My friend's ds has autism, she would like my ds to spend more time with him.

[BatwingGirl]

I find this very unfair on ds (6) as he has made other friends at his school who want to come round and play. Both boys have pretty much grown up together, seeing eachother since they were babies. They go to different schools but as her ds has become older, it's become more challenging to have a decent playdate without tantrums every 2 minutes. I've tried to see my friend more while the boys are at school, but she tries very hard to time it for after school so that the boys can be together. I didn't want to say it to her and have said I'm busy after school, weekends I've stopped going out with her and the two boys as there will always be a scene in town. She ends up leaving him with me, walking off in a temper herself. It's very stressful.

For the last few weeks she has been coming round with some excuse (to see the kitten, to see the new rug, they made biscuits) and I can't exactly say no. She asks my ds to play with her ds (7) in his room. I don't like them being out of my sight as I know her ds can get very aggressive if he doesn't get his own way. My ds who does not know about his condition ends up very frustrated and scared. I'd like to keep my friend but not force my son to have to be his friend if he doesn't want to. I know if I say it to her she will really take offense. She feels like she has no one else and other mums from the school have dumped her since his diagnoses.
I just want an easier life. When Ds's other friends are round, they are like angels compared to my friend's ds.

I think it is wrong of your friend to stick her head in the sand and expect everybody else to deal with her ds, when she cant.

Whether it is leaving you and your son alone with him, or sticking your son alone in a room with him, when you and her know that her child is mean to your child, it just is not on.

Your duty is first and foremost to your child. Leaving his disability aside, as his mums keeps doing, you can tell your friend that you want to restrict the time the two boys spend together as they are clearly not getting on, and it is obvious to you from just looking at how they interact to see that neither is happy to be with each other.

If she then wants to talk about his autism, and explain, fair enough, you can listen, but you cannot keep taking part in "social experiments" with her child and your child.

Also, if her son is actually not that keen on being social, and acts out because he does not like to, it is not fair on her to keep pushing play dates on her son, if he does not enjoy them, just because society is geared towards children playing together. She should give her son a break, maybe he neither needs or want socializing.

I have a ds with complex physical disabilities meaning among others that he finds it difficult to speak. I don't know how he will fare with friendships when he is a wee bit older (he's 4 now). I do sympathise with your ds not wanting to be friends with the friend's ds, if that is a genuine matter of personalities. However from the way you speak about this boy it appears that his disability is the only thing you notice about him, and you are very negative about him. Your son no doubt picks this up.

I think I would find it very hard to maintain a frienship with you, not because our children won't play together but because you are unsympathetic and actually a little bit nasty about my child. Love me, love my child, take him as he is, take me as I am.

Batwing, sometimes our children don't always get to choose who they play with. You don't hand them all the control on a plate and run with it. Sometimes, I see my friends who have children. These children don't go to school with my children, and don't really know them. But I expect them to play together for a period of time. Because the social life and choices of my children are not the measure by which I live my life. I think you are using this as an excuse.

I think that you don't really have an understanding of what it is like for your friend. Fine, you don't have a child with ASD, so we can't expect you to full y understand. But it seems like you haven't made any effort to find out anything about ASD. Which is odd, considering you have known this woman and her child for such a long time.

She sounds like she is drowning. Have some compassion.

As for your child, how can you expect a child to understand, or to grow without giving them all of the information? Why don't you tell your DS about ASD? Why don't you explain why it is that your friends' DS behaves as he does? It's as if you want him to complain that he's being bullied, or hit, or he doesn't like this boy, because then this will give you a way out of the situation.

Do you know what, it's not hard. If you don't want to make the effort, just cut her loose. She's probably waiting for you to do it anyway. But maybe you and your child could learn something about other people, and your DS could grow up with another friend if you gave it a chance.

Only you can decide whether you want to keep this friendship or not. I think that if your friend is asking for once a week or once a fortnight help for her ds to play with your son for half an hour then this isn't a lot to ask considering how awful it must be for her to cope with the demands 24/7. I also think that you should explain about her ds to your ds, make it easier by arranging for the boys to play downstairs so that his mum can intervene if necessary or maybe at a neutral place where it is easier to supervise. of course it will be easier to distance yourself from a tantrumming hard to get on with child and his very sad and struggling mum who has basically been dropped by other mums and their children for probably exactly the same reason. I guess what you might want to consider is that her ds will probably not get invited to birthdays and playmates, can't easily join clubs like beavers and swimming lessons and that she has a lifetime of trying to manage his condition and cope with the isolation. If that is too much then I think it's probably best to be straight with her. She will be hurt but at least she will stop leaning on you and will know where she stands.

The thing is, if you don't teach your child to have any empathy, quite apart from anything else - how is he going to cope if he ever ends up having a close relation with a disability? Disability can happen to anyone, you know.

