You’ve been doing this in nearly every post, and it’s bizarre to me that you don’t even see it. Or maybe you do, but you ignore the inconvenience. The thing is, you make some valid points, but they’re really easy to disregard when they’re surrounded by so much nonsense and empty hostility.

So, while I will admit that yes, I strongly worded my statements, I don't believe that based on the information we have, that it is entirely inaccurate. As far as I am concerned, that teacher is a tool and a harpy.

I'm not worked up over this, personally. I'd be hard pressed to get "worked up" over much. I have fun with stuff until it bores me. I just find it strange how people are quick to defend the two uninvited guests when we have no word on how they even feel about it, and do know that they are not friends of this child. While I also think that the dad would have done better to rip the teacher and school administration a new one, that he is suddenly a jerk for defending his kid who had property stolen from him at the highest level he can is pretty crazy to me. After all, people defend parents who go to stupid lengths for far more frivolous things. And, for all we know, that is the only way to handle it in Sweden. I am not up on Swedish law.

Anyhow, I've been pretty bored with this post for a long time, so I'm done.

I've enjoyed watching you and c-dub get yourselves all twisted up over this, and while I don’t really agree with either of you, at least he stuck to the facts of the article. I’m not sure why you’re so bent out of shape about the teacher anyway, since they were doing their job according to school policy. (Sure, you can dispute the policy, but I wouldn’t expect a teacher to violate it on something as small as this, even if they didn’t agree with it.) Hurling absurd insults around like "harpy" and "tool" without any evidence either way just makes you come across like a lunatic.

The teacher confiscated the invitations, which strongly implies, though I did say we don't know for sure, that she did not give them back. Either way, though, that's worse than the snub.

So yeah, I'll take the last word. The teacher was wrong. There is never tact in confiscation and making two left out kids an issue. I have made it clear if something is unknown. Do you know if the two kids who were snubbed were actually, you know, bothered? Uhm...no. The teacher decided that they were according to our information.

Is it okay to shoot a mosquito with an elephant gun as this teacher did with heavy handed, power tripping behavior? The disregard she showed this kid was worse than anything the snubbed kids might have felt and far more damaging, as snubbing two people that aren't your friends to begin with is hardly damaging. Did he get his invitations back after class? Probably not, though we can't say either way.

So this kid is left with no invitations for his friends, an adult humiliating him and dressing him down rather than tactfully explaining what was wrong with what he did, and half the internet and all of Swedish Parliament debating the issue. Yeah, I think that's a bit worse than being snubbed.

As for the dad, I wouldn't have gone to Parliament with it, but I would have raised unholy hell at the school.

The kid was planning a party and he was excited to invite his friends. I'm sure he wasn't out to "openly disregard the emotions of other people", which is a phrase that smells so badly of PC it hurts to type. And we don't even know if the other two kids cared anyway.

This is a job for the United Nations!

If you honestly don’t think that it’s rude for a kid to walk around a classroom passing out party invitations only to exclude two of the kids, well, I think you’re suffering from an acute lack of empathy. Yes, it’s the slighted kid’s choice to feel bad, but all of us have a choice in how we react to any insult: that never absolves the person doing the insulting. (And thank you for the detailed description of all the possible “disruptions,” but none of my comments have been based on the idea of anyone disrupting anything, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at. I don’t think that passing out invitations, or gathering them back up again, is much of a disruption either way.)

I agree that kids slight each other all the time, and it’s nothing to get all that worked up about (my complaint is really with the father) but I do absolutely think it should be dealt with if it’s done openly. Any kid who sees their teacher ignore an open insult in the classroom would have to think, “Huh, I guess that’s a fine way to act, the teacher sat right there and watched it and didn’t say a thing.” I don’t think the teacher just had a right, I think they had an obligation to deal with it: an obligation that extends to the kid with the invitations as well as the kids that were passed over. Ignoring crass behavior is not a character-builder, as you seem to think.

At the same time I don’t think the kid’s behavior is worth getting worked up over, I don’t think a teacher gathering up invitations is worth getting worked up over either – certainly not to the point where I’d start calling anyone a “rabid harpy” or a “tool” or accuse them of stealing the invitations, or of acting like a “spoiled child.” Yow. The article simply states that the teacher took the invitations, so it seems fair to say that you’ve got the same inclination for hysterical overreaction as the father of this kid.

And finally, I agree that kids shouldn’t make the team or star in the play if they aren’t good enough – and they shouldn’t get the idea that treating their peers poorly will get them invited to parties, either. Fair enough. But by the very same token, they shouldn’t be given the idea that openly disregarding the emotions of other people is acceptable.

The teacher acted inappropriately. She did not pay for the invitations or put work into them as this kid and his parents did, so she basically stole them. She humiliated rather than act in a way that might have taught the boy to be more tactful, but since teacher had no clue what tact really is, this happened. He was in no way obligated to invite those two kids, so why is the teacher punishing him so harshly by confiscating the invitations? The idea that it was such a disruption doesn't hold water. Were it just a matter of disrupting class, the teacher could have easily gotten the point across minus the drama, which was probably a bigger disruption than his handing out the invitations was in the first place. Had he invited the whole class, the invitations would not have been a disruption, but now that the parents are involved, it's convenient to call his handing out invitations a disruption, isn't it?

Coming down on a child like some rabid harpy and taking his things is not deserved, and actually a bit cruel. It's one thing to allow a child to go through the little heartbreaks and humiliations that come along with childhood. Everyone's been slighted at one point or another. Everyone has done the slighting at one point or another too. That's normal, natural, and not really a big deal. Again, I'm sure that the uninvited kids will live.

