Reply to Is it ok to host a birthday party but only ask a few of the kids to sleep over?

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "Is it ok to host a birthday party but only ask a few of the kids to sleep over?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

This is one of those threads that has revealed way more about people than was intended, it's quite fascinating. I thought it was a simple question but obviously it's not.

It seems that the many, many people who are taking the original question as an affront, describing my daughter as 'mean' and 'unkind', calling her a 'jerk' and a 'brat,' who think that she's inviting her wider circle friends out of 'pity' or because she wants to 'grab gifts' and 'throw them crumbs,' who think that she's not 'really friends' with them because they can't stay for the sleepover (out of  space/logistical reasons, not out of any malice) have a definition of social relationships that I've never encountered in real life before. At first I thought they had a point,  but as the attacks piled on, I realized that these posters simply have a world view that's very different from mine.  DD and I don't view friendships as competitions and we don't think parties are battles for attention. My daughter and I consider friendships to be a natural, fun, part of life -- sometimes you make friends, sometimes you lose friends, you have close friends, you have not-so-close friends and you have acquaintances that you chat with occasionally on the street. When you have a party, you invite as many people as you can comfortably fit into your living room, and when you have a sleepover, you invite the number that will fit on sleeping bags on the floor. All the other assumptions of ill intent and expressions of envy are really misplaced in this debate. Anyway, we haven't made a decision yet on how we'll proceed. This thread has given me a lot of food for thought.[/quote]
OP, here is your  takeaway.  You and your daughter's approach is generally fine, but there are people (as exhibited by this post) who will be insulted and hurt at being asked to come to the party but not the sleepover.  If you want to make sure not to insult or hurt those people, have the sleepover on a different day.  If you do not care that some people may be insulted and hurt, carry on with the sleepover on the same day.  That's it.  You do not have to agree with those people.  But now you know they exist.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics