My 8yo wasn't invited to a party, so the school changed its invitations policy

"Part of me wants to name and shame the boy's parents through the class chat group," the furious mum shared.

4 min read

October 23, 2023 - 2:42PM

Primary School

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A mother has revealed that her eight-year-old son was deliberately excluded from a classmate's birthday party - when everyone else was invited.

The boy apparently noticed invitations being handed out at school, and when he didn't get one, asked why.

His classmate's answer was so cruel, that the school was compelled to update its policies around invitations.

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"Part of me wants to name and shame the parents"

Posting in an online parenting forum, the mum wrote: 'Third grader excluded from a birthday party when the rest of the class was invited.'

"My eight-year-old son came home crying yesterday because another student (M) handed out birthday party invitations to all of his classmates except for him.

"It happened in his classroom and there are 18 students. When my son asked M why he didn't get an invitation, M apparently replied with a big smirk 'I guess you didn't make the list'."

The mum went on to explain the dynamics of the two boys' friendship.

"My son and M get along fine when they are together by themselves but apparently M can be a bit mean to my son when M is with his other friends. I have no issue with M not inviting my son - it's his party and he can invite whoever he wants. But it seems unnecessarily cruel for M to deliberately exclude my son, and only my son, in front of his classmates at school.

"My son already has difficulty fitting in and finding friends to sit and play with at lunch and recess. I worry it will get even more difficult for him now that M has signaled to the other classmates that my son is to be rejected and excluded at school."

She weighed up the idea of talking to his teacher or the school principal about the incident. And she even said, "part of me wants to name and shame M's parents through the class chat group."

But ultimately she realised the latter would hurt her son even more.

She concluded, "It just hurts my heart to think about M and some of the other kids rubbing this party in my son's face every day at school for the next few weeks and him feeling rejected and left out."

"Teach your son resilience"

Of the 500 comments, many suggested that perhaps the parents of M weren't actually at fault, but rather the kid could have withheld the boy's invite on his own accord.

"It’s possible that the parents did, in fact, make invitations for every child in the class - and their son just decided to not give your son his. So might be best to ask some questions before accusing the parents," one person suggested.

And this comment provided a template for the poster, should she wish to text M's parents: "While I understand that not all kids are friends, M handing out invitations in class to every child but my child and emphasising my child didn’t make the list caused a lot of hurt feelings. I hope M can share invitations in a more discreet manner in the future, should you not wish to invite the whole class."

Others said they would want to know if their child had demonstrated this sort of mean behaviour, with one writing. "I would appreciate a text like this, I'd want to know if my kid did that, so I could get to the bottom of it."

But this parent had a different perspective: "If I were you, I would focus my attention on building resilience in your son, and try to teach him that there will always be mean people around, but his job is to cultivate enough self-worth that it won't impact him so much in the future.

"In my house, if people are mean to us, then they lose their access to us. It's something I have been drilling into my kid for years.

"If you make an issue out of this with the school and the parents, the kid is going to double down on the exclusion because now he knows it's effective. Also, it will disempower your son if you swoop in and solve this for him (though trust me, I completely understand why you would want to.)"

And a second parent backed up this no-reaction approach: "I so strongly agree with this," they said. "People can be mean! They can hurt your feelings! That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go over their head to get them punished.

"I would try to have a conversation with my son like 'Man, that’s a really hurtful thing for that kid to do, excluding you like that. How are you feeling?'"

A new school policy

After reading all the comments, the mum posted this update on her decision. "I asked my son's teacher about her invitation policy. She said she saw M giving out invitations but didn't realise he had excluded my son.

"The principal was there so we clued her in, and she said she would implement an official school policy that says no invitations at school unless the whole class is invited.

"The school currently has no policy for birthday invitations so at least this change is a positive outcome. My son has not mentioned the party since that fateful day and seems to have moved on.

"I made a list of fun things for us to do over the next couple of weekends and his mind seems to be focused on those things."

This article was originally published in February 2023 and was updated in September 2023.