Is there anyway to make kids come to my DS party ?

[Tearsonmypillow]

What do you do when your 9 yo DS wants a party and he doesn't have any real friends ?

Last couple of years he didn't want one and in the past we had a shared party with a popular child. Which went fairly well.

He does play computers with one child on occasion after school but spends most dinner times on his own as that child plays football with his other friends at school.

I send my child to school with a drawing pad and pencils so he has something to do.

I tried clubs and football classes but he hates everything that is not sitting on his PC at home.

I am wondering about asking the cubs to his party. He doesn't know any of their names but they include him. They are very good at including everyone.

Or is there a way of distracting him...I would be heartbroken to organise a party to which noone turns up to and that is why I don't want to invite the people from his class as they are mean to him in front of me. They wouldn't show.

Any advice ?

@KimmySchmidt1 (and everyone else saying take his video games away) maybe it's just the way he is.

I read. Constantly. Had difficulty making friends, was bullied and so on, but I'm just not that much of a social person. Taking my books away wouldn't have magically changed who I was, it would have just meant I was bored and grumpy as well as friendless.

This was sad to read
Who is raising these kids who would be mean to another child in front of their parent!?

I agree with the other posters that a cubs party is probably your best bet, or maybe a family party. Could you speak to individual parents and ask them if their child could come? My children go to every party that they're invited to; it's only polite.

Would your DS benefit from moving school? Those kids sound horrendous. He'll found his own little niche in high school but he shouldn't be unhappy until then.

Have you looked for computer gaming clubs? Do any of your friends have children the same age that you can introduce to, perhaps?
Go carting would maybe be a good party idea for kids that age?

Totally agree mirime

For me it's the computer.

The computer doesn't isolate me.

During my childhood/teen years, taking computer access away wouldn't make me less isolated. It would just remove my main coping strategy, which is just cruel.

If a child is always playing computer games or watching TV etc then they will develop poor social skills though which will make it harder for them to make friends. No excuse for kids being mean but when children who are typically developing have adequate time to play with other children they develop strategies and the resilience that they need. Computer time might be a good escape for the ops son but in excess it will also be increasing his need to escape from face to face contact.
I have a son with asd so I sympathise. He would have a much easier life being left to it on his Ipad and it is heartbreaking when you see more socially skilled children purposefully trying to upset him. But we have persisted with teaching the skills he needs and giving him opportunity to practice them and he can now deal with the majority of what he has to deal with from other kids which has made him a lot happier.

One of the TA's from the school did run a Minecraft group for a while for her son who was in my son's class.

She invited most of the boys from the class except mine. Consider that I had begged the school to help him make friends at that time and he is so good at Minecraft and she chose not to invite him. :(

But it was run at her home not school and I only found out about it,when another parent asked me to pick up their child up as a favor. They were very surprised DS had not been asked. Of course I never said anything to school, you can't insist on invites. You have to accept you child is not wanted everywhere but that exclusion really hurt.

I did find a computer club in another town and I took him every weekend for months. The staff found his behaviour difficult to deal with but loved how smart he was. But he ignored the other children. He quickly passed his age group in ability, so he was moved to the older children group. They looked down on him and called him baby. But he was so good at it he won their programme competition.

However he is so hard to move from the house. Arguments and sucide/self harming threats and tears. I struggle enough to get him to school. After months of similar behaviour getting him out for programming class, I warned him that we would stop going. But despite coming out of the class happy, the behaviour continued in the mornings so I stopped the class.

We also use to try play dates but he would either hide or sit on the stairs and cry until the visiting child went home. But that was 18 months ago and I stopped trying as his siblings ended up playing with the guest.

The CAMHS lady suggested backing off from playdates because of the stress created. I couldn't figure out how to make him more social without playdates, so I try not to think about it.

Most of the time he is happy enough as long as we stay home and don't have visitors.

Maybe I should start play dates again, maybe it would be better this time. He gets on better which much older people maybe he just needs to mature a bit more first.

He doesn't seem to get how rude/direct he is, which isn't helping the friend thing either.

He will say that he is bored and wants to go home now directly to grandma on a visit to her home. Even after I have forbidden him to say that.

He tells on children when they break the rules, as rules must not be broken.

I have explained why he shouldn't do these things, talked it over with him and then told him to stop doing it full stop. But he doesn't seem to get it and despite me telling him direct not to be things like that.

Last week he told on some of the cubs who were filling water balloons in the toilet after being told not to do that.

It doesn't matter how many times I tell him it doesn't matter and it is up to the adults to deal not him. He still told.

How do I get him to understand that he is only responsible for his own behaviour. He says it was dangerous, there was water on the floor they would of slipped and hurt themselves.

He has a good heart but that is not the way to make friends.

I think you need to be really careful with summer holidays, if the party will fall over them. We've had to cancel a party as no one nice could come in summer.

