Feeling flat after my autistic son’s birthday party went badly

[Favouritefruits]

It’s was my primary school child’s birthday party last weekend and it was a fun activity anybody can do, think bowling, laser tag that sort of thing. We’ve never held a party before as my son is Autistic and thought nobody from his mainstream school would come but I decided to go for it and 9kids attended!

what an absolute disaster, one child refused to participate and just sat on his phone next to his mum (why even say yes to the invite) 2 kicked off because they weren’t winning, I mean actually kicking and screaming! One little girl just sat and said she didn’t want to join in. All the parents stayed but just left the kids to it, which would have been ok if they behaved! I know this shouldn’t be a problem and it really isn’t but one guest bought him a baby toy! He’s 10! He’s autistic but not stupid or baby like! When the food came all the parents moaned it was ‘disgusting’ it really wasn’t it was just pizza and chips not high end but not inedible!

I’m so sad, I’ve spent so much money I didn’t really have (we saved up for months) for my son to have a nice normal party and I just feel so flat an empty. On the plus side I know that my child even with all his ‘extras’ would never behave in that way! I know I’m just chatting about it, I’m just sad and have nobody to talk to about it.

I think you did a lovely thing for your son.

If the train is metal keep it, they're are collectors items ( my son kept his and he was obsessed but not ND). He's 27 and in a professional role.
My DD has an August 31st birthday and it's always been a bit hit and miss. I stopped at 11 with the parties but I still pay for bowling or the cinema as that's her thing, she is SEN.
The parents are just being nosy and very rude.

I know more than one 11 year old neurotypical child who still likes teddies and wouldn't part with them. Maybe that family have a 10 year old who still likes trains.
Competitive games can still be problematic at that age- maybe some other kids are ND in a slightly different way?
Very poor from the parents complaining about the food. Thank you is more than enough.
Well done for trying a party. It's always nerve racking !

My ASD DD has done a 3-5 children at home doing a glorified playdate the last couple of years. Even then she gets very stressed about it going perfectly and last year was a disaster in her eyes because some of the children started doing something unplanned and chaotic.

I'm sorry the children were so rude. It's quite possible some of the children have SEN but the parents need to parent even moreso then. And the train is so reductive and shows a complete lack of understanding of autism. How can you be in the mind of autistic, oh must like trains still these days??

Thank you to everyone! I don’t think I’ll ever know if he enjoyed his party but it was something different! Next year it’ll be an extra big Lego set and a takeaway!

It will be a regifted gift. We had quite a bit of that. Polite thank you note, put away fir a couple of weeks, then off to the charity shop. Not given another thought. We certainly had several families at the village primary school who were not well off, it was just lovely to have the children come to the parties.

My guess is that this post is absolutely key to what is happening here.

I have one NT child and one ND one and we do a party most years.

From the age of about 6 the NT child has had well behaved, polite children at parties who have been left by their parents and collected at the end.

Parties for the ND child are wild, chaotic and often invoke tears, strops and children wandering off to play by themselves. Most parents stay. Most kids are overwhelmed. Most feel they had a good time by the day after.

I know most of the other parents because I drop off/pick up each day. And most of my ND child’s friends are somewhere along the suspicion to ehcp diagnosis route. And the ones who aren’t should be!