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Just because you mailed the invitations doesn't mean those other girls didn't brag about being invited to the party in front of the other children in the classroom.
She (the OP) took the most discrete way to handle the invitation. The mailed invite was received at home away from the school so as not to alert the entire class (girls & boys) that Fifi was having a party. This is what most of us moms do. Mom or Dad puts the invite on the fridge and that's that. 5 and 6 year olds do not need to know what their social calendar looks like in advance.
Handing children invites in front of a child or children who are not invited is rude, if not mean.
But, welcome to the forum. So glad you rushed here from wherever you usually talk to anonymous strangers on the internet to tell us all about the most pressing issue of your day/week/month/year/life to date. It does seem a bit strange to start out here by launching with this type of story ... but different strokes for different folks I guess.
That said ... according to your version, there is little to criticize in how you handled the situation. What is it you want from us though? Confirmation that you did the right thing? For us to blast the neighbour's behaviour even though it seems neither you nor we have any idea of exactly why what seems to have transpired actually happened?
I remember an occasion when teachers acted like they were the mean girls still in high school.
As a high school junior, I was asked -- completely out of the blue -- to attend a dinner for the National Merit Scholars, which was an invitation-only club at our school. The teachers chose the club members. I went. I don't recall exactly how many other juniors were there but I don't think it was more than a dozen.
After the meal, one of the teachers went around the table mysteriously and "surprised" each junior with an invitation to join the club. I kept thinking I'd be tapped any moment since my test scores and grades were easily high enough. It didn't happen. Why was I there, then?
It seems I was invited for the express purpose of being passed over. It was cruel and completely uncalled-for. People in a position of authority should never pull such puerile pranks but apparently some just can't help themselves.
How strange! If you were not qualified for the NMS then you should not have been invited. But let me clear something up. It is not a club that teachers choose members for. It is based entirely on your PSAT scores and decided nationally. The program chooses the 50,000 top scorers. That's it. You weren't blackballed, just mistakenly invited to the party.
5 and 6 year olds do not need to know what their social calendar looks like in advance.
...
How would you have handled it?
What child doesn't see a cute invitation on the fridge, and not ask excitedly, "Who invited me to their party?!" Do you say, "Oh don't worry about it, I'll tell you when you need to know," or just shoo them away? I mean, c'mon now...
And I used to invite the whole class so nobody felt left out. Not all the kids are going to come anyway.
Just because you mailed the invitations doesn't mean those other girls didn't brag about being invited to the party in front of the other children in the classroom.
That isn't the same as the adult excluding some children when they hand out invitations though. The rule at our schools was that you could only hand out invites at school if you were inviting the whole class or all the children of one gender or the other. Otherwise, you had to mail invites or hand them out somewhere other than the school.
That isn't the same as the adult excluding some children when they hand out invitations though. The rule at our schools was that you could only hand out invites at school if you were inviting the whole class or all the children of one gender or the other. Otherwise, you had to mail invites or hand them out somewhere other than the school.
To me, it is exactly the same. Those kids are still going to go to school and tell the other kids they were invited.
IMO, you don't only invite a few kids out of the class or group; you invite them all.
To me, it is exactly the same. Those kids are still going to go to school and tell the other kids they were invited.
IMO, you don't only invite a few kids out of the class or group; you invite them all.
We did not have big parties. We limited the kids to the number in their age plus 1, so at 6 they could have 7 kids. Since the class is 20 kids or more, no we did not invite them all.
I see no reason that anyone has to invite the whole class unless they want to.
My kids invited their special friends - the ones they played with all the time, not everyone. We did not have the money or the space to invite the whole class.
Questions for OP. First lets set up the known facts. You had a birthday party for your daughter, and did not invite the neighbor boy to the party. You only invited girls in her class. The boy in younger and not in her class.
1)---Was the party only for boys, as your daughters was only for girls?
2)---Was the party for children his age such as his class in school as was your daughters?
3)---The mother did not invite your daughter to his birthday party, when you did not invite her son to your daughters party?
Any one of those three factors, may be the big reason your daughter was not invited to his party.
Why are you so upset, when the boy's mother did the exact thing you did, which was not inviting your child to the birthday party. You set the precedent when he was not invited to her birthday party.
No intelligent person should ever expect that the neighbor would invite her child to a birthday party, when she does not invite the other mother's child to her child's party.
Instead of blaming her, blame yourself, you started it by not inviting her son to your daughter's party.
Seriously cannot believe some of the responses here..
1. Why would they HAVE to invite the whole class. The child is NOT a friend of everyone in the class...
2. If I mail or hand give an invitation to certain people, I do not have to feel bad the others were not given one....
3. And what is with the revenge is sweet responses on here.. If she has a girls only party OF COURSE the boy is NOT invited... So I doubt the boys mom is getting revenge....
4. The mom of the boy needed to handle this in a different manner....
1. Why would they HAVE to invite the whole class. The child is NOT a friend of everyone in the class...
IMO, because it's the right thing to do. It's not like every kid is going to show up. The boys probably won't come, and some of the girls might not either if they aren't 'friendly' with the birthday girl. What can it hurt?
You ask for RSVPs and then order a cupcake-cake with 5 extra. Big hairy deal!
So yeah, I'm amazed at some of the responses too; they're KIDS for God's sake! Is it really that much trouble to make every kid feel welcome? Hell, even if they all show up without RSVPs, so what? The kids won't care, they'll be playing.
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