I also have found this book helpful.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FOR2DL8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnetforum-21

It has a good set of exercises to do together 'when to tell' on people and when not to. It makes it clearer by having actual examples, plus it's in a book so has more authority than just mum!

I'd try and rabble a few cubs, friends, siblings friends, do you have any family friends - your friends' children? Get a real mix.

Tears, I haven't read your whole thread, but my heart goes out to you and to him. Are you sure he isn't HFA? DS2 is and it wasn't discovered until secondary school, because bright children can disguise lots of the more obvious symptoms of ASD without realising it, but it takes its toll on them socially and emotionally. DS2 had no friends at all in primary. He still struggles with close friendships, doesn't know how to establish them, though he gets on fine with people day to day.

I have that book (and several more) followed all suggestions they haven't worked yet. I think he needs to be a little older first.

Definitely not HFA that was my original mistaken thought. But he was throughly looked at and discharged. We went through CAMHS for a few months for the anxiety levels but self discharged with option to go back if needed. As we were coping with his behaviour and it was neither getting worse or better at the time.

I even found sponsorship to complete a parenting course, just to check it wasn't my parenting but we were already doing everything the course covered.

So we are on our own. Guess I will pull put the friendship book out again and reread.

The book I linked to is for you to read and then talk through with him, rather than give him to read though.

To the people saying 'get him off the computer and he will make friends' I expect you plan to ignore them and I think you are quite right to so.

It's not the issue. My son has some similar personality traits but does have friends who come over. They just get on the computer together. Taking away something that absorbs him and relaxes him wouldn't be helpful I don't think. However, this is not what you asked.....

Of all the ideas put forward I think either a gaming party, the party bus or a cubs thing are the best.

Do you do.school pick up? If so perhaps you could mention to a couple of the mums how worried you are about no one coming and what a difficult time he's been having.

As mother hearing that I would MAKE my child attend.

Also (again, not what you asked about) have you thought about suggesting some sort of martial arts club to him.
My son does tae kwon do, and he loves it because of the fairly rigid structure - but they are also places (like cubs) of.mutual respect, and bullying or exclusion is not tolerated. Since doing it my son's confidence has soared. Just a thought and I wish you luck.

The Camhs counsellor was right, with your and his dad's love behind him - he's already got the A team

On what basis did CAHMS say he wasn't HFA? IME, all the behaviour you're describing is textbook HFA.

From your most recent posts, I have to ask - has he asked you to help him make friends?

Aside from this party, does he express an interest in all of this social interaction? Because it sounds in your recent posts that you're forcing it because you want him to have friends and because you think he should be better at this stuff.

No blame on you of course. You're more than entitled to want that for your son. But I'm sensing that being social isn't his thing and he'd be happier without these forced playdates.

Perhaps he wants the experience of a birthday party, but the actual social element isn't something he's considered or wants. He just wants the party because it's something people do on their birthdays.

Tears I am so sorry that you seem to have been so badly let down - I would also urge you to seek further assessment as my brother is HFA and they found incredibly similar. You seem to have fixated on this idea that everything will be fine if you can just get him a friend, and that although his behaviour isn't managable now, it would be fixed later on if he had a friend. I mean this in the gentlest way possible - what if that doesn't make everything fine? My mum was very similar with my DB and after the initial assessment spent 15 years insisting he was 'fine'. DB really struggled through his teens and 20s, was reassessed at 30 and now finds life a lot easier to deal with thanks to the coping mechanisms and support he's been able to put in place.

I know you've been burnt once before but you sound very unhappy and so does your DS, I would urge you to try again to get the support you, and he need.

When he was younger, he just wasn't interested in friends at all.

When we had the nightmare 18 months of school refusal when it took hours to get him into school after lifting him off the floor and dressing him and carrying him/putting him in a pram and making the toddler walk in order to get him into school. It was so hard. :(

He cited having no friends as one of the reasons he didn't want to go to school. He would scream that he would rather die than go to school. So this is when I forced playdates on him. Explaining that is you didn't talk/play with a child they wouldn't be a friend. But nothing worked.

After 18 months, he realised he would be going to school every day, even if I had to carry him there, he gave in.

He still threatens to throw himself under cars on the way to school. But CAMHS said to ignore such threats so we do and we also ignore the non eating threats when he tels us he isn't worth feeding. We just sit him at the table as normal with his tea.

Since we stopped pressure to do anything to do with other kids. Things have got easier but recently he seems to have notice the lack of friends as a bad thing and now talks about it. He asks me why no one likes him and why are they not friends. It breaks my heart, as I see all the joyful kind and fun things about his personality and others just see the negatives.

Maybe now is the time to work through that book together again. Might help him better this time.