Talking to someone about a behavior they feel is inappropriate when the child was acting innocently is not coddling. The teacher could have done this, but instead chose to be a tool.

The logic you are claiming is mine is conveniently and wrongly twisted. Children shouldn't make the team if they can't hit the ball and it sucks. Children shouldn't be coddled and told that they can all be Snow White. Children should learn that treating their peers like crap won't get them invited to the party. However, an adult has no business acting like a spoiled child and should know better than to call someone out the way she did this kid.

No, I don't necessarily expect the kid to think of that. That's why there's a teacher in the room: to teach those exact lessons (which is what the teacher did).

@Evilbeagle:

If a teacher sees a kid mistreating another kid, it’s appropriate for him/her to act directly, and not mince around – and if that means the whole class sees it, all the better: if they saw the slight, they should see the consequences so they understand the cause and the effect – and don’t just assume that the teacher condoned the behavior. And anyway, by your logic, the teacher isn’t a tool: the kid should have been publicly humiliated. I mean, why would you want to protect a child from humiliation? The sooner he’s humiliated, the sooner he’ll learn to deal with it. You don’t want him to grow up all coddled and soft, do you?

He's a kid, do you really expect him to think in those ways?

It's easy to sit here as youths and adults and think that it would be obvious that the kid should take these things in concern, but frankly young children aren't developed enough to do so. He probably didn't think it was either rude or polite.

Right, exactly: he didn’t have to invite everyone, if he did it privately. That is to say, he didn’t HAVE TO invite everyone. Several people keep asked, “What’s wrong with not inviting everyone?” Nothing! Just do it in a reasonably polite way! Seriously, it’s not that complicated.

And while I very strongly agree that we shouldn’t be overprotective of our children – that does seem to be an increasing problem here in the US and perhaps other places – I don’t think that means condoning blatant rudeness when we see it. The flipside of your argument (that we should let kids be exposed to difficult situations so they learn how to deal with them) is that it teaches other kids that acting like jerks is acceptable. There are plenty of injustices available to kids; we don’t need to actively condone the ones that occur under our watch. They are children, after all: it’s our obligation to protect them, just as it’s our obligation to tell them when they’ve screwed up.

@Evilbeagle:

I’m sorry, but it is rude for a kid to walk around an entire classroom passing out invitations, and skip two kids. If you don’t see that, then any argument about social engagement or empathy will be lost on you. But I do agree with your second point: the father’s reaction actually is a valid argument against PC extremism – but simple courtesy is not.

Did it occur to you that this PC idiocy is why the father got fed up and took the issue to the government? Is it extreme? Sure. I would have just dealt with it through a conference with the teacher. However, this coddling and making everyone feel special trend is producing a bunch of soft people that are kept in a bubble until the big bad world drives them to file frivolous lawsuits because someone distressed them.

Yes, the school policy was that if you're going to invite people to your birthday party (while you're on school grounds) you have to invite your entire class, or just the boys if it's a boys party and likewise for girls. Had he done it in private that would have been another matter.

In my mind the policy is idiotic, it's all part of this PC culture which's main concern is to protect the young. Hogwash, they need to learn at an early age what disappointment means otherwise they won't be able to tackle it in adult life.

I understood Babymech's point, but perhaps you missed mine: I don't think the father should have taken the issue ANYWHERE beyond the walls of his own house. This is not an issue to take to the government. His son made the mistake, so he should deal with this son. And I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand, but NO ONE IS SAYING THE KID HAS TO INVITE EVERYONE. They're saying that if he wants to exclude a couple of kids, that’s fine, just don't pass out the invitations in class.

I don't know if it was the kid's responsibility to avoid the snub (he is eight, after all) or the father's (he may not have know about it) but it was ultimately left to the teacher to control behavior in his/her classroom. I'm kind of amazed that you think there's something wrong with correcting rude behavior in a classroom. Teaching our kids how to be polite is the opposite of "keeping them in a bubble," it's teaching them how to engage in society, which is one of fundamental reasons we send them to school in the first place. And if you don't think we should teach our kids not to be rude just because the world is rude, well, ask yourself why the world is rude.

And your lazy PC argument is worn out. If you want to end up with a bunch of whimpering weaklings, have their parents complain to the government every time they feel like their kids have been slighted. It wasn't the kids who didn't get the invitations who caused the ruckus, after all.

It seems that the people outraged by this and insisting that it should be all or none invited are bitter that they didn't get an invitation to something at some point and are still angry, or are of the kind who think the losing team deserves a trophy too and that there should be 25 Snow Whites. That's not how life works.

Besides, even if he had mailed the invitations, after the party, the two kids that weren't invited would feel snubbed anyway because the other kids would be talking about it.

As for the kid...well boo-hoo, so two of his classmates didn't get invited, one of whom snubbed the kid in the first place. Would it have been more tactful to not snub them in public? Sure. That doesn't make it the kid's responsibility to avoid it, nor the teacher's to prevent it. Why keep these kids in a bubble? One day, they'll have to learn that that's just how life is; the sooner, the better. Try and 'protect' them, and you're just going to end up with a generation of whimpering weaklings.

If a friend cares about your birthday, they'll let you know and to hell with anyone who didn't. Either that or stop thinking that just because you were born means you're so goddamn special (you little snot-nosed brat).