School Changes Party Invitation Policy After Student Left Out On Purpose

A mum says she was saddened to discover her son was the only child to not receive a party invitation from a fellow classmate recently. While she agrees the child has every right to invite who they want it was the process that upset her.

Sharing her story on an online parenting forum, the mum wrote: ‘Third grader excluded from 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’.”

Giving a bit of background to the friendship the mum says the two boys are actually friends.

“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.”

After initially wanting to tell the principal about it she decided against it thinking it may hurt her son even more.

“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.”

Commenters told the mum that perhaps the parents of M had no idea he had excluded her son. “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 said.

One parent even gave the mum a suggestion of what to write to M’s parents should she want to confront them: “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.”

“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,” chimed in another person.

“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,” suggested one commenter.

In a follow up post the mum gave an update on the situation explaining the change in invitation policy at the school. “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.”

Images: Pixabay