<p>Your son sounds like a great kid. I think how we react and teach our kids on difficult social situations will have an impact on them later on in life. They will need those skills in college and in business someday. Sometimes unspoken words are stronger than spoken ones.</p>
<p>I didn’t read all the posts so I apologize if someone mentioned this already. Years ago my neighbor’s son and my son were friends. When they got to 7th grade they pulled away from each other and into different groups. The mother continued to invite my son to group events at her house. My son continually declined the invitations. When I pressed him about it he let me know that her son’s group was involved in activities that he had no interest in. He basically told me “Mom, you don’t get it. You really don’t want me to be friends with those kids.”
What is often the popular group,at least around here, is involved with drugs and alcohol.
Lesson learned.At that age the kids need to choose all their own friends and activities. Parents don’t know the whole story.</p>
<p>Yes its hurtful, for your son and for you (I would so share your feelings on this and have had similar sorts of experiences). </p>
<p>But the reality is by this age, you need to I think now is the time to disentangle your adult friendships and feelings about parents, with your children’s friendships. There will be parents you like whose kids should not or will not hang with your kids; there will be some great friends for your kids whose parents you can’t possibly stand. </p>
<p>I would absolutely leave a party list up to my kids. I might try to advise and push compassion, but forcing a kid to be an invitee seems inappropriate. The mother in this case is not responsible and it is important to see the mother and this son as separate on the ‘social’ front now (and your relationship with the mother should not be impacted by her son’s relationship to your son).</p>
<p>I’m in with the in crowd. Hmmm .Vicarious social climbing. lol. Not for me. I much preferred living through my D’s sports accomplishments. The nerve of some parents. 
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<p>OP. It happens. Kids do separate from their childhood friendships about this age. IMO girls sooner than boys. As others have suggested - sometimes/often those “separating” factors can include dangerous (or at least age inappropriate) behavior. Hmmm. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be left behind at times. </p>
<p>My D felt excluded from the popular crowd around this age. It helped immensely that she saw a note referencing that the “popolar” kids would now be sitting at a different lunch table. She still chuckles whenever she sees the author. </p>
<p>Just don’t make the mistake of allowing your son to interpret your feelings as an indictment of his social standing or worse yet, his worth. </p>
<p>That would sting.
This will pass.</p>
<p>As my youngest starts middle school, I repeat to myself over and over “let it go . . . let it go . . .” This is the fifth time – I’m too tired for all the drama anymore!</p>
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And yes, I agree, for myself as well as my kids, that’s a good way to think of some situations.</p>
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<p>Same here.</p>
<p>I totally agree that kids are entitled to choose their own friends and that as many have posted here parents, hard as it is, sometimes need to separate that out from their own friendships. But in this case, I get the distinct impression that the boys really do get along and like each other when it is just the two of them -it sounds like they still hang out in the neighborhood and the other boy even admitted to feeling pressure from his friends not to invite the OP’s son. While I would not have confronted the other mother on the OP’s side of things, in light of the above and the history between the families, if I were aware of the situation I would have had a thing or two to say about it to the neighbor’s kid if I were his mom. </p>
<p>I also think it’s important to teach kids that although others have a right and can choose to act in a certain way, we don’t have to.</p>
<p>I went to middle school at a small private school with a blanket rule: the whole class must be invited to all parties. The class was just under 60 kids. They didn’t attempt to stop kids from having sleepovers with just three or four close friends, but if it was a big party, you had to invite everyone, period. And that’s what the families did.</p>
<p>Needless to say, this didn’t make middle school pleasant or fun, but it reduced the opportunities for exclusion greatly. I transferred to that school the year the bar/bat mitzvahs began, and there’s no way I would have been invited to most of them absent that rule. Those hard years would have been even harder if I had been the only one (or on a short list of students) not invited.</p>
<p>If you’re wondering how the parents afforded to host 60 kids at every occasion, well, at that school, it wasn’t much of a concern.</p>
<p>07Dad, you make it sound like moms have an exclusive monopoly on ugly behavior:
Some of the worst parent behavior I have seen on the playing fields of America by dads and their would-be athlete sons. The bullying, the tearing other kids down to prop up your own kid, some DADS seem to forget that it’s supposed to actually be the KID playing the sport. Also, I have seen dads get involved in Little League team selection, to the point of watching LL games of other teams for years to recruit “athletes” from other teams by befriending the dads. I could tell you stories…
I hope you were joking, curmudgeon?</p>
<p>But yeah, we have been on both sides of this issue, and it is not easy no matter if your kid is the ‘shunner’ or ‘shunnee’. If your kid absolutely, positively wants ‘these kids and only these kids’ at her party, you feel for the kids who won’t be invited (and their moms, who might be your friends!), and if your kid is ‘the only one’ not invited to something it brings out the primal worst in you. It is worse than if you, the parent, aren’t invited to something.</p>
