Teacher explains why children should never hand out party invitations in class
8 October 2021, 14:53
The woman's explanation of how being shunned from a birthday party can affect a child's confidence is a huge eye-opener.
Any parent will tell you that while organising a child's birthday party can be fun, it can also end up being extremely stressful, especially when you take into consideration the social politics of it all.
If you only invite a certain number of kids from your child's class you run the risk of upsetting the others, however, if you invite them all you could be making the event much more expensive, depending on what you're doing.
This is why some schools have adopted a policy which means that children cannot hand out party invitations amongst the class unless everyone is invited.
Which brings us to a recent debate sparked on TikTok by one parent who was upset that she was being told to invite all 27 students to her child's party.
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Speaking in a video posted on the social media app, she explained that her child had only bought in six invites for specific people.
While a lot of parents agreed with the mum that it was an unreasonable request, a teacher got involved, commenting: "I'm a teacher, and I've watched kids be devastated they were left out. Just don't pass them out in class…simple."
In fact, the teacher – who goes by the name @sydneyyythekydneyyy on Tik Tok – shared her own video explaining why it is so important birthday party invites are not handed out in class.
She told people in the video that while she does not think all children in a class should always be invited, the invitations to the parties should never be handed out in class.
Sydney replied to one comment in particular, which stated: "That's not the parents' problem."
She replied: "A lot of these people are just projecting onto the kids.
"They're acting like these kids think the world is sunshine and roses, and everything revolves around them."
Sydney went on: "Newsflash: My kids know life isn't fair.
"You know how I know that? I have students who live in cars. I have students who have dead parents. I have students who don't know where their next meal is coming from.
"A lot of times, it's the students with the hard home lives who have trouble socialising and making friends aren't invited to the birthday."
She said that in her class she does not let invitations be "the reminder that they didn't win the popularity contest this year".
"Do that…on your own time and leave it out of the classroom", the educator said.
People were a lot more supportive of this video, with many people agreeing that the simple act of not handing out invitations in class could make a big difference.
One person commented: "It would be considered bad taste to discuss your party in front of people who aren't invited as an adult. Why would it be OK for children?"
Another added: "If you only want to invite a few kids, you find out their parents' names and numbers and invite them off-campus. It's rude not to invite the class."
