My child’s friends keep making plans without them
By the Life Scenario team · Updated · For parents of children 8–14 · Friendship and being left out
Responding to exclusion with clarity and dignity
Repeatedly discovering that friends have made plans without them can leave children unsure whether to speak up or withdraw. Adults can help them distinguish a one-off oversight from a persistent pattern.
What is your child learning?
This situation creates opportunities to practise self-awareness, kindness, resilience and assertive communication. Listen for whether your child can ask to be included without pleading or getting back at anyone.
How parents and educators can support the learning
Practise asking one friend privately and calmly whether they can join next time. If exclusion repeats, help the child seek other connections and involve school staff when it becomes targeted.
Try asking:
- Has this happened once or many times?
- What facts do you know and what are you assuming?
- How could you ask without accusing?
- Who else could you spend time with?
What your child could say
Example replies, written for this page. They are not scored answers and not answers from real children.
- Ages 8–9
- “Can I come to the movies too?”
- Ages 10–11
- “I heard you’re going to the movies Saturday. Can I come?”
- Ages 12–14
- “Saw you’re doing the movies Saturday. Room for one more?”
Your child asks one friend, face to face, before the outing happens. The friend knows your child has heard about the plan, and nobody has been accused of leaving them out.
- Ages 8–9
- “I felt sad when you went without me.”
- Ages 10–11
- “It’s happened a few times now. Is something up with us?”
- Ages 12–14
- “Not trying to make it weird, but I keep finding out after. Did I do something?”
Save this for when it has happened several times. Asked calmly of one friend, it usually gets a more honest answer than confronting the group or sending an angry message to the chat.
- Ages 8–9
- “Okay. I’m going to play with Mia today.”
- Ages 10–11
- “Fair enough. I’m doing something with Jo this weekend anyway.”
- Ages 12–14
- “No stress, I’ll catch you guys next time.”
If the answer amounts to “we just didn’t think of you”, this lets your child keep their dignity and turn to someone else without pleading to be let back in.
The bigger life lesson
Children can learn to seek clarity without pleading for acceptance or retaliating.
Explore the situation. Discuss the emotions. Practise a response. Build a life skill.
Related situations
Guides for parents on this
Sources
- Nemours KidsHealth, Helping kids cope with cliques (reviewed June 2023): Parents can help a child who feels left out by reminding them of times they were angry with friends or siblings and how quickly things changed, and by encouraging friendships with people they can confide in, laugh with and trust.
- Raising Children Network (Australia), Children, friends and friendships: FAQs (last updated or reviewed December 2025): Primary-school children often have disagreements with friends and usually sort them out quickly; parents can listen first, suggest ideas such as playing in a larger group or role-playing saying sorry, and ask the teacher if it seems to be an ongoing problem. A child might move from one friend or group to another until they find someone who shares their interests. Not being invited to many parties is not in itself a cause for worry.
The example replies on this page were written by the Life Scenario team for illustration. They are not answers from children and are not scores.