<p>Of course, curmudgeon was joking. Check out some of his other posts. Curm is one of the wisest and funniest guys on CC. </p>
<p>signed,
Curmudgeon-fan</p>
<p>PS Curm - I wonder if they could revive your long multi-part thread of your drive back to Rhodes last year, or was it the year before? The lids falling down the stairs was priceless!</p>
<p>AnudduhMom–I guess you missed this part of my post:</p>
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<p>“Parents behaving badly” has participants of both sexes.</p>
<p>I think one of my favorite examples of parental good bahavior came in an exchange between two moms of HS senior boys at my S’s private school who also had a 16 year old daughter at the private girls school. Senior year Spring Break is a “big deal” at the boys’ school for a lot of parents. The arguable “in trip” is to Atlantis. </p>
<p>I was privy to one mom saying to another mom: “Do the ______ (the other mom’s last name) have their reservations yet to Atlantis? You know it is a chance for these dads to show the boys how to drink responsibly since they are all going to drink in college!” To which the other mom replied, “not yet” and continued “I was thinking that since the girls are now 16, we might see if we could get them [euphemism for having sex] on the trip since the “first time” is so messy but they are going to be having sex in college anyway.”</p>
<p>The first mom’s mouth dropped open and the second mom said “actually, I don’t think we will be going to Atlantis–we’re not giving up on the idea that drinking underage is illegal and can be dangerous.”</p>
<p>While I agree that a teenager gets to choose his own friends, it seems to me that when a kid is throwing a party, and drafts the guest list, a parent should ask, “Are you forgetting anybody whose feelings might be hurt if they aren’t invited?” This may lead to a valuable teaching moment, even if you don’t make your kid add to the list.</p>
<p>Well, I am in that situation now with D2. I was just informed yesterday that she would like to have a sweet 16 (something similar to her older sister’s party), except her birthday is in 2 months not in a year. She told me she’s already has the guest list, 50-70 kids. I did go over the list with her, added 3 more girls to the list because she’s known them since kindergarten, and one of them is my girlfriend’s girl whom she had falling out with in 3rd grade. I figured with a party of that size, it’s hard not to invite some people when their friends are invited, kind of like a wedding. D2 understood and had no problem adding those extra girls.</p>
<p>Kudos to me - I secured a hotel, got a DJ,invitation, we have a theme, and a menu. All in one day.</p>
<p>07Dad, the conversation you overheard: was the speaker kidding?</p>
<p>07Dad - awesome story! Wouldn’t be grand to come up with responses like that so quickly on a regular basis!</p>
<p>07Dad, haha, I just sent your story to my boyfriend who went to the same school as your S, and his sisters went to the other “girl” school. </p>
<p>Just goes to show you having money doesn’t give somebody good sense.</p>
<p>Hunt:
</p>
<p>On the one hand this is a good idea, but on the other hand the reality is that you could never invite everyone whose feelings would be hurt if omitted. Not even close. Particularly in the age of Facebook and Myspace, party pictures are everywhere. </p>
<p>Who is to say that the friend from third grade will feel more left out than the fellow cheerleader who quietly accepts being at the periphery of the squad? How can we really know what is going on in people’s lives which would make them more prone to being especially hurt? We can’t know, and that is why being kind to everyone, while at the same time making authentic social choices (i.e. inviting who we really like) is the way to go. At the same time, we need to at least try to teach our kids some social resilience and acceptance.</p>
<p>It is difficult to strike a healthy balance between being kind to to others, and taking proper care of ourselves. We need to make sure we are teaching our kids both things. Being overly conserned with pleasing others is a very real problem in the adult population. Many adults have issues with not taking care of physical, mental, emotional, and financial health. Setting boundaries is a big part of self-care. </p>
<p>Often times much personal angst is created hyper focusing on pedestrian concerns between individuals, while much bigger human problems such as hunger or disease are ignored.</p>
<p>OK–Lots of interest in that story. </p>
<p>The mom who wanted to know if the other family had made reservations at Atlantis DID MEAN she thought it was a good idea to go to Atlantis for Spring Break and let the dad show the son how to drink “responsibily” since the drinking age limit was 18 at Atlantis. </p>
<p>The mom who was asked about going to Atlantis WAS “Zinging” the other mom by making the point that using the same logic the parents should help their daughter prepare for sex by getting “the first time” out of the way on a family trip since “the girls are going to do it in college anyhow.”</p>
<p>spideygirl–this particular mom was always very sharp on retorts. In middle school we had a meeting of the parents of the boys and girls from the two private schools. The parents of the girls started tearing into each other over how the girls dressed. The argument being some moms thought certain attire was “slutty” vs. some saw it as “fashionable.”</p>
<p>I asked this same mom with both a boy and a girl for her take on the issue. Her reply was when you have both a boy and a girl, your focus is on getting both of them to keep their clothes on.</p>
<p>LOL - I would like this mom!</p>