My family have had to drastically reassess their attitudes towards disabled people since dd1 came into our world (now nearly 11 and severely autistic). And I have to say they are nicer people for it.

OP, I would tell your ds about the dx, which will help him understand the behaviour (if your friend doesn't like it, tough). I would absolutely insist that the dc play under supervision (yours) so you can make sure your ds is not hurt or scared - again if she doesn't like it, tough. I would call her out on leaving you with her ds, and tell her never ever to do that again. I would let your ds choose who he wants to come to his birthday party rather than imposing any child on him. And I would carry on supporting my friend and spending time with her without the dc as well.

In the end your first priority is to your ds, and your next to your friend. My friend's son has asperger's. We tend to meet without kids because it was tricky to manage them together with my baby (this was pre-diagnosis). She is currently feeling quite isolated and so I am going to invite them along the next time we meet up with mutual friends. It's a bit of a token gesture as we live in different areas of town and our dc are never going to be great pals, but it is the best I can do at the moment.

Sorry if I have missed it but why haven't you told your child about why her Ds is "different" and talked to him about it?

She feels like she has no one else and other mums from the school have dumped her since his diagnoses.

And you want to tell her not to bring her son around anymore?

I have a son with ASD, I lost 75% of my friends when he was dxed. Your post makes me extremely sd.

I have found this thread VERY hard to read.
The friend, walking off and leaving Op, and the friend not wanting Op to talk to Op's son about the other ds's ASD, are serious problems.
But there is something abou the Op's references to her busy life, with her lovely ds and just the whole , kind of , 'pain-in-the-ass' of this woman, that is most unsettling to me.

I think Op, should direct this 'friend' (friend being the operative word) to the SN boards and we can help her and support her there.
My ds(8) has very mild AS.
But alot of this thread has pained me, like you wouldn't believe.

Fwiw, I think op should respect her friend if her decision is that she wants her son's dx to stay confidential. It is a step too far for op to simply tell her own son if her friend is not happy with this information being public.

OP is getting an unfair bashing here.

Her priority is her child, not someone else's. Her son does not owe someone a friendship because of the friendship choices his Mum makes!

I have friends that I love to pieces that hardly ever see my children. They don't have children yet, and even if they did, I wouldn't feel the need to force them to spend time together so that we as the adults could have time with each other.

I have a child with ASD. I know the heartbreak of your child having no friends. But that isn't anyone else's problem. Maybe I have never felt lonely and abandoned by my friends because I never expected them to only ever see me when my child was around.

OP its fine for you to want to see your friend when the dc aren't there. If she doesn't want friendship that accommodates your needs too, then she's in no position to complain about you not being a good friend.

What I find strange is how many people have said that they have had trouble maintaining relationships post-diagnosis. I can understand people being a bit wary based on their experience of a child's behaviour, but what difference does a diagnosis male (in that regard obviously there are other aspects).

I have no experience of this as a parent but have some experience as a child - my mum's friend's child had severe learning difficulties and at about 5 I had it explained to me and was able to cope with the occasional playdate ( the girl in question was a year older, a lot bigger than me, and given to excessive displays of affection - crushing bear hugs - or the reverse - without warning). It was ok when it was casual - but then the other girl's mum decided that since I was her "only friend" she would move her to my school and told the girl that I was her best friend. Which was difficult for me. So I can see both sides.

WRT the leaving OP with her son, we don;t know if she ahs any other childcare and sometimes that leaves you high and dry- quite basic things such asa smear test or medical appointments can become absolutely unmanageable otherwise- this isn;t just me, research has shown that this can lead to problems and there's supposed to be a drive to support carers that way, though I've seen nothing come of it and am myself still recovering from an ear infection that got horrid over the summer as DH was working long hours and I could not get seen.

Property I disagree; i''d not ask that of anyone my boys know, it's information that directly impacts on other people.

One day, OP, your son may have to work live, maybe even BE disabled- who knows? Life can be like that. He will absolutely HAVE to work with people he absolutely loathes: this is a key life skill. And one well worth teaching as early as possible.

Now if you don;t actually have anything in common except for a sense of duty then walk: that's fine, we all do it, surely? But if it's just about the child then consider what YOUR child can gain from this lesson.

if your friend's little boy didn't have autism, but your kids didn't get on, what would you do?
I've got a few friends where it's clear for whatever reason that our kids don't get on, sometimes in a one-sided way. I don't push my kids to spend time with kids they don't like, so we meet up without kids, or less frequently. That's quite normal imo. I would say that if your friend doesn't want to meet up in her free time alone, judging from other comments on here about such time being precious, she doesn't value the friendship all that highly between the two of you
So, she probably wants to meet up with her ds in order to have a break (leaving you with her ds) or so her ds can play with other children.
I would not put my children in the position of having to play regularly with anyone they felt uncomfortable playing with, so I would weasel out of playdates and only be available for other things like the tennis you mentioned. Tactfully if possible but upfront if not. I suspect you are going to have to explain that your ds feels frightened. Btw, I would definitely not say the birthday thing unless you are prepared to force your ds to invite someone he doesn't want to, to his party

