This article is featured in The Daily Telegraph and is republished with permission.
Parents are being told to use email, social media or Australia Post to invite their children’s school friends to birthday parties to avoid offending classmates who are not on the guest list.
They have been directed not to hand invitations out at school and to instead give them to classroom teachers for discreet distribution.
Children are commonly only allowed to hand out their invitations if all classmates are invited.
The rules are created by individual schools or classroom teachers and are in place at early learning centres and primary schools across the state, Catholic and independent sectors.
In communication with parents, one primary school encouraged them to “send birthday invitations via Australia Post or email” to avoid causing “anxiety with other students who are not invited”.
Another school advised parents not to, “distribute birthday invitations to the children, as it may be upsetting and confusing for those who miss out”.
A pre-school urged parents to give invitations directly to the parents of those invited with “as little fuss as possible”.
Another said invitations to private parties, “must be posted or emailed and not given out at school”, while many schools directed that teachers discreetly place invitations in students’ parent communication folders or bags.
Parents are also commonly advised to quietly hand invitations out before or after school.
A teacher who spoke to this masthead said while his school required teachers to discreetly hand out invitations to avoid offending those not invited, he didn’t “pander” to the directive.
“Kids need to learn that they won’t be invited to everything and, on the other end, they need to learn to be able to explain themselves if there is backlash,” he said of his decision to allow children themselves to hand out invitations only to those invited.
An early years teacher said she would put invitations into kids’ take-home folders but would also address the issue because they’d all hear about it anyway.
“I speak to the kids about how sometimes you are invited and sometimes you are not. I’ve talked to them about how parties are expensive, you are not best friends with everyone and part of life is missing out sometimes,” she said.
Psychologist and former teacher Dr Judith Locke said however schools handled distributing invitations, children would talk and learn whether they were included or not.
“I understand the impulse to protect students from being hurt by not being invited but I do think slowly they need to learn that you don’t normally get invited to everything and you do need to learn to cope with that fact,” Dr Locke said.
“Families can’t afford to invite every child in the class to a birthday party.”
Dr Locke called on parents to resist the urge to “get up in arms and contact the school and demand they’re invited”.
“Everyone’s got FOMO (fear of missing out),” she said.
“Talk about their disappointment, empathise with the child, but be matter of fact about it – you are saying it’s a normal thing that happens.”
Dr Locke also said if children were missing out on invitations it could be a good time to focus on a child’s social skills including how they played games and responded to losing.
“How is your child at home when they don’t win Monopoly?” she said.
Australian Psychological Society CEO Dr Zena Burgess said parents and caregivers had an important role to play in helping children who missed out to build resilience.
“It can also help to build their resilience by focusing on the friendships they do have and perhaps arranging an alternative playdate or special activity so they still feel valued and included,” she said.