A mum has admitted she's been left feeling sad after revealing her daughter never gets invited to children's birthday parties.
The mum explained that while her eight-year-old used to get invited to parties all the time, she's recently started feeling left out due to a lack of invites.
Heartbroken, the mum took to Reddit for advice.
"My daughter is a very vibrant, friendly 8 year old, but she rarely gets invited to birthday parties from school mates," she wrote.
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"When she was in kindergarten, she was invited to parties all the time. Now it’s not so much. Is this normal?
"Sometimes she finds out kids she thought she was friends with had a party, but they didn’t invite her. Understandably this makes her very sad.
"We just found out today that a family friend is having a birthday party for their son, and they invited a mutual family friend but not us.
"We literally walk to school every morning with this family. Normally I can brush this stuff off, but not when it makes my daughter sad.
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"How can I comfort her in these situations? Especially if I’m upset about being excluded too?"
Many other Redditors took to the comments to offer advice to the mum.
Some said that it was normal for the invites to become fewer as they get older.
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One wrote: "In my experience, as they age up, they receive fewer invites.
"My daughter used to have an invite every other weekend, but now it's maybe 4-5 times a year. I definitely think it's to do with kids having smaller/more expensive parties as they get older."
While another said: "I stopped the whole class parties and focused on smaller celebrations of either just a handful of kids or a special experience for myself & child."
And a third added: "Birthday parties aren’t as big as they used to be. People have parties and there’s a lot of no shows no a days so people resort to memory gifts (zoo, vacation, etc)."
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Others said it was important for the mum to teach her child she won't always be invited to everything.
"Do you throw your daughter a birthday party every year?" Asked one.
"Who does she invite? Who shows up to the party? Does she get invited to playdates often, does she invite children to playdates as well?
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"That’s hard but I also think it’s important to teach your child that they won’t get invited to everything."
What would you do in this situation?
Lucy Devine