Not one classmate shows for six year old's birthday party

[Pea-n-Me]

But instead, the local Sheriff's Dept, the local Fire Dept, and a bunch of other kids came!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ratti-revealed-none-classmates-turned-up.html

 

[phamton]

Wonderful story but the picture with Barney was not at Disney World but at Universal Studios. ETA, just noticed that both pictures are at Universal Studios, none are from Disney World.

 

[Ceila]

I saw that on Yahoo. The locals who made it a great day for him are awesome people.

What I didn't like in the comments of the article, though, was the bashing of the parents of his classmates, calling them cruel. I absolutely agree that it is totally rude to not RSVP, but I think it's been well established here that that happens frequently for kids' birthday parties. I know I didn't know every child in my kids' classes, so I don't necessarily think that they intentionally ditched it. My guess is that he isn't really close to those kids, so the other parents didn't feel the same pull to make sure their child attended that they would for someone their child spends a lot of time with. I know that there are often so many activities going on on weekends that parents often can't say yes to every invitation, especially if it's from a classmate that their child isn't close to. Not that that excuses them from not RSVPing, but I doubt that had anything to do with him having autism. Unfortunately, that's just how people act nowadays.

As someone who works with kids with autism on a daily basis, both in regular ed classes as well as pull-out classes, I know that one area where they need a LOT of guidance is in social skills. I don't know if the boy's mom contacted other parents ahead of time, but it seems like she just sent invitations to everyone in his class. The reality is that kids with autism often have a hard time relating to their peers, and that kind of blanket invite isn't, IMO, the best way to help him foster relationships. She would do better, I think, to try to cultivate some friendships with a few kids, and really focus on helping her son develop those relationships.

I also think that, since she didn't hear from any of the kids that they were coming, I don't think it was a good idea for her to just cross her fingers that a few would show and get the little boy's hopes up.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

It is a nice story that the community came together to help him celebrate.

 

[disykat]

I agree that it's a heartwarming story that people wanted to support the boy, but agree with Celia. This story has been irritating me all week with the parent bashing.

Just because you are invited to a party doesn't mean you have to attend. I admit to pretty much ignoring the "whole class" invitations and sticking to the ones where I knew the parents or my child was particularly fond of the birthday child. If my child had never played with the child outside of school, they didn't go.

If an invitation was addressed to my child by name and had RSVP information, we did so. If my child had an invitation without his name on it that he was just randomly handed, we ignored it. Many times they said things like "a kid handed me this on the bus."

IMO, birthday celebrations should be with people who know the child well and love him/her. If that means family, fine. If that means just neighborhood kids, fine. If that means a few people from church or a social group, fine. If that means special friends from school, scouts, or daycare, fine. But I simply don't get the "invite the class" thing.

I don't think this really was about the boy's autism spectrum diagnosis. It happens to anyone who does the generic whole class invite.

 

[EMom]

I agree that it's a heartwarming story that people wanted to support the boy, but agree with Celia. This story has been irritating me all week with the parent bashing.

Just because you are invited to a party doesn't mean you have to attend. I admit to pretty much ignoring the "whole class" invitations and sticking to the ones where I knew the parents or my child was particularly fond of the birthday child. If my child had never played with the child outside of school, they didn't go.

If an invitation was addressed to my child by name and had RSVP information, we did so. If my child had an invitation without his name on it that he was just randomly handed, we ignored it. Many times they said things like "a kid handed me this on the bus."

IMO, birthday celebrations should be with people who know the child well and love him/her. If that means family, fine. If that means just neighborhood kids, fine. If that means a few people from church or a social group, fine. If that means special friends from school, scouts, or daycare, fine. But I simply don't get the "invite the class" thing.

I don't think this really was about the boy's autism spectrum diagnosis. It happens to anyone who does the generic whole class invite.

For years, we invited the entire class because my DD is an only child who is very social and she WANTED the entire class there, starting in preschool. If we'd have had a family only party, it would have been the three of us, a grandmother and one middle aged uncle. Woo hoo. We invited the entire class, plus a few friends from outside and she usually had 80-90% show up because she liked the kids and the kids liked her....plus, it was a fun party. Some people are just more social than others.

The problem with the little boy in the story is that people failed to RSVP and there is no excuse for that. Had they RSVPd "no," the birthday boy's mom would have had a heads up as to what was coming.

 

[ronandannette]

For years, we invited the entire class because my DD is an only child who is very social and she WANTED the entire class there, starting in preschool. If we'd have had a family only party, it would have been the three of us, a grandmother and one middle aged uncle. Woo hoo. We invited the entire class, plus a few friends from outside and she usually had 80-90% show up because she liked the kids and the kids liked her....plus, it was a fun party. Some people are just more social than others.

The problem with the little boy in the story is that people failed to RSVP and there is no excuse for that. Had they RSVPd "no," the birthday boy's mom would have had a heads up as to what was coming.

My DS was similar - he never liked leaving anyone out so for most of elementary school we invited the whole class (always at the very least all the boys). Some kids came and some didn't but I don't know of anybody who simply disregarded the invitation because they knew everyone else had also been invited (as one PP implied they would do). I also don't see anywhere in the article where it says what kind of invitation the boy sent. There's no reason to assume they weren't normal party invitations given to each classmate with contact information and and RSVP request. I actually DO find it very, very odd that out of 16 kids not a single one attended or even bothered to reply. My DS wanted to go to practically every birthday party he was invited to - he loved them and I think lots of other kids are like that too.

 

[Bluestars]

That's a neat story. I am glad people in her town went out of the way to make his birthday special. Whenever my kids were invited to parties, they always attended them unless we were out of town. Even if they weren't best friends with the birthday child, I knew it would be important to the birthday child to have kids attend.

