Daughter not invited to prom afterparty

[FTwkgmumof2]

New to this and after some advice. Sorry in advance for the long post, feel very upset for my daughter, and hate that other people have so much influence over her happiness.
Live in UK and have an almost 16 year old currently doing GCSEs. She's been talking about going to prom for the last year, was very excited etc. This week she has found out one of her 'friends' is having a prom after party and she is the only one in her friend group not invited. She's mega upset, doesn't understand why she's being left out, always tries to be nice and thoughtful to others and its just not reciprocated. She's feeling that low about it I worry its starting to interfere with her GCSEs and is going to totally ruin prom for her.
I convinced her to message the friend and ask if everything was ok and if there was a reason she hadn't been invited. The friend just said I've been told 20 people, and she just forgot about her so unfo she can't come, says she first on the reserve list!
My daughter reckons, there's people she's not that good friends with, just friends of friends so suspects there more to it why she wasn't invited.

Worse still, all her close friends are invited and pretty much just said how awful it is she's not invited but nobody is saying i won't go if you don't, or I'll have a word with the girl and see if we can sort this out. Daughters feeling very betrayed and questioning if she has any 'real' friends at all.

Secondly, I've agreed that once GCSE's are over she can go to Spain with one of her close friends but now I'm doubting if I want to let her, if this friend is just willing to drop her for a party, can I trust they'll stick together in Spain or if something happens she'll just leave her.

Finally, my daughter is 16 soon and has organised a little party for friends (after GCSEs) at the house, where all these girls are invited, including the one who has said no to her and she has accepted the invite. I've told her there's no way she can come but am I just making things worse for my daughter.

I don't know this mum at all and sure she's not aware of what is going on, i'm debating messaging her privately to explain the situation and the affect its having on my daughter or is that just a no no at this age and i shouldn't interfere?

Thanks for listening if you've made it this far! Any advice welcome.

Same thing happened to my best friends daughter. She was absolutely beautiful, very popular with the boys and there was definitely bullying going on. In her case, it definitely wasn't just a limit on numbers, the other girl purposely excluded her and was nasty about it. Her close friends were torn but were still going to the party.... they were 15/16 and we wouldn't have expected them not to.

My friend held an after prom party at her house. She went all out and also invited the adults (we had another part of the house). Her theory was that if none of her friends turned up, it would still be a great party and her daughter wouldn't be sat alone but actually, word got round and it was a massive success. She invited everyone including the bitches (who opted not to turn up) but the party was the talk of school. My friends daughter held her head high and rose above it. She luckily hasn't faced anything since but it put the little girls back in their box!

It's a shame this has happened during GCSEs. I'd tell your dd to put it to the back of her mind and concentrate on GCSEs for the moment. It does sound like your dd has been purposely excluded if she's invited "friends of friends" I wouldn't contact the mum during GCSEs in case it blows up. Your dd will find out who her friends are and can think about making new ones

Loving the success is the best revenge stories!

Your dd could ask her friends not to talk about it in front of her as she's not invited. (If they are)

something similar happened at my after prom - there was one big party that all the 'cool kids' were invited to and me and some friends were left out

so my friend threw a rival party.....which no one was excluded from (and it helped she had a massive house with a pool)

my friends party was way more successful.

not saying you have to throw a rival party but if only 20 ppl are invited, I bet your daughter is not the only one feeling left out. And I bet if you threw a party that didn't have anyone left out the kids would come to your daughters party and not her 'friends' party. Just an idea

Loving all of these rival parties!😄

We through big party at ours and all the quirky misfits were invited, dd had an invitation to the "cool kids" party but rejected as her friend wasn't invited! We had 2 gaming areas set up, music, games in the garden and they could camp. Worked brilliantly, dog was in charge of security

Stop with the jealous. People seem to have lost any knowledge of what jealous means

It's HIGHLY unlikely the girl is jealous. She's just been mean and maybe a bunch of other things but these things are not often caused by jealousy.

It's an unhelpful thing to say because the 'victim' often can't see any reason why the person would be jealous and it adds to the confusion.

I know exactly the difference between jealousy and envy, thank you.

I wrote a dissertation on it.

The girls are jealous.

I don’t need to guide my girls to be kind, they are already but I would not be comfortable hosting someone that was being so spiteful and unkind to my dd. Not a chance! Guests and friends are most welcome any time but I won’t have disrespectful behaviour in any form.

With certain types of people it is considered lame to still be offering invites and parties when they are happy to bully by exclusion and deliberately do not reciprocate. I even know adults like this, and it’s a well known power move.

