Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kind off topic but seeing the mention of kids going trick or treating by themselves reminded me of the time my Aunt had a 20-some year old guy with no costume ring her doorbell at 11 pm on Halloween with no bag who said trick or treat.

I think Covid and screens have made kids less socially adept.

People really need to stop blaming Covid. That was 4 years ago. My shy kid from Covid played Minecraft and read for that year. He has all new friends plus 3 friends from elementary in high school. My Fortnite during Covid kid plays multiple sports and doesn’t touch video games.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

These parents act like they have to walk on egg shells around their fragile kids whose social lives can not be known, questioned, or commented on. Like they have strangers living in their homes who do as they please when they are actually dependent minors they are fully responsible for.

Wut? Which orifice did you pull that out of?

Oh, found the parent too scared to talk to their own kid.

Do you really go around making up these baseless, random narratives about people?

Weird.

What? It’s so obvious. People do not want to talk to their kids. They don’t want to do the work. Lots of kids are being little a-holes and their parents have their heads in the sand. Do you often dump your friends last minute for better plans? Why is it ok for your kid to do that? You’re neglecting your job as a parent of a young teen. Do better.

You have no idea what other parents are doing or not doing. Stop judging people based on your fictional version of them.

I have two teens. They mention who they are hanging out with. There are definitely some kids from elementary that seem to be on the periphery of the group and not normally in their core group for hang outs. Sometimes they have a new kid who is a friend of a friend. I don’t ask them when Bobby from elementary cub scouts or your friend from 4th grade was not invited for Halloween.

Anonymous wrote:Kind off topic but seeing the mention of kids going trick or treating by themselves reminded me of the time my Aunt had a 20-some year old guy with no costume ring her doorbell at 11 pm on Halloween with no bag who said trick or treat.

I think Covid and screens have made kids less socially adept.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

I am probably the most inclusive parent there is. When kids were younger, I invited the entire class. Then I invited all the boys from both classes. My boys always played with other boys and not girls. In 6th grade, I made my kid invite all the boys, even boys he didn’t talk to.

There is no everyone in middle school. That middle school boy went trick or treating with one friend. At some point, 10 boys were hanging out in my driveway.

My older teenage son had 12-13 friends over and I had zero input on who he was having over.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

These parents act like they have to walk on egg shells around their fragile kids whose social lives can not be known, questioned, or commented on. Like they have strangers living in their homes who do as they please when they are actually dependent minors they are fully responsible for.

Wut? Which orifice did you pull that out of?

Oh, found the parent too scared to talk to their own kid.

Do you really go around making up these baseless, random narratives about people?

Weird.

What? It’s so obvious. People do not want to talk to their kids. They don’t want to do the work. Lots of kids are being little a-holes and their parents have their heads in the sand. Do you often dump your friends last minute for better plans? Why is it ok for your kid to do that? You’re neglecting your job as a parent of a young teen. Do better.

You have no idea what other parents are doing or not doing. Stop judging people based on your fictional version of them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

These parents act like they have to walk on egg shells around their fragile kids whose social lives can not be known, questioned, or commented on. Like they have strangers living in their homes who do as they please when they are actually dependent minors they are fully responsible for.

Wut? Which orifice did you pull that out of?

Oh, found the parent too scared to talk to their own kid.

Do you really go around making up these baseless, random narratives about people?

Weird.

What? It’s so obvious. People do not want to talk to their kids. They don’t want to do the work. Lots of kids are being little a-holes and their parents have their heads in the sand. Do you often dump your friends last minute for better plans? Why is it ok for your kid to do that? You’re neglecting your job as a parent of a young teen. Do better.

Kind off topic but seeing the mention of kids going trick or treating by themselves reminded me of the time my Aunt had a 20-some year old guy with no costume ring her doorbell at 11 pm on Halloween with no bag who said trick or treat.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you close enough with any of the moms to ask them for insight? I wouldn’t jump to conclusions now, but if he continues to be excluded/isolated I would definitely be concerned.

For tonight I’d offer a movie or some activity you know he likes, and if he wants to stay home and be sad, I’d respect that. I’m sorry those boys were so unkind to your son.

In middle school? Don't do this. This is for your kid to navigate. Of COURSE the other kid's are being jerks, but that is life. Do not intervene with a mom, that's a guarantee he'll never be invited again.

