To feel disappointed DS was left out at his nan’s b’day party by his cousin?

I’m sorry your son felt excluded, however, you’re doing your boy absolutely no favours here. To blame his 11 year old cousin, who was simply playing with his friends in his own home, for a 19 year old’s wellbeing, is not helpful, even if there is neurodivergence. What might help is asking him how he might have acted to change the situation for the better.

A group of children are never going to ask a 19 year old to play as an equal because he's an adult to them. If they wanted him to play it would be to entertain them... they are in completely different life stages.

If he has social anxiety why didn't you make more of an effort to include him in the adult conversations?

I have a DS16 who is ASD, very immature for his age. He likes to play with younger children because he still enjoys hide and seek, tag and all that. But he's in special education and autistic so everyone knows he's "younger" than his age and always has been. He will go and ask if he can join in or if he's feeling shy ask me to ask them. Why didn't your DS ask? How can he feel rejected if he never asked to join in? And how can he, and more importantly you, place the burden of his feeling of rejection on an eleven year old kid? It doesn't make sense at all. Are you ND OP?

What kind of games does a 19 year old play with 11 year olds? I think it's very weird to be putting the blame on the cousin (an actual child), when your son is an adult.

Adult son is feeling rejected because he wasn’t asked to play with children?

I have cousins who are seven to nine years younger and am an only child. At 19 I'd be mostly mixing with the adults but would also get bored of that and spend time organising games with my cousins, throwing or kicking a ball round if there was space, as I was quite close to them. These days my in-laws usually have badminton or table tennis set up in the garden when there is a barbecue, which entertains young and old alike!

I feel for your son, I know someone like this, an only child, who is now 29 and nothing has changed since she was 17 or 18. She had lots of friends when younger but these drifted off at sixth form and at university she found herself friendless.

the sad reality is, that she was over indulged by her parents, never had to share, always told she was special, always the centre of attention, everyone always made allowances for her being an only child. And when adulthood came, her peers couldn’t be bothered indulging her, wouldn’t enable her expectation that everything should revolve around her, everyone do what she wants, everyone make the effort and it not being reciprocated.

She now still lives at home, has massive social anxiety, and spends all her days with her middle aged parents, doing what she wants to do and being told that it’s not her fault. Well it isn’t really, it’s theirs.

This is a ‘man’ of the future! Ffs OP

As someone on the spectrum, i’m more inclined to think OP is under the bridge. Interesting first post, I hope her DS can get the support he needs to become a functional adult.

No. Your son shouldn’t have asked to join in. He’s a fucking adult. Not ‘technically an adult’ (as you keep saying). A real fucking adult. The fact he feels rejected is really weird. The fact you feel he should have been playing with children is really weird.
You’re both really weird.

I’m sorry- you’re thinking an 11 year old child is rude and exclusionary for not playing with a 19 year old man?……

I remember being in a very similar situation at around the same age. The "grown-ups" made it clear they thought the kid and I would hang out together. I was absolutely furious that I was put in the same category as a pre-teen, when I was a young woman. No young adult expects pre-teens to include them in their play. There might be a kind of nostalgic sadness at realizing he's no longer a kid and those days of playing madly in the garden are over.

No, not ‘technically an adult’ - he IS an adult. You say he’s nearer the age of the cousin (which arithmetically he is) but he’s actually twice their age and a grown man. Socially the gap between a 19 yo and a primary aged child is far greater than a 19 yo and a 50 yo.

It is weird that you and he are blaming the children. I had cousins 6 and 7 yrs older than me and I wouldn’t have played with them at that stage.

This can’t be real. My God! You do realise that your son is never leaving home, don’t you?

I think this is a bit cute. He's still your sweet baby boy, right OP? PFB and only child as well so he's very, very special.
It's absolutely batshit though. The adult man has his feelings hurt because the children didn't ask him to play? And his mummy is also disappointed about it?! I know you love him but he's a big boy now.

At 19, he’s an adult. He is old enough to have several children or his own. The others are children. They may have played last year to be polite.

Is your DS neurodivergent? If not, why did he expect them to include him? It sounds like the children understood that he’s an adult and therefore didn’t want to play with him.

Like PPs, I think it’s odd that an adult’s self esteem can be affected because primary aged children won’t play with him. Surely he’s old enough to converse with the adults!

I would say the problem here is your not seeing him as an adult and encouraging him to think of himself as a child.

You need to encourage him to get a job, any job. Sitting at home for almost a year is not helping his social skills. A job with people his own age will help that. And I'm sorry, it is creepy and weird for a 19 year old man to want to play with children ( the only exception I can think of is possibly video games). You seem to want him to stay as a permanent child.

In that situation, I think you, DH and the wider family were responsible for ensuring your son had a good time, not an 11 year old child.

What a very peculiar question. What on earth would a 19 year old have in common with 13 year old and younger...how bizarre? Besides that it was only for a few hours he had little to no company. If you where so concerned you should have kept him occupied.

Unless he's autistic and delayed, I'd find this very bizaare.
Even at age 16
I had more in common with 50 year olds than 11 year olds.
I mean have you seen 11 year olds?
They're babies!
Why would he feel rejected by 11 year olds?
If he even tried to.speak.to the adults, they would've spoken to him, does he not see himself as an adult?
Also, stop projecting, its ok to sit alone sometimes...

The younger boys may have delighted if your son had gone out and chatted to them and initiated a game of football or something. 11 year old boys start to feel very self conscious and not brave enough to approach a much older boy.
you need to get some help for your son to learn some social skills and resilience.

This is bizarre and I wonder if you projecting this kind of thing is effecting his self esteem. I’d never expect a 11-13 year old to ask a 19 year old; or a 19 year old to want to (they’d just suck up being a bit bored for a few hours with the older relatives). I could imagine a 19 year old going over and joining in with a ball game - like a big brother / dad figure but would expect them to take the initiative

I really can’t understand a 19 year-old being upset because he wasn’t invited to play with a 13 and 11 year-old. There is something completely off with that .

OP what have you done over the last 19 years (which is plenty of time) to help your DS develop the skills to talk to people?

He’s 19, he ought to be able to talk with, at the very least, the family members he’s seen before. Express pleasure at seeing them again ask them what they’re up to. Discuss whatever projects have been going on in their lives. Has that never been a part of your family gatherings? Did you not talk to any of your nieces and nephews to see how they were doing?

As the oldest cousin he should also have links with the younger ones from previous meet ups, be able to join in and offer them some big-brother type mentoring and fun. To expect the younger kids to be the ones reaching out is bizarre.

If he doesn’t develop skills to talk with people who don’t have a completely shared experience of life he’s likely to have a hard time generally until he finally does.