I would be advising op to encourage dd to broaden her circle inside and outside school but they are leaving soon, it’s likely to happen naturally!

Dd needs to focus on her exams, and put the party issue to one side, it’s a massive distraction. I am glad our school hosts them in February to avoid this type of drama across the exams, keep us updated op. I hope it works out!

Do nothing. Just listen don't even give an opinion. Just concentrate on keeping daughter going. How hard can this be?.... extremely hard but hang on in there. It will pass or sort itself....honestly.

You’re being unreasonable in teaching your daughter that if her friends don’t say they’re not going if she’s not invited and aren’t real friends if they don’t. With that logic then the one friend you’ve said she can take to Spain isn’t a real friend unless she puts her foot down and demands you take all the friend group. The parents have likely put the 20 friend limit down and may even have had a say in who’s on the list I know I certainly would rather friends I’m familiar with in my house than one I’m not. Her friends can be friends and do things with other people without your daughter having to go, it doesn’t make them bad or any less of a friend to your daughter. You should teach her that, not that her friends aren’t real friends.

Most important - do not cancel her spain trip. Teen years and high school are a battle field - in an ideal world this friend would stick up for your daughter but realistically no teen is going to throw themselves under the bus of the bully/queen bee and risk ostracising themself - even really good, nice kids. Cancelling spain will just loose her an ally and friend and rob her of an amazing experience. I have 4 kids, now in their 20's - everyone is right let it play out

So the girls parents told her 20 max and she filled in a list of 20. I imagine the girl is using the party as a popularity boosting excercise. Can your daughter arrange something with a group for herself and see if her close friends will come to that instead? My end of gcses parties were ruined by bullies so I really feel for her. Can you organise an after party at yours or a meal for after or aomrthing where she can select a few friends? I sont think theres much you can do to change the situation with the girl but you could reach out to her closest friends and explain how hurt she is and see if they have any ideas and wpuld want to do a little thing separately after.

Reading this makes me so sad. Dd finally has a group but it’s taken a long time. I’ve somehow agreed to host and after prom party as I was thinking dd might not be invited so maybe she could have a few friends here. It’s escalated to more than I was thinking but we’re going with it as a one off.

Do you have a dessert place near you that you could take her to after prom or one friend sleep over if another isn’t going to that party? It sucks and it’s cruel. Give her hugs.

I am religious so act following those values. It's possible others are the same.

Saying that, I also think that reciprocating the unkind behaviour might cause more problems; what if she turns on the tears and acts super-hurt at your DD and gets the others even more on side?

By behaving in an exemplary way, if Mean Girl is jealous of your DD and trying to freeze her out, she has nothing to work with and could come across as unkind to others in the group, who might then support your DD.

It would be awful, if having been isolated unfairly, your DD did something that meant they could all turn on her 'fairly' - she could feel even worse.

What I'd do? Honour current commitments, then let summer put space between these girls. Maybe the odd trip 1:1; if suitable at the time, DD could lay the groundwork by talking about what happened and saying how it made her feel. Starting back in September, exclude Mean Girl from any arrangements. If others say she's a bitch for it, remain calm and say 'It wasn't my choice' in a John Malkovich 'It's beyond my control' kind of way. Stay calm, stay calm, remain self-assured and superior. This situation will be the filter that tests all the others' true feelings about your DD, and if they want to fall through it they are welcome to. Encourage your DD to mix with others at A-Level institution or find alternative avenue to meet new people.

You poor thing
the Power play at this age is horrendous
i would advise against finger pointing
a mum wrote to me and attacked one of my kids. She attacked me too but she attacked me on fourth hand teen gossip and what she said was not true, which undermined her case. I understood her pain and I was polite the first time but she was so out of order. Still think about her every day and her batshit crazy ways. Some kids are being c to my daughter at the moment and I think of mrs bat shit, and the unhelpfulness of her intervention, and have decided not to get involved.

However you could tell the school your daughter is struggling.
One of the teachers noticed my daughter has not been happy because of similar exclusion tactics by fer friends (they can be such little sheep too...) and spoke to her and having the teacher's support has been really helpful

Hmm Dd had a flipping annoying girl in her group who was consistently mean to her snipey little comments leaving her out etc. For the sake of group harmony and to “be kind” dd let it slide but it did upset her as went on for months.

The girl has recently started behaving like that to the stronger characters in the group but she’s pushed her luck - they’re not as forgiving as dd and have pushed her out of the group. Now the girl is crying to school about being “excluded” but frankly it’s hard to feel particularly sympathetic.

This. It's not nice for your DD but she's growing up and it will not harm her to deal with it herself. If she still wants to invite this girl that is up to her.