Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So to sum up the special needs child and parties:

- Every parent should know every who every special needs kid is within a class - or maybe it's an entire grade - despite the fact that most parents won't spend enough time with the entire class to know much about individual kid's needs in the class and will generally only hear about kid's behavior from their own child's reporting and sporadic observations.

- Every parent should know, even if their child is not friendly with, doesn't play with, or is never spoken to by the special needs child, the special needs child should always be invited to every birthday party.

- It doesn't matter how outrageous, annoying, destructive, rude, etc a special needs child behavior is, it's acceptable and of course should be embraced especially at your child's birthday party.

How are you getting that from this thread?

By making it up, clearly.

Anonymous wrote:So to sum up the special needs child and parties:

- Every parent should know every who every special needs kid is within a class - or maybe it's an entire grade - despite the fact that most parents won't spend enough time with the entire class to know much about individual kid's needs in the class and will generally only hear about kid's behavior from their own child's reporting and sporadic observations.

- Every parent should know, even if their child is not friendly with, doesn't play with, or is never spoken to by the special needs child, the special needs child should always be invited to every birthday party.

- It doesn't matter how outrageous, annoying, destructive, rude, etc a special needs child behavior is, it's acceptable and of course should be embraced especially at your child's birthday party.

You're not reading the same thread I am. Where did you get this from?

It is not okay, SN or not, to intentionally invite (say) 21 out of 25 kids in a class to a party, no matter whether they are SN or not. (That may or may not be what happened here; I don't think it's reasonable to jump to negative intent on the part of Larla's parents without further information.) I have no idea who has SN or not in my child's class, but that is irrelevant to the issue of excluding a few children out of a whole class.

OP, can you tell the teacher what's going on? Perhaps the teacher can explain the situation to Larla's mom, at least so the mom will know that Larla is talking about her party to classmates who aren't invited.

When my kids have birthday parties, the whole class is invited...or boys only, girls only. To do otherwise is hugely insensitive. We did have a party practically ruined by a child's behavior once, but he had never been invited to a party before...and this was 4th grade! My DS took it chin-up, because he understood that it would have been wrong to exclude the boy.

I'd take your DS on a fun outing and make the best of the day. I've seen so much exclusion among all kinds of kids, for all kinds of reasons, that you just have to let it go emotionally. But I'm sorry your DS is going through this, and you, too.

You don't have to invite my kid. Just tell your kid not to talk about it at school unless everyone is invited. Done. Boom!

Anonymous wrote:So to sum up the special needs child and parties:

- Every parent should know every who every special needs kid is within a class - or maybe it's an entire grade - despite the fact that most parents won't spend enough time with the entire class to know much about individual kid's needs in the class and will generally only hear about kid's behavior from their own child's reporting and sporadic observations.

- Every parent should know, even if their child is not friendly with, doesn't play with, or is never spoken to by the special needs child, the special needs child should always be invited to every birthday party.

- It doesn't matter how outrageous, annoying, destructive, rude, etc a special needs child behavior is, it's acceptable and of course should be embraced especially at your child's birthday party.

You forgot the most important one!

- Every parent should know, that pp ^^^ is an asshole.

Anonymous wrote:So to sum up the special needs child and parties:

- Every parent should know every who every special needs kid is within a class - or maybe it's an entire grade - despite the fact that most parents won't spend enough time with the entire class to know much about individual kid's needs in the class and will generally only hear about kid's behavior from their own child's reporting and sporadic observations.

- Every parent should know, even if their child is not friendly with, doesn't play with, or is never spoken to by the special needs child, the special needs child should always be invited to every birthday party.

- It doesn't matter how outrageous, annoying, destructive, rude, etc a special needs child behavior is, it's acceptable and of course should be embraced especially at your child's birthday party.

How are you getting that from this thread?

So to sum up the special needs child and parties:

- Every parent should know every who every special needs kid is within a class - or maybe it's an entire grade - despite the fact that most parents won't spend enough time with the entire class to know much about individual kid's needs in the class and will generally only hear about kid's behavior from their own child's reporting and sporadic observations.

- Every parent should know, even if their child is not friendly with, doesn't play with, or is never spoken to by the special needs child, the special needs child should always be invited to every birthday party.

- It doesn't matter how outrageous, annoying, destructive, rude, etc a special needs child behavior is, it's acceptable and of course should be embraced especially at your child's birthday party.

When you say it's his "inclusion class" is he in a self-contained class for a portion of the day? Sometimes, in this situation, kids in the self-contained class don't get listed on the class list. I can imagine a situation as a parent where I thought I invited the whole class and accidentally left someone off.

