Holiday with another family and behaviour of their ASD child

Yes true - but it can also be to bring about desired outcomes.

ND children are still capable of manipulation and if they understand kicking off gets the results they want they will.

I'll think you'll find that when in a state of complete overwhelm, one of the ways people try to cope and protect themselves, is to try limit demands and reduce intolerable sensory circumstances, sometimes by controlling others.

I think mentioning it shows they have an awareness and understanding that others might not. It’s not the same as saying their experience is the same as everyone else with the same headline diagnoses.

YANBU at all. I’m not going to comment on how they parent their SEN child as I know all children have different needs and it’s not my place to judge, but their child’s needs are not your problem. I would explain to them that you and your children are finding it difficult to cope and would like to continue to holiday separately. If changing accommodation is an option, I would also be doing that. If they’re offended by that then so be it, but you’ve spent your hard-earned money on a holiday and your children were likely looking forward to it too so it’s unfair for that to be spoilt for you.

Another thing kindness isn't - slapping this up online and complaining about your 'friends' poor parenting.

I agree - I have no idea but I have a lot of sympathy for parents who have to deal with issues like this. I would never judge parents struggling with a difficult child, but I also would not like seeing this sort of extreme behaviour being completely ignored or justified as normal.

I wonder if they are in denial and blame school for her suspension and naively thought she would fair better on holiday.
I also wonder if they thought you have a dc with asd so would be able to help or wouldn't mind and therefore thought it would be a good idea and is why dad keeps leaving you and mum is seeking you out. They are maybe using you in this scenario

I would be looking for alternative accommodation and if not be up and gone out every day first thing.
Your friends care don't care for your holiday at all.
I wouldn't be interested in seeing them again.
They are clearly very lazy parents and everyone can suck it up.
That child is paying an awful price for their lazy approach.
Protect your family from this, even if it means leaving early.

Also, we need t look into the future. If boundaries are not being set at this stage, what is the girl going to be like when she hits teenage years, and, even worse, adulthood. If they are given firm 'tram lines' they know what boundaries to fall back to when they frighten themselves.

This. It’s not “unkind” to have appropriate boundaries. So sick of people misunderstanding what kindness actually is.

Kindness isn’t throwing one person under the bus so everyone else can feel safe. Kindness is communicating your needs in a polite and calm way whilst respecting that person’s needs/struggles/boundaries too.

You can be supportive and kind whilst also keeping your own boundaries intact.

Kindness is not allowing any behaviour no matter how damaging it is to other people under the guise of “support”. I’m not sure how OP allowing her child to be slapped and called names is remotely “kind” to anyone in this scenario.

she slapped my DD earlier today and called her a f b because she didn't want to go in the pool with her - my friends answer to this was you cannot say no to her - if you don't do what she wants she kicks off

Just remove all of yourselves from the situation. Not sure how you’re supposed to be supportive of your friend in this situation above.

The fact that you are ND and have ADHD is irrelevant, it's a huge spectrum and everyone is impacted differently what works for one person doesn't work for another.

@Tinymrscollings you didn't mention the need for constant positivity, avoiding the words don't and no. Always offering limited choices, do you want water or squash, do you want a green cup or an orange cup? You can't offer an unlimited choice because they'll choose something that's unavailable and then have a meltdown.

When leaving anywhere fun, giving an allowance, so if you need to leave the pool at 2 0'clock, you tell them you need to leave at 130. You show them the time on the clock and give reminders as it approaches, when they inevitably ask for more time, start to disregulate, you cave and give them 10 more minutes, then another 10 with the promise that they need to leave straight away, no arguing or being upset, and they must get dressed quickly as they've had extra time. Lots of praise for following instructions.

You need tactics, plans, counterplans. You have to be on the alert for anything you haven't thought about and mentally prepared yourself step by step for everything you do.

It's mentally and physically exhausting.

Wow.

Well said. Some people seem to need to feel better about themselves by passing judgement on parents of disabled children, when they can't possibly know the nature of the child's challenges, or the advice the parents have received from neurodevelopment specialists.

It's always autism/ADHD on these threads isn't it? There is such a poor awareness that these conditions reflect differences in cognitive functioning and delayed cognitive development. Blaming parents or children for differences in brain function just further stigmatises families who have quite enough to cope with without ignorant bystanders piling on. Children's capacities will develop with age and support - frontal lobes do not develop in response to punishment.

