To think children don't come in pairs

[MerylPeril]

Going for a day trip yesterday with my BF and DD. Texted DDs BF mother to see if she would also like to come (and keep her occupied) she never goes anywhere also.

Mother texts back to say no because I am not taking her much younger sister and she would be jealous!
They didn't do anything else either, just sat at home.

I didn't have room in the car btw and I didn't want to take her even if I did

She's much younger and the girls don't want to play with her, she would spend the whole day hanging off my arm complaining.....

Why can't I invite one FFS

I am going to stop asking as this has been the final straw.
I won't be made to feel bad for asking .

I'm not drop feeding honest - but I hardly know the younger one as she has been in full time childcare until recently. Which means in the summer holidays she was in nursery all the time and DD1 was at home?!?!
So she didn't mind splitting them then.

I know people are saying that she doesn't owe me her child to occupy mine - I am equally not a childminding service to take both away so she doesn't have to engage with the younger one

Btw - we had a great day out!

I'm with you.

But plenty of parents are like this. My friends DD are 23 months apart and I always felt sorry her eldest didn't have a chance to do stuff because youngest wasn't invited.

She had about 2 years from aged 6-8 where she didn't go out with friends until youngest hit the age of invites. What was worse (IMO) was by then eldest friends parents had stopped asking so youngest was going out leaving eldest behind
And she could never work out why her DD relationship was strained.

A long deceased male relative ALWAYS resented his little brother (18 month gap) because he was never allowed to do things until little bro was able/allowed to do them too. Even in his 60-70s he seethed with resentment about it. My kids are different sexes and have a biggish gap (3+yrs) so that makes it easier but I do not, wherever possible, prevent my older DC from doing things if for some reason younger DC can't do it too. A hard life lesson for the younger DC maybe but better than a resentful older DC and a spoilt brat younger DC who gets their own way all the time.

The trouble is that nowadays parents ( mostly mothers!!) want everything to be fair in their children's lives, it's laziness really, they just don't want to deal with one child being a bit miffed that their sibling is going somewhere where they want to go, Boo Hoo!!
You have to teach kids that not everything is/will be to their liking... Teach them to deal with it, not protect them from situations that they might not like, My Goodness! Some parents are Molly codling their kids into MONSTERS!!!!!!!!!

I don't think an older child growing up and having friends and older activities is "unfair" though. It's just a stage of development. The younger child will get the same opportunities in a couple of years time when the kids their age are doing that sort of stuff. It isn't a reason to stop an older child doing it. To me that's unfair because in a couple of years when the younger one gets invited places the older one probably won't be bothered about going and will be doing different things with their friends.
I'd encourage the younger child to do stuff with their own friends or with their parents when the kids their age are too young to be socialising much rather than wanting to grow up too soon and always tagging on to older siblings.
Different if a child has special needs and doesn't get invited places as much, but even then I don't think the answer is to stop the other child socialising but to do other stuff with the SN child whilst the other child is out.
Siblings will still play together, mine did but I never felt my kids had to go everywhere together. Maybe them being different sex and having very different personalities helped. The only time there was jealousy and "it's not fair" was when my daughter wanted to play some of my son's video games, but I'd been fairly strict with the age limits with him and felt it would be unfair to be laxer with her.

I never tried to 'make' things fair for my dcs but was never deliberately unfair. One year my eldest dc went away on residential trips 3 times and the youngest had no trips.

Explained to youngest that her turn would come the following year when she started being old enough for the residential trips and sure enough next year she went on a couple of residential trips as well.

Same rule applied to parties and day trips.

Over the years it probably evened out but we never counted and they were never bothered - just waited for their individual opportunities to arise.

Children are individuals, not clones of each other and life is NEVER 'fair' to everyone.

When you are the sibling of a special needs child, your needs always have to come last - I understand that, and not only have I experienced it in my own family as a child, I have seen it happen in DS's friends' families, too. It's not "fair", but life isn't fair, and you just have to deal with it. Every family situation has to revolve around the child/young person with special needs - that's just the way it is. This carries on through childhood and all the way through adulthood, and the responsibilities siblings carry only increases, not decreases. With this in mind, I think it's really hard if these siblings, who don't get priority in almost any other situation, aren't even allowed to socialise one-on-one with other kids.

Very good point made by archery

When DD2 was in year 6, there was an opportunity to go on a music trip to France. They performed in various places, including churches, community centres and on the stage at Disneyland Paris. On the Disneyland day, they got to spend most of the day exploring the park, and going on the rides, in small groups.

DD had a friend whose mother took her little sister to Disney for the day, as "it wouldn't be fair" if she couldn't go.