I guess you didn’t read the bolded first sentence. I didn’t suggest that OP intervene, and yes that would be weird in MS. If OP had been close with any of the moms it would be normal after the fact to say, “OtherLarlo canceled Halloween plans with Larlo, and then the NotLarlo crew didn’t want him to join them. Larlo isn’t talking much about it. Do you have any tea?”

We now know OP is not close with any of the moms so it’s not relevant for her situation.

Doesn't matter. What would be the end result?
OP, I feel you. DC has a friend whose mom is engineering MS girl friendships. She's a crude woman with deep insecurities, and I feel sorry for her girls having to grow up with that kind of mom.

Examples?
Strategies to deal with? For MS kid who is left out and knows it?

Host a gathering at your own house. Go to one of those haunted house exhibitions as a family. Dress up, deck out your porch and hand out candy at home and make it fun. In other words, distract and wrap him in family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

These parents act like they have to walk on egg shells around their fragile kids whose social lives can not be known, questioned, or commented on. Like they have strangers living in their homes who do as they please when they are actually dependent minors they are fully responsible for.

Wut? Which orifice did you pull that out of?

Oh, found the parent too scared to talk to their own kid.

Do you really go around making up these baseless, random narratives about people?

Weird.

Anonymous wrote:I take it you're not friends with the moms on your street and that's why they excluded him?

In middle school? Kids do not care if mommies are friends. They have a mind of their own and some are just jerks. Some parents pull back too much and have no clue who their kids are spending time with and when they are dumping people at the last minute. It's not OPs place to clue the parent in, but it's a great chance to work on resiliency skills. Normalize that everyone experiences a friend or person they are dating who does things like this and it's painful, but it's also useful. As Maya Angelou says "when people show you who they are, believe them." Yes, middle school kids still have developing brains and can do stupid things, but this isn't close friend material. Allow him to be angry and/or hurt and help him strategize how to expand his network.

The people I have known over the years who were truly knocked down in life in adulthood and struggled to ever get back up were mostly those led extremely charmed lives. They never had to learn rejection/failure/betrayal/exclusion or whatever in childhood and the things that kept them down were things that by adulthood barely registered for so many of us when we faced them because we had life experience and could bounce back.

My now 16 year old got ditched every year for Halloween starting in 5th grade. Usually by the neighboring girls who went together. I am not sure if DD invited herself along, or was originally invited, but by the time to trick or treat, they were long gone without her. She always ended up going with her older brother and his friends, which was fun. Now in HS, we are all still neighbors and DD says the girls are really "careful" around her. They go out of their way to include her, offer her rides to school, etc, but she has completely separated from them. I think all the girls learned different lessons from the experience.

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t read through all the posts, but I am dealing with the same thing OP. It’s awful. So many tears and disappointment over here. I’m so tired of the “you can sit with us” attitude.

Thats so sad. Your poor kiddo. Can you move him to a new environment?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

These parents act like they have to walk on egg shells around their fragile kids whose social lives can not be known, questioned, or commented on. Like they have strangers living in their homes who do as they please when they are actually dependent minors they are fully responsible for.

Wut? Which orifice did you pull that out of?

Oh, found the parent too scared to talk to their own kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

These parents act like they have to walk on egg shells around their fragile kids whose social lives can not be known, questioned, or commented on. Like they have strangers living in their homes who do as they please when they are actually dependent minors they are fully responsible for.

Wut? Which orifice did you pull that out of?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents can’t win. If we offer up some pizza, we are socially engineering our kids. If we let them roam, we aren’t involved enough.

Offering some pizza and hosting is perfectly fine, just let your kid decide who to invite and stick with who they invited. It should be a day for the kids IMO - not for the parents.

This is a tween/teen forum. Teenagers make their own friends. Parents are not involved. Do the parents of left out kids think parents are somehow the ones trying to leave out their kid???

There are so many groups. With girls, there definitely seems to be a pretty popular type group and if you are not pretty or have a charismatic personality, they may not want you around. Same for the nerdy band kid. There are kids who play football and basketball and then the kids who are in marching band. Very different crowds.

Why? The kids are not orphans.

Yes. I think that the parents get their jollies when their children ditch other kids.

These parents act like they have to walk on egg shells around their fragile kids whose social lives can not be known, questioned, or commented on. Like they have strangers living in their homes who do as they please when they are actually dependent minors they are fully responsible for.