Single dad looking for advice about birthday party issue.

Don't invite him. Autism or not, it's your daughter's party. He's hurt her and is likely to ruin her birthday.

Respectfully, that’s you deciding that your child and his/her guests enjoying the birthday party is less important than ‘the optics’, and whether you might look bad in the eyes of other parents. I mean, obviously you’re free to do that, but what your saying to your child is ‘Your enjoyment of your own party is less important than me potentially looking bad because I didn’t invite a child with a track record of being violent to you and disrupting other children’s parties because his mother won’t parent him sufficiently on the day to prevent him ruining things.’

Yes of course . But when the time came he couldn’t cope.

Tbh I think the social exclusions probably affected me more than him - made me feel very isolated as a parent.
But now he is older thankfully things are different all
round.

Whilst I agree, you know how this looks and I’m afraid I couldn’t personally be that parent. It won’t look like he’s excluding this child due to bad behaviour, it’s obvious how this will look. Also put yourself in the shoes of this small child when everyone in the class receives an invitation and he doesn’t. He’s 6, they’re in year 2.

This is the issue isn’t it ? It’s a simple equation. Behave badly = people don’t like you.

Why not ? OP wouldn’t be excluding him because of his autism, but because of the bad behaviour. The former is not an excuse for the latter and the sooner he learns the lesson the sooner he’ll be included. There is no reason on earth for excluding anyone on the grounds of disability, just as there is no reason on earth why others should tolerate bad behaviour by giving a free pass for bad behaviour just because the person is disabled.

Can’t be arsed RTFT but no you can’t invite the whole class except the kid with autism. You’ll have to reduce the list down further to her closest friends.

Surely you talked to him about the disruptive behaviour being the reason he stopped being invited?

No. If my dd doesn’t want to invite someone in her class because they are violent towards her and others, and she is scared of them coming to her party then there’s no way I’d invite them. She’d be worrying on the lead up to her party and wouldn’t enjoy it as much. It’s her party, her wishes are the most important.

Agree with what you have decided to do.
you will probably find a lot of the parents who’s kids are attending the party are relieved that the child is not there.
it is sad and I know a few parents with autistic children can preempt their child’s meltdowns or violence. Sounds like this mum does not.

My son was a bit like this when he was younger . Eventually he stopped getting invited .
It made me as the mum feel very isolated.

He is an older teen now and is very solitary … think he learned that people just don’t like him, so now chooses to avoid them .

Dad is not in the wrong to not create a party that is accessible to everyone, and he’s not in the wrong to not accommodate a violent child, disability or not disability. It’s not as if he’s the local authority or anything. I personally think he’s a great parent for putting his daughter first.
Putting the child’s disability aside, I do not think we should be teaching our girls (or boys for that matter) that they should tolerate and absorb violence. No way will I teach my daughters that there is any excusable reason for male violence against girls and women.

What would the alternative be to not inviting this one boy? Imagine the scene, he’s there, he quickly becomes overstimulated and overwhelmed, he hurts some of the other partygoers so there are multiple children crying, food is thrown, the party is ruined.

I can’t see how that’s kind to anyone, including the boy in question. His behaviour will lead to more unhappiness, more complaints, more social exclusion from the other children - and he himself has to struggle through all that overwhelm and dysregulation, he’d be exhausted after and probably develop an aversion to parties and play areas. It wouldn’t be fun for anyone, including him.

If you are saying it’s horrendously cruel to exclude this boy, how would you manage the situation? What would you do? Let him come and ruin things, let him come and send him home at the first scream?

It seems to me that the mum is the one at fault here, I imagine her life is incredibly hard but if she repeatedly puts him in these situations and then lets them deteriorate in this way, she is doing him no favours at all. Why can’t she accept an invite and bring him for 15 minutes early, before the party gets busy, then take him home with a party bag? That way he wouldn’t get to the point he’s at, and he hasn’t been excluded. But her insistence on INclusion means that he will be more and more EXcluded.

Well done @tomWh. A difficult decision but the right one.

Eye opening how many people don’t want the kid there but rather than be explicit would hide behind actions that disadvantage other children because of the offenders actions.

Practically how are you going to invite people? You can't ask the school to give out paper invites or stand in the playground doing it.
Also as always on these posts you have mentioned the whole class is scared of him/implied no one likes him and that mum doesn't intervene.
I would be very careful as mum may actually be friends with some of the other parents and you might not be aware of this. Even if others might make noises around you to suggest yeah they agree they might be taking that info back to mum.
You are at least trying to deal with it directly but playground politics can be tricky (and if mum has a gang of friends to back her up and point you out as being the man who discriminates against children with send that might make other parents concerned about you).

It's just shit to exclude one kid out of a whole class from a party. Whatever the reason it's shit

Still, as I said earlier some have good social skills and some don't and on this very thread we've had posters applauding the op for messaging the parent of a dc with sens explaining why their dc was not invited fgs.

This.

Why? Why should other children (the other boys in this case) be subject to collective punishment and miss out because of his actions? That’s not right.

Why should other children who have done nothing wrong not be invited?
If your child with sn cannot cope in such an environment why insist on taking them?
Why should the op only have to invite girls or reduce numbers?

It's not cruel
You cannot expect others children to accept violence from any other child. Utterly ludicrous.

Glad you sent the message.

My son was/is like the child you mention. He has been invited to very few birthdays and it hurts (me, not him, he’s none the wiser). When he has gone to an event, we are on him like a hawk, ready to distract and bribe, ready to leave early. Honestly, I’d be tempted not to invite him and if questioned, don’t reference Autism but his behaviour at other parties. You will be judged though. If you can I’d probably change the party plan, at that age there are less full class parties and more smaller groups. Avoid invites on group chats or school gates and set up a smaller WhatsApp group.

If you choose to go ahead, try and be prepared, ear defenders, quiet space, maybe a tent or darkened room, cupcakes rather than a whole cake, have some adults ready to intervene gently, like away from the fan of the bouncy castle. Limit the toys, 20+kids on sugar, running in circles is chaos enough.

Just don't invite him?

It really doesn't sound as if the mum is doing her best. Either way, why should a group of 7 year olds have to put up with it?

You handed it really well iyam.