I’ve always known this moment would come.
To be fair, we have managed to dodge it for a long time, but it finally happened a few weeks back: my little boy wasn’t invited to a birthday party that all of his friends were going to.
It’s probably happened before, but he has never been aware of it. He was certainly aware of it this time though. Oh my gosh the tears 😭😭💔
I held it together but to be honest, I think I was more upset than he was. I wasn’t angry at the birthday girl’s parents or anything like that – I get it, parties are expensive and spaces are limited – I just hated seeing my son’s confidence take a knock like that.
What made it worse was that I already knew about the party, but I didn’t know that he did. So when he came out with it, I wasn’t prepared at all.
“All My Friends Are Going But Not Me”
To bring you up to speed, one of my son’s friends had a birthday party. Let’s call her Abigail. I knew my son had not been invited because one of the Mums I’m friendly with asked if we were going. Her son and my son are best friends.
So far, which parties are being attended by which kids hasn’t been a concern. My son has only been aware of the ones he is invited to. But his peer group are now at the age where they chat properly now, so word of the party had spread.
So anyway, I picked him up from school and he seemed quiet. He initially said nothing was wrong, but then opened up about what was bothering him.
He told me that Abigail’s birthday party was that weekend and said: “All of my friends are going but not me”. Then he quietly started sobbing in his car seat. It wasn’t a tantrum. It wasn’t frustration. It was pure devastation. He had never felt left out in this way before, and it really hurt him.
It broke me too. The poor kid just didn’t understand, and I couldn’t say anything to make him feel better about it either. Because the truth is, he had been left out. Not because Abigail didn’t like him, but nevertheless, his friends were going and he wasn’t.
How I Handled It
I’ve no idea if this was the ‘right’ thing to do, but here is how I handled it.
The first thing I did was get him into the front of the car with me so we could have a hug. I let him cry on me for a few minutes to get the emotion out, then I asked him how it had made him feel.
I wanted to see if he understood the feelings he was having, but I also wanted to give him a chance to explain rather than make assumptions about his feelings.
As it happens, he was feeling left out and confused. Abigail is one of his friends, and they hadn’t fallen out, so he didn’t understand why he wouldn’t be invited too. Plus, my lad isn’t exactly short of birthday party invitations. He is used to being invited to them, so being one of the kids without an invite for a change really challenged him.
I talked to him about how parties work, using his own as an example. I reminded him that it was expensive so we couldn’t invite everyone. We had to write an invite list. We had to decide who to invite and who not to invite. I reminded him of some of the parties he was invited to which were very small, where he got an invite and hardly anybody else did.
I was trying to make him understand that we can’t always be the one who goes to all of the parties, as well as show him that he is a popular kid who gets invited to more than most.
Then we made a plan to go to the arcades at Hollywood Bowl to cheer him up.
What I Found Out After
It wasn’t until the next week that I found out Abigail had a house party, so it was a relatively small number of kids who were invited. I also found out that not “all of his friends” were going. Three of them were. He’s friends with everyone in his class, but of his main group, three children had been invited.
To be fair, that still feels like all of them when you’re six.
I should also say that, although they had been to each other’s parties the year before, Abigail was not invited to my son’s 6th party a month earlier. Something else I pointed out to him which didn’t quite land at the time. “I just forgot”, he protested. He didn’t forget. I specifically suggested Abigail but he chose someone else instead. We had limited numbers too.
Of course, to my little boy it felt like a knife to the heart, but the reality is it’s just one of those things. And do you know what? I think it was probably good for him. Kids need resilience, and this is one of the ways they build it.
A day or so later he was totally over it. Happy. Playing. Laughing. Hasn’t mentioned it since.
I am clearly still thinking about it though, since I am writing this blog post! But it shows how these things are processed. For kids, it’s a moment of sadness quickly forgotten. For parents, it’s something that lingers – the first time your little baby got left out.
I had better get used to it though, because it’s unlikely to be the last time it happens.
Goodness being a Mum is difficult sometimes, isn’t it?