Could you have your friend who checked the list ask? I've called a hosting parent and said "I don't want to create an awkward situation. Can you tell me if Johnny's invited before I call his mom about carpooling?" That way, if it was an oversight the mom will say "Johnny, oh my goodness, I forgot him" or even "Johnny? I haven't heard his name, let me ask my kid" and then kid will say "Johnny, I want Johnny".

I should note that when I did this it was because I really was hoping to carpool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe this should be a separate thread, but....

As a NT parent if you are inviting a child who as behavioral SN (my daughter is very friendly with a child in her class who has SN) is it out of line to ask the parent to stay?

Your choice. An can mean anything so to me your question is strange.

What is strange about her question?

But what about the rare but possible chance it was an oversight? I was 'oversighted' way back in 3rd grade when Tracy T. had an ice skating party and the ENTIRE 3rd grade was invited except for me I assumed. Even Tracy T. asked me 'oh did you get your invitation?' I told her I did not. She replied, 'oh you will'. Another kid in our class asked if I was going, and I told her I was not invited. THANK GOD for kind parents. That kid's parent called the birthday kid's parent and by that evening the birthday kid's mom called my mom to apologize and say it was definitely an oversight and everyone was definitely invited.

And yes, FORTY years later I remember this incident--vividly.

Last year a stupid parent sent invites to my son's 4th grade classroom with the birthday kid to distribute to a few kids. One of the invitees said he didn't want to go, so gave the invite to my son. When ds told me the story, I stated that he was NOT invited and could not go. My son insisted that he'd asked the birthday kid if he could go instead of the kid who did not want to go. Birthday kid said yes. And of course I explained to my son that was not an invitation so he was not (and did not) going.

I am on the TEAM EMAIL THE MOM. Short and simple and friendly, even include: 'I'm thinking 'my son' is mistaken, but just confirming that he is not on 'birthday girl's' party list this year. Sounds like they are becoming friends, so perhaps we can set up a playdate soon...'

Really? If I got that email, I'd be super embarrassed and immediately apologize, and include the child if I could. (I think the only circumstances in which I wouldn't would be if I had only invited boys, and this was a girl, and I thought that would open it up to other girls being hurt..).
Incidentally, OP, a new explanation just occurred to me -- it's possible the parent did girls only from the classroom, but then included a few boys that were close friends (e.g., live on the same street, went to the same preschool for several years, etc.). It's really hard with MCPS classes being so large. With my son's party, if I invited his whole K class plus his good friends from preschool (none of whom ended up in his K class) and a couple friends from baseball and church, I would have had 35 kids invited, and I just couldn't manage it. I ended up doing boys only, even thought that ended up excluding a little girl in his class that lives down the street.

Anonymous wrote:My own 2 cents. I would probably choose the option of finding a fun special outing for my child on the day of the party, but if I chose to contact the mother of the birthday child, I would probably say "I understand that Larla's birthday party is coming up. I thought you might like to know that Larla is verbally inviting some children in class, like my son, who have not been sent invitations to the party. You might want to encourage her not to talk about the party in class since not everyone was invited."

This tells her that you aren't putting her in the awkward spot of trying to get her to invite your son on the spot unless she really wants to, but serves as a notice to her that this is happening. Then she can decide whether she can include your son somehow. It also gives her a response if your son wasn't invited. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll definitely talk to Larla about that. Thank you."

Just goes to show why email can be such a tough medium. In general, I think it's ok to contact the mom in this situation - but the suggestion above is by far the worst way of handling it that's been suggested so far. It conveys quite a bit of anger and annoyance and if I received that note I'd not feel inclined to be friendly toward this family

My own 2 cents. I would probably choose the option of finding a fun special outing for my child on the day of the party, but if I chose to contact the mother of the birthday child, I would probably say "I understand that Larla's birthday party is coming up. I thought you might like to know that Larla is verbally inviting some children in class, like my son, who have not been sent invitations to the party. You might want to encourage her not to talk about the party in class since not everyone was invited."

This tells her that you aren't putting her in the awkward spot of trying to get her to invite your son on the spot unless she really wants to, but serves as a notice to her that this is happening. Then she can decide whether she can include your son somehow. It also gives her a response if your son wasn't invited. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll definitely talk to Larla about that. Thank you."

Maybe this should be a separate thread, but....

As a NT parent if you are inviting a child who as behavioral SN (my daughter is very friendly with a child in her class who has SN) is it out of line to ask the parent to stay?
---------

SN mom. This should be fine. I usually plan to stay and ask host if it's ok (not intruding, but being within eye or earshot.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe this should be a separate thread, but....

As a NT parent if you are inviting a child who as behavioral SN (my daughter is very friendly with a child in her class who has SN) is it out of line to ask the parent to stay?

Your choice. An can mean anything so to me your question is strange.