Are we teaching our kids to be too sensitive?

Krizzle4Rizzle

My Niece (who is 28) has a son in Kindergarten. His birthday party is this weekend. He wanted to invite all the boys in his class, accept one because said boy “cusses all the time”, and my great nephew is not a fan. He chose not to invite any of the girls in his class either, because they are girls. That’s kid logic for ya. My niece could not afford for him to invite the whole class anyways because they are having it at Chuck E Cheese and you pay per kid. She made homemade invitations and plan to put them discreetly in the kids homework folders since she volunteers at his school. The teacher did not allow her to do this because she didn’t want to hurt the kids feelings. This is somewhat understandable. I can understand her not wanting to deal with angry parents. What I can’t understand is my great nephew being chastised by his teacher for talking about his birthday party. This is his first party that isn’t just family. He is so excited.

My question is at what point do we teach our kids that’s ok, some things you will be invited to and some things you won’t. Are we protecting our kids so much that they are growing up too sensitive? What’s your opinion?

_noob_

I wish I could just invite certain family members to things without ticking off others.

People in general stink at this.

And don't get me started on the nightmare of being the "peacekeeper" as the groom of a wedding...

sunsnstatheart

Perhaps we are, but the birthday party invitation issue sure is a great learning experience about hurt feelings, group politics and social etiquette.

karenjoy

you ever been the parent of the ONE kid in the class not invited? I have, it is pretty horrible let me tell you and i am not one for making my kids soft, but he has ADHD and PSD and Mothers are quite often judgmental biatches and he is now 20 years old, with a good job and I am proud of him, but being the ONE kid that doesn't get invited? really? you would be OK with that if it was you? its OK if there are several others not going, you can explain that really easy, but the one?

corn63

Everybody gets a trophy because everybody wins.

BeachGingerOnTheRocks

Birthday party is a toughie. I've lived in communities where there was a 100% RSVP rate and if you gave it you knew the kid was coming. Now I live in a community where it's normally 50% acceptance, you give them to the opposite sex, but they don't come. Her school has the policy that the whole class gets them or nobody does.

You have to live with politics.

lovelyMYlovely

um... i dont really know how to react to this... lol.... i have 2 kids and i havent gotten to this stage yet.. but ill tell you what.. its stressing me out thinking of it... lol... i wouldnt invite the entire class except 1 boy though.. thats rude.. very mean.. i would make them pick 5 friends... lol.. or however many they have that are their best friends..

as a mother if my kids didnt want to invite 1 child when the entire boys in the class are going i would then say that its rude not to invite 1 boy out of them all... as a parent you need to teach your kids good manors. the only time i would not invite a classmate is if they physically hurt my child....

tomomatic

Yes, schools are too sensitive. Not too far from my house, some elementary school kid got suspended for pointing their finger like a gun and saying "bang bang."

I've had something similar happen at my daughter's school but it played out a little differently:

It was a pottery painting party and so we didn't want too many kids. My daughter had the invitations and wanted to give them out to her friends personally. The teacher confiscated the invitations because they were becoming too much of a distraction and asked her not to talk about the invitations. I came to school to confront the teacher and she explained to me that she wanted to spare the uninvited kid's feelings and quietly tuck invitations into the invited kid's take home folders but ran out of time that day.

More or less, it sounds like your niece's son had the same experience.

Edit: My daughter was only inviting about 6 people from her class and a few other kids from other class rooms.

BeachGingerOnTheRocks

um... i dont really know how to react to this... lol.... i have 2 kids and i havent gotten to this stage yet.. but ill tell you what.. its stressing me out thinking of it... lol... i wouldnt invite the entire class except 1 boy though.. thats rude.. very mean.. i would make them pick 5 friends... lol.. or however many they have that are their best friends..

as a mother if my kids didnt want to invite 1 child when the entire boys in the class are going i would then say that its rude not to invite 1 boy out of them all... as a parent you need to teach your kids good manors. the only time i would not invite a classmate is if they physically hurt my child....

Completely agree.

DavPul

Our kids? With the number of grown adults that whine about mean people on this site, i have no doubt that our kids are going to grow up to be totally unprepared to face life in the competitive world where everyone isn't their friend. I watch the kid's baseball games where every kid gets to bat every inning and they don't keep score. that ain't baseball. And no, not everyone gets to go to every party. It's up to the kid's own parents to explain life to them as opposed to forcing every parent of a 5 year old to have 30 kids from school at every single event.

perfectingpatti

I don't think it's appropriate to pass out invitations during school if you're not inviting everyone. Parents can do that outside of school. Not only to avoid hurt feelings, but drama, too. Kids can be mean and use things like parties to exclude others and then rub it in their faces. Sadly.

However, I think it's very important to teach children that there will be disappointments in life. It's imporant for them to learn these lessons while still young and living at home where they have parents to support and guide them through these things. Something as seemingly insignificant as not being invited to a birthday party when you're in the 1st grade can turn out to be a really big lesson in life.

Everyone on a winning team should get a trophy. Not everyone should get the MVP award. I don't like the idea of taking away things like the MVP award to avoid hurting others' feelings.

