Reply to including/excluding kids from DS's birthday

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[quote=Anonymous]DS is turning 13 soon and will be having an informal birthday celebration with friends (like go carts & pizza). He attends a small charter school (not DC area) and wants to invite 10 of the 15 boys in his class. Three of the boys he is not inviting are a tight knit trio who share no interests with DS, so I agree not inviting them is fine. However, the other 2 boys do after school clubs with DS and the invited boys, and seem interested in being part of that friend group. DS doesn't want to invite them because he says they are kind of rude/mean and annoying (e.g., in PE class they'll tease someone who misses a shot and brag about their own skills that aren't any better). From my perspective the 2 boys are OK kids who are bit socially awkward/insecure and are trying to fit in by "being cool" but are missing the mark. If there were 50 boys in his class I wouldn't care, but essentially inviting only 10 out of a group of 12 kids who hang out at school seems mean and sends a specific message to those two that they aren't "part of the group". (And everyone is polite to these 2 boys but it's not reasonable to think that the party will never come up within their earshot).

I explained all of this to DS and he still doesn't want to invite them. We agreed to take the day to think about it. Aside from telling him one more time "not inviting these boys will probably hurt their feelings" is there anything else I should do? Forcing him to invite them doesn't seem like a good choice for anyone, and forcing him to exclude other friends (so that the number of invitees is smaller) seems silly too. DS has been excluded from events he would have enjoyed being invited too, so he knows what that's like, though he has never struggled just to make friends which I think is what is going on with these boys.

Also, I have a younger DD with special needs. She is very sweet and polite, but very socially awkward. I worry a lot about her being socially excluded as she gets older so I'm sure those emotions are affecting me now. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing. [/quote]

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