I thought it wasn't fair on the older sister to have her mother and sister trailing her around the park, instead of being able to spend it with friends. (The school did the trip quite regularly, so the younger sister would most likely have also had a chance to go. Besides, there's other trips.)

I remember kicking off as a kid when my older sister got invited out with her friends. I remember how pissed off my sister was when my mum insisted she took me sometimes!
Nowt as queer as folk!!!

Fast track to building resentment in the older sibling potentially really damaging their feelings towards younger sibling. Very bad parenting - parents don't sound particularly bright.

Bizarre parenting, Special Needs or not, kids have to be allowed to spread their wings independently and not be tied to a sibling - for both their sakes.

DH has been keen to start inviting the girl on small holidays we have (as often there is no extra cost with accommodation, family ticket entry).
Clearly would be wasting my time and will ask elsewhere! Their loss... Yes and no. I have mixed feelings about this. Siblings are company for each other (that's an important point of them imo) so while it may be a favour to you it is not necessarily such a great favour to the other family. I can't imagine going on holiday with only one child so I can see where your DH is coming from, but I can also understand why another parent might not want to be left with an only child themself for a week. My two do stuff alone and together - they are close in age and really are best friends though. If there was a big gap in age and they were always bickering I might feel differently.

Lovelyideas, I am sure you are a really lovely family and having one child with SEN does complicate matter.] But what Archery has said is true. I don't know the ages of your DC but please reconsider "we come as 4" when/if your NT DC is invited out by friends.

YANBU OP, my uncle was like this with his DCs. My mum had a word.

Not a week though, sometimes just overnight to somewhere special

I am with Tapandgo, on this one children need to be given space regardless of wether or not a SN sibling does not get the same chance. Sorry its about allowing your child to experience something and come back and share it and grow. I am sure any SN child gets attention that the others don't !

She doesn't want to have to entertain one child alone, that's why she had two.

I had 2 but sometimes it's nice to be able to spend time with just 1 child. Maybe it's because I work but I did feel my youngest had had less of my time than my eldest as she hadn't had the time he had as an only child. If he was off doing something it was nice to sometimes just do stuff together (if I had time and she didn't have anything else she wanted to do.) We often had my stepkids round as well when they were young so time alone with 1 child could be precious, I never felt it was depriving that child. They're with their sib most of the time after all.

That's ridiculous of the friends mother, is she never going to let her eldest have her own social life? If it were a family situation I would completely agree with her, but not in an independent friendship. What if she's invited to a party by a school friend? Why on earth would she expect siblings to be involved too? It sounds like the eldest is being thrown under the bus to pander to the youngest's tantrums. Not cool. YANBU.

God, my mum did this. It was so so so incredibly annoying and stifling. I couldn't have a group of friends or a day out somewhere to myself. It didn't help that my sister was a tantrummer either - pretty sure my mum did it to avoid the screaming. As a parent surely you need to say tough luck, at least sometimes?

The comment by lovely ideas made me a little sad. As Archery said there is probably already so much give on the part of your NT child. To not allow them to enjoy making friends and enjoying themselves as an individual because the SN child hasn't been invited is just not fair. It can only lead to resentment later in life. In this case you are actually putting the needs of your SN child before the needs of your NT child (which is exactly what you are stating you are avoiding the other way round!). I know a family with both kids who are NT and as others have said the older sibling still resents having to take the younger sister everywhere 20 years on, and that's without the added complications of having a sibling with SN. Also Op YANBU it's ridiculous, and it's fine to bring other children along as company for your child, you can't be expected to bring the whole family.

Siblings are company for each other (that's an important point of them imo)

Really? While my younger DSis & I are very close now, I wasn't that interested in playing with her as a child. If I found out my DM was turning down invitations because she wanted me to keep DSis company it would have had the exact opposite effect.

YANBU. We had a mum like this at school. If you invited one child she'd turn up with all three (oldest girl was a nightmare) and expect to be welcomed. People just stopped inviting any of her children. She's moved them to another school now.

I read OP and got angered. If you don't understand that I would get pissed off about one of my children being excluded while the other got to feel privileged and they both got played off one against the other, even accidentally, then you don't understand a decent family dynamic. No kid ever asks to feel the disappointment of feeling excluded while their brother or sister goes to anything exciting and fun. As a child being excluded is a devastating thing to deal with, and they might put a brave face on it. I'm going to stick my neck out and say it is a rotten thing to do.

Don't be silly.

CSUK wow. Just, wow. That is some serious ishoos you're displaying about a child being invited out by their friend - and their younger sibling not being invited, because, well, they aren't friends.

You say "never mind, you'll get to do plenty of exciting thing ms with your friends. Let's go and ."

If you don't understand than your children will have different friendship groups and won't all be invited out together all at the same time, you are going to make things really hard for them.