I’ve never heard of this. To what age children do these rules apply? As you indicate, enforcement of such a rule would be impossible. Furthermore, I think it’s a little overreaching for a school to dictate who your children can invite to their birthday party. Sheesh.
At my niece and nephew’s school (they’re six, too), they have those rules, too, but it only applies if you’re handing out the invitations at school.
That rang a bell, so I checked with my wife. Bingo – you can’t pick and choose when you’re handing them out in school. If you’re sending them outside of school, feel free to exclude all the weird kids you want.
Ah, ok. Fair enough, I guess. Perfectly acceptable for the school to regulate party planning on their time.
That’s what I came in here to post. WTF indeed. Were they unaware that this kid broke your kid’s arm? If so, they needed to have been told. Or were they aware and just didn’t give a shit? I’m voting for this choice and my response again is WTF?
That’s what I’ve always heard. I can’t imagine inviting an entire class of six-year-olds. That would require way too much supervision.
No matter how many kids are invited, at that age there is one thing I’d recommend. As they enter your home, each child gets either 10 mg of Diazepam, or 50 mg of Diphenhydramine. With a cup of juice to wash it down. If the arm breaker attends, give him a lil of each.
Yes, I have kids.
I thought the rule for kid’s parties was age of the kid plus one. So seven kids in this case (6 guests.) Any more than that and you have a mob, not a party.
The Firebug would take Option 4, if those were the choices. The little Romeo. 
OP, you’re gonna get a million answers. I can see both sides of the question, frankly.
My little brother is a sophomore and two of his close friends are on his sports team. They’re both seniors. They were wrestling early last summer and one of them injured the other - tore his ACL. They’re still best friends, even though the one kid has had a rough season (it’s 1/3 of the way through) because he’s rehabbing his knee.
Maybe you’re right to exclude him, but maybe they would grow to be good friends. Perhaps the parents don’t know - if the teachers didn’t tell them, they’d have no way of knowing. The kid apologized; accidents do happen.
My little brother was playing floor hockey, tripped over his own feet and a friend’s feet and smacked his head on the radiator at school. No concussion, but a big goose egg. I don’t think the other kid’s parents called my parents.
ETA: It seems like the non-parents are taking the arm breaking more seriously…
I, too, thought/think/will forever think that the parents should have contacted us. It was not the type of thing where my son’s arm was bumped and later we figured out it was broken. It was very clearly broken and I was shaken up enough that someone else had to drive us to the hospital. I thought about starting a thread asking whether or not I should call them but didn’t.
I honestly had myself convinced that they somehow missed either it happening or the fact that their son was involved and was sure I would get a call once school started again but that hasn’t happened. Since their son apologized, I am assuming they know.
Um, I wouldn’t assume their son knows. Their son very well could not have told his parents what happened.
First kid and you had him late in life, eh?
Bingo!
My WTF doesn’t really come from what parents should or shouldn’t do, it’s what human beings should and shouldn’t do - you don’t accidentally break someone else’s arm without apologizing, and since it was a young child who did the breaking, it was the parents who should have also apologized. It’s true I’m not a parent, but when you are, don’t you get to apologize for all kinds of things your kids do because you’re responsible for them?
I’m glad that the son apologized and hope with that he has a better understanding of how to be safer when playing. If I were the parent, I would have apologized, too, but I probably would have asked what I could do (if anything) and assured them that I had reinforced playground safety with my son. It sounds cliche, but it really does matter to me that a lesson is learned; i.e., a future accident is avoided, more than who apologizes for what.
It sounds alright to me. Just make sure the kids have a self-accusation meeting before the cake and ice cream!
Best wishes,
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I’ve never been party (heh heh) to the notion of inviting an entire class to a party of any kind. My mom would set a kid limit and I would have to pick my best friends (I might be able to wheedle her up one more). It helps, I guess, that my classes were pretty much always 25+ people and my circle of friends was usually small. And I never got a petting zoo. grr.
Anyway, I vote to keep it small, but then I vote against the petting zoo as well. Huge, total overkill unless it’s a major party (like 5, 10, or 13). Children of your son’s age should be allowed to make (relatively) weighty decisions like who to exclude from their own birthday celebrations.
But there is no guarantee that the parents know what happened. I didn’t tell my parents shit when I was growing up, and “I broke a kid’s arm” is something I definitely would not have told them.
Your kid is right. Exclude the two who he doesn’t want there. They’re young, but maybe it’ll give them a clue that their behavior has been unacceptable. Either way, they’ll get over it.