It is a bit strange legal alien. I think it's a mixture of things (1) embarrassment - people who didn't know what to say and would look uncomfortable if I said anything. I didn't have much patience with that group and stopped phoning them etc (this was in the days before FB). (2) my son has never in his life gone for another child (except very very occasionally his brothers) but he is 'odd' to be around. He shouts quite a bit (nothing rude, he can't talk). He also needs a lot of supervision for his own safety - especially on other people's houses - as he'll let himself out doors, or lean out of windows and climb up into dangerous spots to get a better view. I can't sit and gas, I have to follow him around, i have to kniw where he is and what he's doing at all times.That seemed to make us too much like hard work for some.

I now call him my little (well big these days) filter. Sone find his autistic behaviours hilarious, some are horrified. We steer clear of the horrified ones (life is much better without uptight people in it anyway - and I have plenty of friends, don't have room for ones who ar difficult about autism).

I missed the posts whereby the friend doesn't want people knowing. I'm not sure what she thinks she will achieve by that, his peers will know he is different by his behaviour anyway as will most parents at the school. (assuming that the OP paints an accurate description of his behaviour of course)

What is gained by making the child think its something to be embarrassed about?

I think it is grim to break the confidence of a woman already struggling. If op needs to step back from the play dates then do so but it is really wrong to share details of the boy's medical condition with others without the mum's consent. I am shocked that people think it is ok to override her wishes.

Saintly - interesting. I think ds would have no problem with non- standard behaviour - and maybe we could put some creative thought into finding a common interest - bound to be one - but finds behaviour that breaks "social" rules - like not hitting, sharing, not snatching - much harder to deal with. He has a friend who is fairly antisocial and on the average playdate can deal with 10 mins joint activity and then needs to be on his own - and ds thinks that is fine - he just comes downstairs and says "x is doing his own thing, can I do y". And then they regroup for dinner. I sometimes think that generally we put on too much pressure to be sociable.

Yes I missed that sziry. I think op should tell her that he has sn and that he cannt help his behaviour, nothing wrong with that

Fair point about sharing the dx; you are right property. But you don't have to use the word asperger's (which won't mean much to a dc anyway). You could explain that his behaviour is tricky but people are very different, and learn to be gentle at different times and that some people struggle with it more than others etc.

My dd was very frightened and frustrated by the little girl with severe sn at her school at first; we talked a lot about how people's brains develop and how this little girl was like a much younger child. DD made her TA cry once because she explained this to another child who was being mean - TA said it was the first time anyone had stuck up for the little girl or shown any understanding (reception).

DD found a way to connect with this little girl, and helped her a lot without it affecting her other friendships. In the end, my dd really benefited from being in the same class as the little girl - it did teach her understanding, tolerance and how to keep out of the way when someone is kicking off. She was really sorry when she left. She has also learned to like a girl with sn at her next school despite the girl shoving her down some steps in dd's first term. But dd could only do that because she understood that these children were different and so couldn't be judged for their behaviour.

If the OP doesn't explain that her friend's son is different, then her own ds can't be expected to make allowances for him. But whatever the reasons behind the little boy's behaviour, OP would be doing her son a huge disservice if she let him be scared and hurt by her friend's son.

Another random idea ( feel free to shoot me down as I am a bit clueless) - maybe suggest her ds comes over without her for a couple of hours? She gets a break and your respective ds are free to play separately under your supervision if they don't get along?

That is fantastic scooter. Op read and take note of scootles post

Tbh legal - when the kids were pre-schoolers/infants there was never any problem from other children. It was just the parents. Young children were very accepting of ds1's behaviour. He had a little group of girls at nursery who used to follow him around stroking him and arguing about who he liked the most. Now that he's older (as are his siblings and their friend's) some children are more uncomfortable around him. I tend not to have those kids around when he's here - not out of interest to them, but because ds2 has already had to deal with 'your brother's a spaz' type comments and I don't want him or ds3 to have to cope with that.

Saintly - I don't envy you. I have an only child for genetic-flaw reasons- anything sibling related seems to me to add a level of complexity which offsets the obvious advantages. But then I am an on,y child myself. :)

I was an only. :)

Tbh on the whole I think the kids benefit from having a severely disabled brother. And that's really become clear to me at school when I see how they treat kids with SN and also those younger than them.

The hardest thing for them is friends who are stupid about ds1 but we do what we can to limit exposure to this types (I don't want ds1 near people who aren't very nice about him anyway). They do also have some wonderful friends who are very accepting!