 

[WendyLou]

touching story....glad it worked out and will be a party he will always remember.

 

[sam_gordon]

The problem with the little boy in the story is that people failed to RSVP and there is no excuse for that. Had they RSVPd "no," the birthday boy's mom would have had a heads up as to what was coming.

No, the boy's mom DID have a "heads up" on what was happening... no one RSVP'd. I have three kids and have gone through probably 2 dozen or more birthday parties. I don't think we've ever (ok, maybe once) had someone say "sorry, we're not going to make it". I don't count on someone showing up unless they say they're showing up. Maybe the use of RSVP's depends on the region (respond yes or no vs. respond yes only)?

 

[melissakrichards]

This is the town I live in! Neat that it's making the news everywhere. We're about 20 min from WDW. It's very common down here for kids not to show up at birthday parties. When she shared it the morning of on our local FB page tons of other parents said the same thing happened to them.....no one showing up after being invited. Luckily I've never expierenced that with any of my 3 but I imagine it would be a horrible feeling. I think the mom said that the teacher didn't hand out the invites but I've heard and read so much I can't remember if the mom said that or someone else did.

We do have a great bunch of police and firefighters/emt's.

 

[kirstenb1]

Totally agree Bluestars! I find it hard to understand that all 16 kids had prior plans. I guess we're that nerdy family that tries to think about what if very few or no kids showed up? Unless we're out of town, both our kids have always goes to parties. The irony is our younger dd is mildly autistic, and now that she's 9, all the kids are getting very socially aware, so she doesn't get too many invites anymore. At that age, girls love sleepovers with just a few friends. Anyway, I do try to help her have a social life.

 

[sam_gordon]

Totally agree Bluestars! I find it hard to understand that all 16 kids had prior plans. I guess we're that nerdy family that tries to think about what if very few or no kids showed up? Unless we're out of town, both our kids have always goes to parties. The irony is our younger dd is mildly autistic, and now that she's 9, all the kids are getting very socially aware, so she doesn't get too many invites anymore. At that age, girls love sleepovers with just a few friends. Anyway, I do try to help her have a social life.

It's possible not EVERYONE had prior plans. But let's say 8 kids (or their families which is very possible if they have older siblings) had prior plans. The rest of them just didn't consider the birthday boy "friends".

 

[melissakrichards]

Like I said, when the mom put her initial complaint on a local FB group, lots of other parents said that the same thing had happened to them, it could just be the norm in that area of town. I live outside of town in an almost isolated community, we have a community school and almost everyone at the school lives in our community so we all sort of know each other. Also from the mom's first post on FB the party was on a Sunday, she posted it while my hubby and kids were at church so that could have been one of the reasons why no one showed up.

Also the mom was asked why she didn't follow up w/ any of the parents of the other kids and I think she said she didn't know any of them. I also would not let my kids go to a party if I didn't know the parents or family BUT when that's happened in the past (before we moved to this community) my child would make the birthday kid a nice card and take it to them at school.

As a parent it's important for me to be involved and meet the other parents in my child's class so that when parties happen I'm comfortable letting my kids go.

 

[scoutie]

I admit to pretty much ignoring the "whole class" invitations and sticking to the ones where I knew the parents or my child was particularly fond of the birthday child. If my child had never played with the child outside of school, they didn't go.

It's certainly fine to not attend a party but you understand why parents invite the whole class, right? We all remember parties where everybody was invited except one kid. Can you imagine being that one kid? The whole class rule is a kindness. My son's birthday party is tomorrow and we invited all the boys in his class. I wasn't going to leave one or two kids out because they're not as close to my son as the others.

 

[Bluestars]

Like I said, when the mom put her initial complaint on a local FB group, lots of other parents said that the same thing had happened to them, it could just be the norm in that area of town. I live outside of town in an almost isolated community, we have a community school and almost everyone at the school lives in our community so we all sort of know each other. Also from the mom's first post on FB the party was on a Sunday, she posted it while my hubby and kids were at church so that could have been one of the reasons why no one showed up.

Also the mom was asked why she didn't follow up w/ any of the parents of the other kids and I think she said she didn't know any of them. I also would not let my kids go to a party if I didn't know the parents or family BUT when that's happened in the past (before we moved to this community) my child would make the birthday kid a nice card and take it to them at school.

As a parent it's important for me to be involved and meet the other parents in my child's class so that when parties happen I'm comfortable letting my kids go.

In all of the parties I have had for my kids or the ones they attended (unless it was a sleepover) some of the parents stayed for the party. It didn't matter if it was a party a someone's house or at a public location, there were always parents who stayed. If I didn't feel comfortable leaving my child at a party, such as a swim party when they were little, I would just stay for the party like many other parents did.

 

[tina.tina]

It's nice that the community did that for the kid. However, both of my children have had parties where lots of people show up and some where no one from school/scouts/etc showed up. I've only had 1 person ever call me to say she couldn't come. One of my DD's preschool classmates was the daughter of a girl who I worked with in a previous job/went to the same college with/and was a current co-worker of. She didn't even RSVP and her DD didn't attend. I was not annoyed. Everyone has their own lives. Thankfully, we have 8 kids in our extended family and are parties are very festive.

 

[limabeanmom2003]

We have been to at least two birthday parties,when my kids were little, where we were the ONLY ones who showed up. This was when my kids were in preschool and the whole class of 12 or so kids were invited and no one rsvp'd. I remember thinking thank goodness we came because the poor kid was expecting his classmates to be there. However, it's a bit awkward when it's me, my three year old and the birthday boy and his extended family (who I don't know).

 

[low-key]

being a kid that aint popular is so hard on the kid and the parents

 

[dismomtfj]

If you want a party where all the school kids participate, do something at school.