Recently my six-year-old son came home from school and told me that he was sad because a girl in his class invited everyone to her birthday party except for him and another boy.
As soon as I heard this, I wanted to step in and deal with the situation, but first I had to internally fume with rage. How dare this parent send their child with invites for everyone in the class except for two kids? Who even does something like that? And if for some reason you didn’t want to invite everyone to the party, why not give out the invites in a less public manner? This would have saved two little boys from feeling left out.
I knew that my son would be looking to me for a reaction.
I was upset for my son, but I also knew that he would be looking to me for a reaction. So I asked him if he and the girl were close friends and if not then it probably didn’t matter that he wasn’t going to her party. After all, he was lucky enough to have friends who invited him to their parties - he’s been to a few just in the last couple of months.
And while this helped my son feel better, it likely didn’t answer the question it seemed he carried around within himself – why wasn’t he invited when the other children the girl wasn’t close to were?
This child is my 'number three', which means he’s had to be quite independent. And as he showed me, he was capable of fighting his own battles because the next day he came home and said that he asked the girl why she didn’t invite him and the other boy. She didn’t really have a reason, he said.
A few days later, as I was dropping my son at school the girl came over and handed him an invite to her party.
I was proud of my son. Without my involvement he had managed to sort the situation out himself.
I was proud of my son. Without my involvement he had managed to sort the situation out himself. And his response to receiving the invite was pretty perfect, too. After the girl left, my son turned to me and said, “we won’t be going to the party”. I nodded at him. Of course, I understood.
The whole incident showed me that if given the chance, children are capable of working out playground and friendship issues without parental involvement. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t situations where a parent must step in, but perhaps sometimes we are intervening too quickly without seeing how the situation progresses.
In hindsight, with my older two kids, especially my eldest, I was maybe a little quick to act. When she had some minor trouble at school I stepped in, often speaking to the teacher or the other parent to resolve the issue, which was often around some kind of friendship drama. However, I was keenly aware to not be the overbearing parent having witnessed how two close friends fell out because their children had a friendship issue in their primary school classroom.
And now that my eldest is a teenager, she is at pains to tell me she doesn’t want me dealing with her school problems – not unless she asks me to. And I respect that. She’s also aware that I am there when she needs me to get involved.
As any parent knows building resilience in children is important. are able to recover from setbacks quicker and they are more confident when dealing with any problems they face. But as , the single most common factor for children to become resilient is a committed relationship with a supportive parent or caregiver.
The single most common factor for children to become resilient is a committed relationship with a supportive parent or caregiver
Resilient children don’t develop on their own. Instead it’s up to adults to help them develop the confidence to deal with their own issues when they arise. And much of that confidence develops as a result of knowing that there will be someone in the background to catch them if they fall.
As for my son, I didn’t tell him how proud I was of him dealing with the party invite drama on his own. I wanted him to realise that what he did was nothing out of the ordinary. There will inevitably be other friendship issues he’ll come across as he gets older, and hopefully he can sort out these problems on his own too. But if he isn’t able to, or if I see that he’s faltering, I’ll be there to step up and support him whenever he needs.
In the meantime, I suggest if you don't want to invite the whole class to a party, give out the invites in a more private manner, please.
Saman Shad is a freelance writer.
