Single dad looking for advice about birthday party issue.

Why on earth would OP's DD want him around for a playdate when he hurts her? Or OP for that matter if he does have a parent who refuses to manage his behaviour.

At my children's Primary School parents would give the teacher party invites and they'd then put the invites for the ones invited in the book bags. Maybe you could ask the teacher if they'd do this?

Editing to say, if my adhd/asd child, who's now an adult, didnt get invited because of past behaviour Id have understood and been relieved to be honest. He was once invited bowling, and my god did he not cope, the noise, flashing lights, and all sorts of other things were too much, if he was invited bowling again I'd just say look, you don't enjoy the atmosphere at bowling do you, we can invite little Johnny round for tea a different time instead.. if that caused a kick off at home then we'd deal with it. Dont beat yourself up about it.

but do you just shove them in at the deep end or do you help them by teaching them strategies to cope with minimal discomfort and then gradually increase?

I think you've done the right thing, including sending the email.

Doing it by email means she can process that without being expected to give an instant reply, which is fair.

If she really pushes the matter I would respond with 'actually Susan, the issue isn't so much X's autism, though it concerns me that clearly he is unhappy and not enjoying a party environment, it's your handling of his behaviour in that environment that is the problem!'

Obviously that would be dropping a shit-bomb on the situation so only do it if she gets REALLY arsey.

I think you'd be surprised. Especially a parent who has already seen her child ruin someone's birthday party and didn't seem to do anything about it.

Plus by the time she's asked to leave, her son has already hurt someone or ruined something and I wouldn't want to take that chance.

It would be different if she was at least trying to manage the situation, taking him out for breaks, acknowledging that he might not cope with some parties etc but that doesn't appear to be the case.

This. Let’s not teach our girls to accept violence.

Based on what the OP has said, I wouldn't personally be confident that this particular mother would leave when asked.

yeah that's what OP & the other kids need, an awkward interlude in the middle of proceedings 🙄

Have a boy who has been repeatedly violent to DD round for a playdate? Bonkers.

In the adult world in general and definitely at work, if a colleague hit me I would be phoning the police.

If the boy ends up not coming for whatever reason, eg the M won’t promise to manage his behaviour etc., is there an option to have him round for a playdate?

Secondly, just wanted to say how impressive the parents of ND children are who are posting saying don’t invite unless the M promises to manage his behaviour. It can’t be at all easy to have your child missing out constantly, and you are putting the other children first which is very decent of you. X

I had a ds (undiagnosed at that point ASD/ADHD) who couldn't cope with parties, especially soft play types.
With each invite I assessed it as either;

1. He won't cope at all - decline invite with a polite excuse
2. He can cope with a shortened version/some of it - I'd have a chat to the parent if I knew them well enough and see if they were happy for him to arrive late or some other adaption
3. He will cope fine - accept

But even with 2 or 3 I would stay. I'd often give him breaks, so I'd call him off after 15 minutes or so and take him "to the toilet" which often meant 5 minutes outside, give him a drink and let him calm down.
If I saw him getting out of hand it was straight removal - tbf I only had to do that once, the threat of having to do it again meant that he was compliant with calm down measures, which might mean a longer break or telling him to go to a different activity/keep away from another child.

He got a fair number of invites so I assume we managed it reasonably successfully (full class parties weren't a thing at all so it wasn't that he "had" to be invited).

If I'd just let him get on with it, then I'd have thought it totally reasonable for other children not to want their parties dominated by his behaviour and not invite him.

The problem isn’t the boy, it’s the mum. She’s not managing him, if he’s not coping, they need to leave , go outside. Not spoil it.

Saying that DD had an autistic friend in primary. The only boy in their friendship group. He would cause a fuss at parties because it wasn’t about him/what he liked. His mum even suggested we did something specifically he would like, it’s not his birthday!!

A firm word is had at the party and she is told to leave immediately. Not that difficult... I hardly think anyone would insist on staying when asked to leave directly and particularly when expectations are set ahead of time

I am agog that such people exist. What happened next? Did you manage to get her to leave or did she just park herself and her son for the duration of the party??

