Anonymous wrote:I agree with you. In particular, she needs to invite the 2 extra girls in her class. Maybe not the other ones outside the class, if she insists.

Question re the other girls: Is she cooler than them or are they cooler than her? If she is cooler, she should just invite them. If they are cool mean girls, it may be awkward for her to invite them.[b]

I remember in seventh grade when my mom insisted I should be inviting every girl. She was wrong. They were mean girls who absolutely did not want to come to my party and in 7th I was somewhat shy and awkward and the new girl. My mom did not get that I was no longer th popular girl I had been at my old school and that for me to invite these cool girls to my party would be weird.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole inclusion thing started out well but has morphed into teaching kids to make themselves smaller for someone else’s happiness and it has taught other kids that if the have an “excuse” for their behavior, there will be no consequences.

This (leaving out just one or two) was bad behavior 30 years ago before inclusion was a thing, sweetie pie. You're just a mean person.

Anonymous wrote:The whole inclusion thing started out well but has morphed into teaching kids to make themselves smaller for someone else’s happiness and it has taught other kids that if the have an “excuse” for their behavior, there will be no consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole inclusion thing started out well but has morphed into teaching kids to make themselves smaller for someone else’s happiness and it has taught other kids that if the have an “excuse” for their behavior, there will be no consequences.

This is a much smaller problem than someone inviting every girl in the class to a party but 1 or 2. Which is just mean.

No you don't have to include people you dislike. But occasionally that also means just having a smaller party in general. This is life and having social skills means you navigate these things all the time.

As an adult, if I am having a party and one of my friend's is dating a guy I hate, I still have to invite the jerk-bf to the party to stay friends with my friend. OR: I can have a smaller gathering without partners. This is similar.

Goodness some of you are hopeless in social situations.

Are you 8 years old? No you are not. Expecting kids to have the emotional bandwidth of an adult is unfair. Expecting girls to make themselves uncomfortable to make others comfortable is just a continuation of the outdated concept that women must always be kind even at their own expense. This kid doesn’t like these kids. Your comparison is not valid because you like your friend and accept the boyfriend as a package deal. This girl has nothing to gain by inviting these kids. Yes she should not be unkind to the kids at school but she does not need to modify her once a year celebration for the comfort of others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole inclusion thing started out well but has morphed into teaching kids to make themselves smaller for someone else’s happiness and it has taught other kids that if the have an “excuse” for their behavior, there will be no consequences.

This is a much smaller problem than someone inviting every girl in the class to a party but 1 or 2. Which is just mean.

No you don't have to include people you dislike. But occasionally that also means just having a smaller party in general. This is life and having social skills means you navigate these things all the time.

As an adult, if I am having a party and one of my friend's is dating a guy I hate, I still have to invite the jerk-bf to the party to stay friends with my friend. OR: I can have a smaller gathering without partners. This is similar.

Goodness some of you are hopeless in social situations.

Anonymous wrote:The whole inclusion thing started out well but has morphed into teaching kids to make themselves smaller for someone else’s happiness and it has taught other kids that if the have an “excuse” for their behavior, there will be no consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At no age is it okay to invite all the girls in your class but two. If you end up at a tiny high school with 15 girls in your grade, it would not be okay to invite 13 of them to your 18th birthday.

We don't invite the girls that have violent outbursts and throw chairs and scissors in class. Usually it's just one, but somtimes two in a class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Figure out what type of party you are having, figure out the space needed, and set a number for the guest list. Let your child decide who she wants to invite.

DS's largest ES party was K, we invited pretty much all the boys. After that, we asked him who he wanted to invite. He gave us his list. We would ask if there were some additional kids he wanted to include, based on shared interests and activities. Sometimes he said yes but mainly he said no. There are some kids he has invited to specific parties but not sleep overs because the kid is just too much. We don't post pictures of the party or make much of a mention of it because we don't want to hurt anyone, but we are not inviting a kid our son doesn't want to invite.

He is in 8th grade now, so I get that it is different, but we have always held the opinion that he knows who he wants to hang out with and if he doesn't want to invite a particular child then we need to respect that.

We booked the venue. Our party is for up to 20 but we can add extra. For this party, space limitations is not an issue. DD just doesn’t want to invite the girls she isn’t friends with.

She made a guest list of 16. I am urging her to invite the remaining 2 girls and about 5 girls we have known since kindergarten.

She made her list, go with that. Why should she invite kids she doesn't want to her party? She shouldn't have to invite kids she is not friends with. If she doesn't hang out with the kids she has known since kindergarten now and doesn't want to invite them, then don't.

It's ok to not invite everyone. She has not been invited to some parties and it sounds like she hass been fine with that. It's ok.

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to invite the two girls she doesn't like (at that age I would not force a kid to invite kids she actively dislikes) but I would then also not invite the kids in class she neither likes nor dislikes, the neutral kids she's not really actively friends with but doesn't have a problem with. As those kids are also not her friends, they are just classmates.

You can have an all-classmates party, where you invite everyone even the classmates you don't know that well or even find annoying. Or you can have an all-friends party where you just invite your friends. What you should not have is a "no enemies" party where you invite everyone, friend or not, classmate or not, but specifically exclude a small number of people you dislike. Primarily because this will make it very clear to everything that you don't like them, and this is something you need to keep to yourself.

It sounds to me like you need to do a smaller party, stop trying to socially engineer your kids friendships, but also help her understand why she doesn't want to advertise her dislike for these two girls (because it will come back to bite her later).