I spent two years begging for help from everyone. From the school, the doctors and the experts. I lost all self respect as I would of crawled through glass to get help for him, yet I just got kicked in the teeth. Time after time. I am highly embarrassed that I was so insistant that he needed help and how far I went. I should of given up much earlier than maybe I wouldn't be a laughing stock around here. Maybe I am the reason my son has no friends. Maybe in trying to help him, I made him an outsider.

I wish I had just concentrated on getting through that 18 months without seeking help. It would if been so much easier for both of us :(

Apparantly having a 7 yo who wants to die and lies on the pavement refusing to walk to school, is a normal phrase kids go through. I didn't know that, I never saw another child behave like him. I thought seeking help was the right thing to do...it wasn't.

I have been told by the best expert in the area, that there is nothing wrong about my son apart from having a poor parenting from a crazy mother. If I could do the right type of parenting, he would he happy and have friends.

I have accept that. I have to move past it.

Things are not as bad as he was when he was younger. I can't remember the last time he head butted or kicked me. He was matured a lot.

It is just this party thing has thrown me. I will be fine in a few days. I will get my head around it and sort something out.

It sounds heart-breaking.

I recently had a meeting with my son's teachers (he is also 7) as he told me he had no friends and wanted to die. I sobbed all through that meeting. They were baffled as they saw a happy young fellow at school - he has learnt to hide his anxiety well.

The thing I think with my boy is that he understands things differently, I see that he has friends, as in people who say hi to him and come round to play if I invite them, but he doesn't seem to understand it as friendship. If the emotional intelligence isn't there (or not developed yet) it is confusing for them. They know they are different to everyone else and don't know how to feel the same.

The pain of thinking of our child as lonely is so intense. It sounds like you're doing everything you can to cope.

Ignoring the fact you haven't got a diagnosis, are there groups, societies outside school for children with asd? Any meet ups you could go along to. It is highly likely that when your son does make a friend it will be a single friend and they will be fiercely close to one another,.and it may well not be someone he already knows at school but someone with similar personality traits to him.

Tears - it all sounds very hard

I think definitely give the parenting/friends books another go, as he has started to ask questions for himself. Maybe now is the right time.

When I was little my mum said the best way to make friends was to be a friend first. Maybe get your ds thinking about what being a friend means. What do friends do? How shoukd we make friends feel? Who has made him feel happy??(the cubs?) Why is that?

Also, this expert who told you it was firm to bad parenting. Did they specify what exactly? Did they offer any alternatives to how you parent that would have better effect? Although it sounds very mean of them, on the other hand sometimes we really have to examine that possibility. It's possible that you've spent so long battling the many challenging or physically demanding moments and just getting through every day that the periphery or longer term emotional issues haven't had room to develop.

There a book called "have you filled a bucket today?" It's aimed at younger children but it does well explain the concept that we should be contributors not just takers. We can have the power to make others feel good, not just wait for them to make us feel bad. The two concepts are very different but it's possible to get stuck into being reactive and finding the world and people in it largely lacking and disappointing. Adopting a new philosophy might help your ds take back control in finding ways to "put in" to people and friends actively.

When we were seeking help, there was a group I would take him to. A charity. He loved it and said the children were just like him.

But since the final doctors meeting we never went back. How could we, the group was charity run for children with difficulties not for my child.

It was the only place where he could be himself and no one stared or said mean things and we can never go back again.

I sometime I think about ringing up the organiser and ask her for advise but what can she suggest that I haven't tried already.

She would be kind and tell us to visit again but they have a long waiting list of children who really need help. We can't steal a place even as a once off.

Tears my eldest son sounds very similar to yours - hes 21 now and hasnt got a single close friend. He is a lovely man, kind, caring but was bullied at school by people he thought were his friends and taken for a ride by the only girl he ever liked enough to pluck up courage to ask out. By nature he is never going to be someone who has loads of friends (like me) but when these two boys who he thought were friends turned on him at high school it made him shut down.

It breaks my heart to see him so lonely and so shut off from his peers but he refuses to acknowledge there is a problem and wont accept any help from me. His siblings are completely different.

I think its harder as a parent to see your child go through this - I have no advice other than to keep hugging your son and let him know you love him and that there is nothing wrong with him!

Tears- but why not ring the organiser? You don't know if there might be another group she can recommend, or that you go on the waiting list even though your ds hasn't been formally dx, or even if it would be possible for you to contribute financially in some way to his attendance if it's a money thing?

Sometimes with my kids we've done a special day out just with one or 2 friends for their birthday. Cinema, McDonald's and let them all choose a small toy in Disney shop etc. Would something like that suit him?

The bucket book sounds good. I will get that one.

I asked repeatedly what I could do/change to improve things. Neither the doctors, parenting course people, teachers or CAHMS could pinpoint what I was doing wrong.

CAHMS just kept saying I was parenting exactly as they recommend... which is why I self discharged from the service in the en. They couldn't see where I was failing, which I found very frustrating at the time.

(((Blobby)))