I think it's okay that every kid makes certain teams, but I don't think coaches should be forced into playing every kid on the team (competetive teams).

So, I think we can be sensitive to kids' feelings without making them too sensitive.

DontStopB_Leakin

Our kids? With the number of grown adults that whine about mean people on this site, i have no doubt that our kids are going to grow up to be totally unprepared to face life in the competitive world where everyone isn't their friend. I watch the kid's baseball games where every kid gets to bat every inning and they don't keep score. that ain't baseball. And no, not everyone gets to go to every party. It's up to the kid's own parents to explain life to them as opposed to forcing every parent of a 5 year old to have 30 kids from school at every single event.

This.

DontStopB_Leakin

I don't think it's appropriate to pass out invitations during school if you're not inviting everyone. Parents can do that outside of school. Not only to avoid hurt feelings, but drama, too. Kids can be mean and use things like parties to exclude others and then rub it in their faces. Sadly.

However, I think it's very important to teach children that there will be disappointments in life. It's imporant for them to learn these lessons while still young and living at home where they have parents to support and guide them through these things. Something as seemingly insignificant as not being invited to a birthday party when you're in the 1st grade can turn out to be a really big lesson in life.

Everyone on a winning team should get a trophy. Not everyone should get the MVP award. I don't like the idea of taking away things like the MVP award to avoid hurting others' feelings.

I think it's okay that every kid makes certain teams, but I don't think coaches should be forced into playing every kid on the team (competetive teams).

So, I think we can be sensitive to kids' feelings without making them too sensitive.

And also this.


I *never* handed out birthday invitations at school. Yes, people still got upset when they weren't invited, but my mother never allowed me to pass them out at school. It's not the appropriate venue.

MorgueBabe

Perhaps we are, but the birthday party invitation issue sure is a great learning experience about hurt feelings, group politics and social etiquette.

And maybe school isn't the proper place to give out the invites. No one likes being last picked or left out. I'm sure she could easily get parents numbers from a PTA list and just invite the ones that way or mail them.

If you don't know their address or phone number why are they getting an invite anyway?

WinnerVictorious

i think kids should learn that life isn't fair as soon as they are old enough to accept it.

that will spare them some grief later on.

5stringjeff

I *never* handed out birthday invitations at school. Yes, people still got upset when they weren't invited, but my mother never allowed me to pass them out at school. It's not the appropriate venue.

Word. We snail-mailed invitations out to the kids my son invited to his 7th birthday. No school rules, no hurt feelings, no angry phone calls.

jnichel

Everybody gets a trophy because everybody wins.

This. Number one problem in this world today. It makes losing acceptable. I'm not saying that losing is bad; losing is a part of life, but giving a kid a pat on the head for losing is sending the wrong message. No, losing isn't bad, but it isn't trophy worthy, and our kids should understand that *when* they lose at something, it's okay to feel bad about it....it's okay to not be happy with it...and for damn sure, it's okay to take the steps necessary to win the next time.

GorillaNJ

Well are we teaching our kids to be too sensitive is a whole other issue...

But the no handing out invitations in class is a rule in my kids school... and I like it. Why have the teachers deal with that crap, get the class list and send them out in the mail. And when I say crap I dont mean the actual handing out, but when some kid gets left out and cries about it...

Kids birthday parties are the worst thing in the world anyway.. especially Chucky Cheese!

jbutterflye

A good lesson to teach kids is to differentiate who they are from what they do. Who they are is always wonderful & loveable. What they do varies, but doesn't change who they are.

BamBam125

My Niece (who is 28) has a son in Kindergarten. His birthday party is this weekend. He wanted to invite all the boys in his class, accept one because said boy “cusses all the time”, and my great nephew is not a fan. He chose not to invite any of the girls in his class either, because they are girls. That’s kid logic for ya. My niece could not afford for him to invite the whole class anyways because they are having it at Chuck E Cheese and you pay per kid. She made homemade invitations and plan to put them discreetly in the kids homework folders since she volunteers at his school. The teacher did not allow her to do this because she didn’t want to hurt the kids feelings. This is somewhat understandable. I can understand her not wanting to deal with angry parents. What I can’t understand is my great nephew being chastised by his teacher for talking about his birthday party. This is his first party that isn’t just family. He is so excited.

1) I completely agree with the teacher. Invitations should not be passed out at school if some students are not invited. Even if all students are invited, I would caution against it. The invitation should really go to the parent of the child who can accept or decline on the child's behalf. (Plus in a public school some students do not celebrate birthdays because of religious reasons.)

2) I see two opportunities for students to learn life lessons here.

First the life lesson that not everyone wants you at the party (for the uninvited).

And second, that the party-planner needs to be more considerate of the non-invited. Anytime I had a party, my parents cautioned me to only talk about it to the invited guests and to be careful that others could not easily over hear. (Accidents happen so some overheard talk will happen, but it should be minimal.) They taught me that to talk about a party when non-invited people were around was rude. The teacher should not need to tell the kid this. The kids parents should have told the kid before the invites were even made. Even as an adult, I do not talk about parties in front of people who are not invited. (Unless it's a co-worker and the party was all family or something like that--as in "how was your weekend" chit chat. )