Is not giving a child any presents for their birthday a as punishment fair?

Hrft, older posts don't load on this phone, but old enough for a play date - too young to lose presents as a consequence.

Maybe child is unregulated BC parents choose poor consequences.

Did you sneak out at night again?

Horrible though it was it might have saved you from a lot worse if you’d built a habit of sneaking out at night.

Kids with awful behaviour (e.g. OP & cricket bat post) have seen and learned the behaviour from somewhere, most often from their parents.

From what you've said.. she sounds like a caring parent who doesnt want to be permissive but lacks effective parenting strategies.
She is uneducated/ uninformed and is doing what she thinks / understands to be best.

Yhst doesn't make it okay at all,but perhaps contextualise it

Awful. Stay away. This is horrible dysfunctional.
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Her behaviour towards your son was appalling and she should be reprimanded by the parents for this. However, I would have just stopped her from having further play dates until she learnt to be kinder towards other children. Not getting a child birthday presents seems very cruel and this is the sort of memory that will stay with the child even as an adult. I couldn't do this to my DC.

I’ve found most of this thread horrible.

Did you offer this woman any help or support in anyway or did you just write about her on here so she could be vilified? What are you trying to achieve, a gossip, make yourself feel superior?

There is minimal information about this woman in this post but she sounds like she is struggling. Instead of kicking her when she is down why don’t you show her the kindness everyone here is attesting to have. Empathise with her, ask her if she needs help, offer her a hot drink and a supportive chat after the school run sometime.

i am so disappointed by the reaction here. Everyone piling in to say some truly awful things about this woman. The truth is for most of us we don’t know what we do in her situation because we don’t even really know what her situation is. You can laud yourself being the worlds greatest parent but if you can’t show basic kindness to someone having a difficult time it all rings a bit hollow.

I wonder if the daughter behaved to your son as the mother behaves towards her. No birthday presents as a punishment sounds more like abuse.

That's disgraceful behaviour on that mum! I get that shes clutching at straws, but that is going to affect that girl negatively for life if she does that. What the girl has done is really awful, I have an asd and adhd daughter who went to additional needs school and this unfortunately was the norm. I have since removed her and consistently reminded her that not everyone is the same and it isn't nice to hear, but it definitely isn't the truth. I hope your son believes you aswell. It sounds like the other mum is all out of idea's and I do understand that (believe me i do!) But she's not doing the right rhing. If anything, the daughter is going to act out even more

This happened to me in my early teenage years. As punishment for sneaking out in the middle of the night, I spent my birthday in my room crying and was given half a packet of potato chips as a present. I have not forgotten how cruel this felt, especially the chips part. Would have been better not to have been given anything. Birthdays are a big deal when you are young.

This is awful. No it's not okay and I think it's emotional abuse. You should have said something to ease the situation even if you just said it was kids being kids. Poor girl.

That’s a terrible thing to do

Probably not true, she just said it so you'd feel like the child had been punished. Child will probably continue to be a terror.

This is tantamount to child abuse. It would have no positive outcome for any child but for one with ADHD it is particularly inappropriate.

2 things-

not giving presents is an awful response, entirely inappropriate and cruel.

adhd or autism is not an excuse for her (or anyone's) behaviour.

Having adhd or any other condition is not an excuse for being horrible, whatever age.
I wouldn't withhold birthday presents but there would certainly be a punishment, otherwise that child will grow up thinking its OK to use adhd as a reason to be horrible.

Poor poor child. ADHD and awful parent. Child has no chance.

It tells the child something negative about their very existence.

My little boy is autistic with ADHD and PDA and its his birthday next week. His behaviour is changing as he is excited and also anxious about not getting the presents he has asked for or a Lego birthday theme. No way would I take any of that away from him because his behaviour is bad. Yes, he has to learn how to behave but punishing him days after the event and using his birthday as punishment is not correct.

The problem with this punishment that the mother wants to implement is that it’s not immediate. It’s a good week after the event, so it’s very likely that the child won’t relate getting no presents to the fact that she was unkind to your son. The punishment (whatever that might have been) , and a discussion with her about the inappropriateness of her behaviour should have happened at the time, not over a week later.

Omg! Absolutely way over the top! Especially if the child has Adhd or similar. I think if I were the parent I might have said,no more play dates for now. However I wouldn't ever deprive a child of their birthday party or gifts.

Terrible punishment. ADHD in girls especially in linked to self-esteem issues and feelings of shame, so suggesting to this girl that she is not worthy of birthday gifts seems counter-productive to me. Of course she should not have behaved towards your son how she did and some consequence should be imposed, but the mother needs to find more effective methods of discipline.

No that's totally inappropriate. They probably won't make the connection especially given its a week out, I wonder if the parents will actually follow through although talking about it to others sounds like they might, but also that child will inevitably be asked by others what they got for their birthday and will have to say - nothing.

There's so many alternative punishments.

No this is cruel. And it’s why parents shouldn’t threaten that Father Christmas won’t come if they’re naughty etc etc, even if they don’t mean it, it’s cruel.

It’s horrible and unkind, with a mum doing that no one the little girl is bullying other kids.