can afford it, then she should get invites from those who came to hers.

@dual90 I totally understand your feelings. By the time my DD got to the end of y5 she was clearly being excluded from parties and noticing it! Mums would say to
me “see you on Saturday at the party” and obviously I had to say Little Tizer wasn’t invited. Dc do start to talk about these things. DD was late summer born but certainly didn’t hang back in any way. She was always confident but seemed to have few friends. I invited 15 dc to parties but DD got 2 invites back.

I also noticed, for years, parents did the inviting. They invited dc of “people like them” and DD fell down the cracks. I helped with the pta, was always collecting dd, and yet was very much on the outside. Year 6 saw a big change as dc started making their own decisions on party invites. DDs party invites ballooned as did my “pop round for coffee” invites . By then DD had told classmates she wasn’t going to the grammar along with most of her “friends”. We had decided to start again elsewhere.

So try and join in but don’t expect miracles. Invite dc to play. I did but that didn’t result in party invites. DD2 went to private school where the whole class was always invited! It was so much more pleasant.