S/O being excluded from birthday parties

[Anonymous]

I apologize to OP.

Dad Poster #3, thanks for the additional detail about how you addressed this with your daughter. Cool that you talked about how the other little girl might have felt. I agree with you and the PP that you might have handled things differently at the other little girl's party. Did you think how the other little girl felt to have to be a good hostess to your daughter? To be told that she had to be nice and polite no matter what your daughter had said to her? Do you think she told her parents what had happened? Did you discuss this with your daughter too? Sometimes, I don't think of the right thing to say in the moment and certainly, hindsight is 20/20, esp on this board. But it's never too late ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your daughter excluded the other girl from her party because she talked about poop and farts, and yet she then attended her birthday party?? Wasn't she worried about excessive poop and fart talk there, or is it ok to hang with someone who talks like that if it's someone else's party? Ay!

My daughter had five other people she rather would have at her party than someone who talks about poop and farts all the time, yes.
As for her reasoning about going to the other girl's party, who knows how a 7 yo's mind works. It was a different atmosphere, maybe she didn't think it would be such a big deal at Chuck E. Cheese or something. In her head, excessive potty talk would have been out of place at her own gathering.

NP here. I'm sorry, but you are just defensively rationalizing things. We both know that this girl doesn't talk non-stop about poop. You keep saying that - thinking this is a completely great reason to exclude this poor girl after she had invited (and you accepted!) an invitation to her birthday party the same weekend, but we all keep telling you it was wrong. I don't think anybody should ever call little kids "bitches", but you do realize that you are inviting this talk b/c the rationale behind excluding this kid is really really poor.

I think you should honestly step back and think about how arbitrary this is for 7 year olds. What if one of the girls your DD had invited to her party - the very next weekend - had a party and didn't invite your DD b/c she was bossy, or talked too much, or something arbitrary and stupid like that. How would that make you and your DD feel?

Think about it...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dad, you're right that some people wouldn't feel the same if the 2 parties were further apart, like 3 months. I'll agree with you there.
It's the fact that your daughter decided not to invite this child and turned around the very next day to attend said child's party. It's like daughter is taking advantage of the other child's hospitality.

Pretty sure you'd flame me if dd snubbed the other party too.

She doesn't dislike the other girl. It's just when she was choosing 5 guests for her own partyshe selected others. As an adult you may think she's a little bitch (as several have said) for articulating a reason about objecting to a potty mouth. But to her, it was very important. The party was in her house, in her space. She can base a decision to exclude based on a fear of how the other child would behave. I counseled against her, but, frankly, I thought it was a valid enough reason that I wasn't going to overrule her on it.

Once again, that's not the point. No one's (at least I'm) not saying that she was obligated to dis-invite one of the first five kids and invite the other girl. But once you told her she could make it 6, it stopped being about numbers, and started being about the other girl. I'm all for letting kids decide certain things, but they aren't the final authority on very many things at 7 yo, and certainly not with respect to something that is fairly obvious to an adult (or should be, at any rate) which will hurt one of her friend's feelings.

What about all the other girls in the class? Shouldn't they have been invited too? I mean, I'm sure they will eventually invite this kid to their birthday parties, so aren't they all just obligated to invite them all the time 100% of the time until the remainder of eternity? No one has any free will about wanting certain kids at their parties but taking them up on their invitations? This is ridiculous. She was INVITED to that party. She attended. End of story. And by the way, she's 7.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is almost never invited to b-day parties. He has Asperger's and a hard time socially. Frankly, when I've seen other kids his age at birthday parties or when he does actually go to one or at his own (small) parties, he's no more or less offensive than the other kids. But I know he's hard to take (most kids don't want to discuss his obsessions of course). He loves being around other kids and I can't think it doesn't hurt his feelings to hear the other kids talk about parties. I understand why he's not at the top of the invitee list, but it sure is hard.

I'm the dad of the 5-girl party getting flamed left and right here.

Let me just say that my dd, who has been alternately deemed a mean girl, a bitch, and a whole hosts of other nasties by the superior mothers on this board, counts a boy with asperger's in her class as one of her closest friends. In fact, she talked about inviting him to her party but decided he wouldn't like getting manicures and pedicures with a bunch of girls. So, we took him out to dinner with us one night separately.

What a little cold bitch, eh?

The really important question is, did your DD bring Ms. Potty Mouth a gift? AWKWARD! LOL

[Anonymous]

I think part of the rub for me is that is sounds like the potty mouth girl and the poster's DD might be friends. If they are just passing classmates, it is not as serious, but if these girls are somewhat friendly, it is terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I apologize to OP.

Dad Poster #3, thanks for the additional detail about how you addressed this with your daughter. Cool that you talked about how the other little girl might have felt. I agree with you and the PP that you might have handled things differently at the other little girl's party. Did you think how the other little girl felt to have to be a good hostess to your daughter? To be told that she had to be nice and polite no matter what your daughter had said to her? Do you think she told her parents what had happened? Did you discuss this with your daughter too? Sometimes, I don't think of the right thing to say in the moment and certainly, hindsight is 20/20, esp on this board. But it's never too late ...

I'm not sure it matters but you have the sequence of events wrong.

The other girl's birthday party was Saturday.

My dd's birthday party was Sunday. All the girls were asked to not talk about it at school.

On Monday, one of the girls marched straight up to the Saturday birthday girl and described everything that happened at dd's party on Sunday. Then Saturday b-day girl confronted my DD, and that's when, instead of saying "sorry, it was a locked in small guest list" dd replied something about she didn't invite her b/c she talks about poop and farts all the time.