I would say do not invite him on 2 grounds: 1. It will wreck the party for DD and all the others and 2. He will not enjoy it ... it is clear that it is an overload for him and he should be spared going through that again.

We had a kid like this in my DD’s class at that age, we all used to issue the invite and hope they didn’t come! Mostly they didn’t, but it sounds like the mother will bring him for sure.

I would get your DD to make a list of 10 people she’d like to invite and leave it at that. You’re kind of past the whole class party stage anyway, time to narrow it down to the actual friends.

'honestly don't understand many of the posts suggesting he should be invited'

Most are saying don't just exclude one.Try to #BeKind and fgs don't message parents of kids with sens with an unwanted opinion on their dc's behaviour.

Oh, just seen you had sent a message already. I wouldn't have but here's hoping it works out well for you & DD.

In your shoes i would throw the kind of party my DD wants - whole class party, if that is what she wants.
I would very easily not invite anyone who would ruin it even if it meant only one person was not invited.

It's totally different if the mother had a different attitude and was effective in preventing him from ruining other people's special day. Unfortunately, she is setting up her child for these types of situations and he will be losing friendships at school.

and what happens if she doesn't remove him as she didn't at the previous party?

At work if someone hit me I’d expect them to
be sacked and whether they are invited to a social to be a moot point.

This child will only learn with the support of his parents. The parents have shown repeatedly they won’t offer that support therefore the natural result is him being excluded.

No one has said ‘autistic children should be excluded’ - it’s the violence coupled with poor parenting.

The lack of comprehension and critical thinking is fucking ridiculous.

'My DD who is now grown up still talks about how she was upset that the music had to be turned off at one of her parties because one of her classmates was having a meltdown over it'

Our dc have far greater interesting and important things to think about than what happened to the music at a kids party. They're pretty resilient though and don't sweat the small stuff thankfully.

Respectfully agree to disagree.

The little boy isn't a violent child who wilfully does things. He has a disability that at times makes him lash out in the moment. And that needs to be managed, but I disagree exclusion is the right approach when EVERY OTHER child is invited.

I think saying to the mum you could see he didn't cope, she's welcome to let him try again at the party if she thinks he would manage, however if he doesn't, there's an expectation she will remove him. Explain that there's been incidents previously and birthday girl is apprehensive.

It can be incredibly lonely and isolating when you're trying to navigate all this.

In my view a frank conversation with mum would have been kinder all round, or have a reduced size party as others suggested.

It isn't OP's job to provide learning opportunities for the child. Especially with the high risk of hurt to his own child and it spoiling her birthday party.

The parents of the child need to provide learning opportunities and also learn to remove their child when they do get overwhelmed in certain situations, especially when it comes to hurting other children.

My son has ASD, he has significant needs but actually really enjoys a party so is reasonably well behaved. If we get an invited to a party that I think he would find difficult be dysregulated we just decline the invite. He was recently invited to a football party that I thought he would struggle with as he finds structured activities hard but when I spoke to the mum she suggested bringing him for the last hour to see what he thought, enjoy the food etc so that’s what we did and surprisingly he really enjoyed it. As a parent to a child with ASD it is my responsibility to set him up as well as possible for later life so with regards to poor behaviour, we give him a chance but if he’s upset we leave. I don’t subscribe to the mindset of well he has autism so he can do what he likes, he still needs to be taught right from wrong as well as possible. People won’t be so understanding when he’s older so it would be doing him a disservice to allow whatever.

That said, I think it’s really cruel to not invite one child from the class. I would personally either do a smaller group or I would contact the mum and say you’d like to invite him but you have some concerns about how he’s copes at previous parties so can she make sure if he comes she is monitoring what he’s up to/ takes him away from the situation if he becomes dysregulated. I’d personally not take offence to this, if my child is upset I want to take them away from the situation not force them to stay. Not an easy situation for you I appreciate.