This is such a blind spot. No one would go on holiday with a child in a wheelchair, then complain about their attitude or their parent's lack of boundaries, if they couldn't keep up on a walk. But brain development - well that requires censure and punishment.

I was talking about the specific setting being in a hotel with other people. You can do differently at home but here other people need to be considered as well. I doubt a child psychologist would have encouraged this holiday in the first place since it's hell for everyone involved, the 7 year old included.

They are not parenting in a way that suits their child, they are insisting that “you can’t tell her no”. There’s a huge difference between removing demands and letting your child do whatever they want, including hitting other children, and doing nothing about it. This type of parenting is exactly why other parents of children with PDA have such a hard time getting anyone to understand them. I minimise demands for my child. I do not let him hurt anyone else and I do not let him get his own way all the time out of fear of him having a meltdown. This child’s needs are not more important than any other child’s needs, and most children need to not be hurt by their friends.

My friendship with a PDA Parent just like the one in the OP ended when my son told me that he has learnt that he has to do what the other child wants all the time so she doesn’t get upset or angry. From simple things like always pushing the buttons on the lift (which my son obviously wanted to do too but never could because “you can’t say no to her”) to dictating what happens for everyone else. It was not a lesson I wanted my son to learn - that he has to push his own feelings aside so that someone else can have their own way and avoid a meltdown.

Why is this in AIBU OP? So that a load of parents with NT kids and no relevant experience can back you up? To increase the stereotypes around parenting ND kids? All these people piling on saying that your friend should ‘learn to parent’ - your friend is clearly trying to parent in a way that suits her young child better and is trying to remove a lot of demands with her child because that is more appropriate.

This thread should be in a SEN section. OP you don’t seem to have much understanding of the diversity of how kids can be affected by autism and how differently parenting need to work accordingly. Have you spoken to your friend about why she is parenting like this?

If you don’t want to be around your friend’s child you can just do something else with your day, that’s easy enough. Your holiday isn’t ruined. You also sound extremely unsupportive of your friends.

@Tinymrscollings thank you so much for your post, I learnt a lot from it and its very well explained.

It illustrates that there are strategies that can help that dont merely involve sitting back and allowing anything to happen because that approach is clearly causing the daughter obvious distress

It sounds to me that the parents aren’t having a great holiday either and they can’t just move accommodation or go home because their high needs kid will be with them all the time. No one just gives up and lets their child behave like that if it’s as simple as disciplining them - living with a high needs child is relentless and exhausting and you know at times you do just let things go because you are broken and it feels hopeless.

maybe they wanted to go away with you because they thought a friend would empathise and support them and they for once didn’t want to feel the incredible loneliness that is SEN parenting where everything is a fight. Maybe you could have stepped up and been a good friend rather than judging them all over a forum that is predominantly filled with ableist posters.

oh and the reason why these kids weren’t seen in the past is cos they were shipped off to institutions and I’m afraid for those of you wanting your perfect holidays we don’t tend to do that anymore

Your post really stood out for me because it's exactly the kind of thing we do for our 4.5 year old (awaiting assessment) Thankfully he's not naturally violent, but he is very anxious and thinks about/picks up on EVERYTHING - we have to word things in certain ways and prep him for most things or else we're just setting him up to "fail" BUT if he knows The Rules and the clear expectations, he can be very agreeable and reasonable. It's exhausting though, absolutely a full time job!

The child's behaviour sounds more like PDA

It really doesn't. She isn't avoiding demands or expectations. She's aggressively making demands of everybody else and not taking no for an answer. That has nothing to do with PDA.

Seriously, PDA has become the new self-diagnosed Autism, BPD, ND, Anxiety and Depression, etc. People learn about it and suddenly every autistic person now also has an internet diagnosis of PDA no matter what they do. Boils my piss.

Yes! The parents were crazy to be relaxed about the exclusion🙄.

They will be trying @localnotail, they will be trying .

You really have no idea.

I agree with this. I have an ND 6 year old and wouldn’t put him, or another family, in this position.

Those saying ‘just tell her off’ haven’t fully experienced PDA. I’m not necessarily saying DC’s parents are dealing with it well but they might well be over a barrel.