1. At 13 and for his birthday he should get to decide who he wants to celebrate with. Period. He's old enough to deal with the consequences, but from my experience there likely won't be any. !3 is a good age to start thinking about the kind of people you want to be close to.

2. What your son describes the boys doing is plain rudness. Don't excuse it as socially awkwardness.

3. Having an SN is not an excuse to say mean and hurtful things. I have kids with SNs and part of that means social interaction issues but we really work on and do not excuse them saying rude things.

4. Yes your daughter will likely be excluded from parties. This would happen with or with out special needs. If people are excluding her because of her SN, would you really want her to spend time tih hose people?

Reading this thread certainly makes it clear where some children learn relational aggression and bully behavior. Yikes.

OP, if your son were my son then he would either have a small "party" with 5 or 6 close friends OR he would invite everyone. Social exclusion is not acceptable in our family. Also, you might want to pick up a copy of the book Masterminds and Wingmen by Rosalind Wiseman. It may help you help your son better negotiate social relationships during his teen years.

Anonymous wrote:Would you have a party and invite, say, 10 out of 15 women from a defined social group such as a mom's club, small office setting, small group of neighborhood women, etc? I wouldn't. It's unkind. Invite either 5-6 kids or everyone.

Of course, and this is why I keep refusing to join the local social/ philanthropic group, because I would have to invite them all. I don't like all the participants, I wouldn't invite them to my home, and we're not "sisters." This is hard for the other "sisters" to understand, but that isn't my problem.

Ditto.

Would you have a party and invite, say, 10 out of 15 women from a defined social group such as a mom's club, small office setting, small group of neighborhood women, etc? I wouldn't. It's unkind. Invite either 5-6 kids or everyone.

OP, I agree with you and think you should tell him to either choose to have a smaller party or invite those two other kids.

He's 13 and he is old enough to learn that while, sure, he should be able to decide who to invite because it's his "special day" that doesn't meant that it's right. You're teaching your son to be a good person. That's the most important thing here.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why this gets rehashed. Your DS wants to invite 2/3 of the boys- he wants to leave out a tight knit group of three, and two others who don't seem to have good social skills.
Would you have a party and invite 10 of 15 women in your office? Would you make it a point to leave out the two women with poor social skills and the three who are closer friends. Does it seem kind? Does it seem like it fosters a good group dynamic. We told my son from a young age that he may not set up a guest list with school friends to appear as "liked/not liked." There has to be an obvious logic (all boys, 50% or less, everyone) that would not lead someone to conclude that they are disliked.

The whole point of a party is to invite people you actually like. For a 13 year old there is not all of this complicated networking crap that you adults are trying to project onto your children's social interactions. It just doesn't exist. A lot of it exists only in your head even as an adult.

I don't understand why this gets rehashed. Your DS wants to invite 2/3 of the boys- he wants to leave out a tight knit group of three, and two others who don't seem to have good social skills.
Would you have a party and invite 10 of 15 women in your office? Would you make it a point to leave out the two women with poor social skills and the three who are closer friends. Does it seem kind? Does it seem like it fosters a good group dynamic. We told my son from a young age that he may not set up a guest list with school friends to appear as "liked/not liked." There has to be an obvious logic (all boys, 50% or less, everyone) that would not lead someone to conclude that they are disliked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you are better off not inviting these boys. Inviting 10 of the 15 is better than inviting 12 of the 15. Even if you think it is clear that the other 3 are their own 'group' they might not see it that way. Also, DS has a better sense of just how mean these other 2 boys are and it may be worse than you realize on a day to day basis. If you trust your son's instincts in that regard (you know your son best) then he is saying that he is not friends with these boys for a good reason.

Ditto. Trust your son's assessment of these boys since he's with them every day vs. your occasional experience.

+1

Trust your kid if he is saying that the boys aren't nice. Why would you want to ignore his opinion?

PP, totally agree. Well said.

Anonymous wrote:After kindergarten, I just let my kids invite whoever they actually wanted to socialize with. At school they must play politely with everyone, but a party is by its very nature about getting together with a group of people the host specifically likes and wants to spend more time with.

I disagree. I have often had parties as an adult that the guest list is defined by the group of friends, not who I specifically wanted there necessarily, depending on the relationships or social structure. I have one particular group of friends where there are 11 moms who are all fairly close but with varying degrees of friendship among us. 5 of them decided to have a little surprise birthday party for me (I don't normally like to celebrate) and several of the others were confused and a bit hurt they were not included.

I think as an adult we have to make these choices all the time to build and preserve relationships or the environment we have to live in (work, school) so learning that social behavior now will make it easier on him to make choices he's happy with in these situations as he gets older.

I am in the camp of either a smaller group or everyone.

your son is old enough to choose. It is his birthday, let him enjoy it. If you feel strongly invite the other boys over sometime. At this age, you grab a few close friends and hang out. Do not use your son to make a statement, or worse, force him to.

Anonymous wrote:At 13, your son should be able to choose who to invite.

I would cap it at as many kids as you can take in your car, and let him choose.

Excluding two kids from their socisl group is mean.

I think you're wrong. He's 13. He can invite whoever he wants. And, he can deal with any fallout from leaving people out if it comes up. It's his ONE SPECIAL DAY. He should get to celebrate it with whoever he likes.