re: Would you reach out to your son’s friend’s parents after something like this?

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You really think you calling other parents to figure this out is conducive to helping your sons social issues? He’s going to get lambasted for his dad forcing an invite to a party.

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That’s fine. I get that. I’m just confused why we as a society can’t form communities where we know and respect each other enough to communicate. Let us know about it instead of pussyfooting around the issue.

We wouldn’t have dared to leave anyone out because we have an ounce of empathy. Apparently that’s laughable these days based on the majority of responses to this thread.

I won’t contact the dad. It apparently isn’t going to help nor is good for posturing, which seems to be more important that cultivating positive relationships for children as they grow up.

Glad to know my son can know where he stands. He’ll surely be happy to learn from this moment while his best friends go have a great time fostering their friendships.

Do not contact. Once you do it’ll be awkward forever and ever single invite you’ll never know if it was a “pity” invite or not

It could be a cost thing where they only allow X people per party and he made a hard choice

It could be an accidental oversight but they already booked

It could be some petty fight or something your son and friend got into

But either way, just leave it alone and keep going. Your friends “best” friends will happen naturally you can’t force it.

ETA: also you extending invites to “everyone” in the name of inclusion or to not let anyone feel left out is great, but you can’t just expect the same reciprocity or you will always set yourself up for failure. you control your events and parties, other control theirs

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When reading the OP does anyone else hear a violin playing in the background?

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Banjo

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How old are these kids anyway?

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11/12

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He’ll surely be happy to learn from this moment while his former best friends go have a great time fostering their friendships.

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Fify

Just talk to him about what friendship truly means and help him understand that these kids may not be the friends he thinks they are. Stop being so accommodating to those kids

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Good advice. Probably better that the one I was gonna post "Beat his arse".

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I don’t like people mistreating kids, but after a lifetime of trying to argue and convince others to do the right thing I recognize that I do not control anything but my words and actions.

Dad,

Is there something you and your son could do together during that party that would be even better than paintball? Figure out something great to do together. In fact, do it- and tell afterwards, “wish y’all could have gone, but I did not want to spring it on y’all at the last minute.”

Sounds like your wife is the one with the balls in that household. Ask her to borrow them for a few minutes while you have a man to man with your son.

Life isn’t fair and sometimes people are petty AF. Life lesson for your son. Be the bigger person in this situation.

Kids grow into and out of relationships. We’ve not invited kids before. Fact is that not everyone can be included in everything. My advice is to not call the parents. Your son needs to know that being excluded is going to happen for the rest of his life and he needs to understand how to deal with it. I’ve picked my son up from school on several Fridays where a group of kids are going home together and he feels left out and I just say look dude, you’re not going to always get invited to everything just like you don’t always invite everyone. You have to focus on the people who do invite you.