[Anonymous]

Dad - you are seriously lacking of empathy here.

Look, the other girl was hurt enough by not being invited to your DD's party - after DD was invited and attended the other girl's party the same weekend - that she asked your daughter about it.

Are you really okay with that? And on the basis that she is a "potty mouth"? She is SEVEN. I don't believe for a second that this little girl talks like a sailor...

You must realize that your actions (and your DD's) really hurt the other girl. Are you really trying to tell us all that this was just perfectly okay to do b/c the girl says poop every now and again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with:
-You are in the right to invite a small group of children to your daughter' party and allow her to pick which ones. (you mentioned that fewer rather than more of the class got invited).
-It was right of you to encourage your daughter to invite the other girl (girl B) when she received Girls B's invite. Your daughter didn't want Girl B there, so fine.

I disagree with:
-You should have told your daughter not to tell the Girl B why she wasn't invited, a simple "we could only have so many people" would have been sufficient. (I would have a different view if the other girl was physically or verbally aggressive, not just told jokes in bad taste)
-You should not have allowed your daughter to attend Girl B's party. If Girl B wasn't good enough for your daughter to invite to her party than your daughter should not have taken advantage of Girl B's hospitality.

+1

[Anonymous]

This thread is getting boring. You people keep repeating the same things over and over. I am going to stop reading if you can't keep up my interest for heavens sake.

[Anonymous]

Dad Poster #3, so the other little girls were asked not to talk about it at school? Why was this? Did you think the other little girl would be hurt? Did you really expect that the other 7 year olds would not talk about it? Do you think the other little girl was hurt? Do you think she felt humiliated because everyone was talking about her and how she didn't get invited? I certainly don't blame your daughter for saying what she did because she is 7 and not a grown-up litigator used to thinking on her feet. But, did you feel for this other little girl at all?

You may have guessed that it's my child who is not invited to birthday parties that the other kids talk about on Monday at school. I can't make the other children like or want to play with my child. But can you tell me: what should I say to my child when bedtime is full of tears and "why is/are she/they so mean to me all the time?" Should I expect other parents to try to empathize with my child and try to get their child to at least be nice? A friend of mine once said that some other parents won't care and I should just start teaching my child that the world is not always so nice. I just hoped I wouldn't have to do it so early.

[Anonymous]

I hope that wasn't too boring for you.

[Anonymous]

You may have guessed that it's my child who is not invited to birthday parties that the other kids talk about on Monday at school. I can't make the other children like or want to play with my child. But can you tell me: what should I say to my child when bedtime is full of tears and "why is/are she/they so mean to me all the time?" Should I expect other parents to try to empathize with my child and try to get their child to at least be nice? A friend of mine once said that some other parents won't care and I should just start teaching my child that the world is not always so nice. I just hoped I wouldn't have to do it so early.

i am so sorry, that is just awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dad Poster #3, so the other little girls were asked not to talk about it at school? Why was this? Did you think the other little girl would be hurt? Did you really expect that the other 7 year olds would not talk about it? Do you think the other little girl was hurt? Do you think she felt humiliated because everyone was talking about her and how she didn't get invited? I certainly don't blame your daughter for saying what she did because she is 7 and not a grown-up litigator used to thinking on her feet. But, did you feel for this other little girl at all?

You may have guessed that it's my child who is not invited to birthday parties that the other kids talk about on Monday at school. I can't make the other children like or want to play with my child. But can you tell me: what should I say to my child when bedtime is full of tears and "why is/are she/they so mean to me all the time?" Should I expect other parents to try to empathize with my child and try to get their child to at least be nice? A friend of mine once said that some other parents won't care and I should just start teaching my child that the world is not always so nice. I just hoped I wouldn't have to do it so early.

Please don't project your difficulties with your own child onto me. I'm sorry you think this is about you, but it isn't.

I think it is plenty evident that yes, I was concerned about the other girl's feelings. I brought it up several times with dd, before and after the fact. But, she wasn't having it. She didn't exclude out of nastiness or spite. She didn't do it to be mean. She just decided there were five other friends she preferred to have at her own party and also didn't think this other girl would be a good fit. I told her I disagreed with her, but she had her own valid reasons. It wasn't malicious. She's normally a very empathetic child, and this was something of an anomaly so I didn't push it. It's not like she's 4 years old anymore.

I'm a little shocked that you all think I should have forced my daughter to reciprocate an invitation. I think if you thought a little harder about it you'd realize you wouldn't do this either had you been in the same situation. You might SAY you would, but if your 7 yo insists that she doesn't want to add an individual to an intimate party, you wouldn't force her to.

The notion that she should have snubbed the party to which she was invited is also a bit odd. Again, she wasn't acting out of malice. She wasn't "taking advantage" of the hospitality. I'm sorry that you think that invitations all come with strings attached, but they don't.

Half of you have come right out and accused dd of being deliberately hurtful. Accused ME of being deliberately hurtful. We weren't. You've all been far nastier than I stand accused of being anyway.

[Anonymous]

OP, I cannot believe that you'd rather lay the blame for being mean at the feet of your 7yo daughter rather than admit that you should have handled it differently.

[Anonymous]

PP- Bullsh*t. OP's daughter has standards and values. Good on her!! I think OP did good 'due dilligence' on the invites. OP I think you should stop reading all of this noise and give your daughter a big hug. Tell her you really respect how she appreciates your family standards. Tell her she's brave to stand up for her values (even with respect to you). And tell her to make sure she is always nice at school and to never make another kid feel bad. I hope that my daughter finds a friend like OP's child because I think it's great that there are a few people left who actually value values.