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Recently, my 9-year-old daughter had a slumber party for her birthday. It was difficult because her school, which is an all-girl school, requires that everyone or no one receive an invitation to the party at school. We didn’t want everyone to attend because it would have been too many children overnight, i.e. around 25 kids. She decided to invite 10 of her girl friends, and the invitations were sent to the kids’ homes. Unfortunately, word got out, and my daughter was miserable because many people felt hurt that they weren’t invited. It became a very secretive party that cost her several friends in the class. Is there a better way to handling invitations when only some of the kids in the class will be invited? This has been a disaster for our kid at school
It does sound very difficult. Often, schools have this policy in place in order for these awkward situations of hurt feelings not to arise. At the age of nine-years-old, it becomes very difficult, however. Kids are into each other’s business, and talk a lot among one another. A special slumber party where only certain people have been invited would be good school gossip. Unfortunately, keeping the invitations out of the classroom does not help, and actually made the situation worse.
You have done what you could do to avoid the situation. Within your party plan, you invited the number of kids you could handle for the overnight gathering. From there, you sent the invitations to kids’ homes and avoided the school scene. Still, with this age, the kids will talk. If your daughter is close to everyone in the class, than, of course, there will be hurt feelings. Even if she isn’t, a special overnight party would have everyone looking for the special invite.
Hopefully, your kid will reconcile with the others in the class. The one way to avoid such a painful scenario is to invite all of the girls or all of the boys in the class if you have a son. Of course, you must be able to accommodate the number with your space and budget, and this is an important consideration before deciding on your invitation list.
Here’s to getting through these painful times!
