To have pulled DS up on this?

[PartyRingsandPrincesses]

DS is 7 and has HFA/ASD.

After school we were at his friends house (I’m also friends with his friends mother).

The mother had put on some food for the DC - 3 altogether.

One of the food items was my DS favourite food - there were 10 small pieces to share and DS took 6 of the pieces leaving only 4 for the other two children to share .

I said to DS , you’ve taken nearly all the pieces and not left many for anyone else!

The mum said not to worry she will top up but I felt a bit

One of the other children wanted the last piece of something else but asked if any of the other children wanted it first .

My DS said yes and took the piece without even trying to negotiate or offering to the other child.

By the end I could see DS was getting more agitated (he finds people and sharing hard to cope with)

In the car on the way home he burst in to tears and said I’d embarrassed him.

I feel awful and I apologised and said I was trying to explain he shouldn’t take everything before others get a chance but next time I’ll tell him in private .

He was upset because he didn’t know .

I do find at parties etc he does take lots of different things and doesn’t always eat it all - I’m constantly reminding him to eat what’s on his plate first .

On the flip side , I do think he needs to be told , and I think he was so upset because he was just worn out and overwhelmed.

Does anyone else feel like this type of behaviour can be seen as grabby and selfish or is it just what DC do?

I know his ASD affects his understanding.

WIBU to have said something ?

Thank you for all the posts and taking time to reply

I dont think its that bad really, I think the Mum should have put more out to begin with so everyone could have plenty. Or dished a set amount out to everyone.
I've been at works dos and people have acted like this and they have been middle aged adults. A 7 year old can be excused.

I'd also agree with the poster who said lots of kids get buffet 'etiquette' wrong & tend to pile up the bits they like (and then not eat them). A friend of mine has a very sweet but incredibly food orientated child and he had a total melt down at someone else eating the last of the biscuits at a party!

op you are being ridiculously hard on yourself. your son didn't share, you corrected him. to me that is wonderful parenting, keep it up! all kids try and make you feel bad if you have told them off/corrected them so don't pay the tears too much attention. it was very sweet of you to apologise to him though, he's lucky to have you xx

immortalmarble is saying a lot of how I feel. And it doesn’t seem directed at the op at all.

And “don’t pay the tears too much attention” is terrible advice. Your son communicated with you how he felt. Pay that LOTS of attention, as you have done, and use it as a learning experience for both of you.

Op it is bloody hard. The fact you are here discussing it speaks volumes about how much you want to best help your son.

Generally children have food served to them and don't have many opportunities to learn buffet rules so it's no surprise some get carried away.
Maybe have a few practice runs at home?
I have the reverse problem my ASD child won't select food at parties and sits with an empty plate - I look like the worlds pushiest mum trying to get her to pick things up. So we are practicing- not got the hang of it yet!

I would be asking him if he noticed the other child with good manners who asked if others wanted last slice first and tell him that is a really good thing to do. I am afraid even with HFA/ASD if you found your son grabby there will be others who will think he is as well. I have a nephew like this and we get around it by putting his food on his own plate and everyone else shares well. My sister says he is more comfortable with that. She asks if this can happen when he goes to a party too as It stops the other children from saying he is greedy. As he gets older he may get better. He is still only 7.

My ds also has ASD and we've been through similar.

I am fully empathetic to the not understanding but also tell him not understanding isn't an excuse for not trying to learn and understand or behaviour being unacceptable.

I rationalise it by using concrete examples he can understand.
So I say things like "x doesn't understand that you find noise overwhelming - should I just let him be noisy in case i embarrass him".

It's not easy and we still are working on it and he's 13 now. Mostly because his autism means he truely does believe others should adapt to him but not him to them - or more he doesn't get he's not adapting iyswim?

What I find best with ds is actual teaching of social skills via rules.
So having identified this as an issue I'd start serving dinner at home on table for people to help themselves. Do things like nuggets, or a pizza cut into slices. Teach that when there's 12 nuggets and 3 people - you initially take 4 (your fair share). If at the end there's 2 left teach that you ask and also exactly how to compromise - so 1 nugget each for 2 people and the 3rd person gets the left over chips for example.

It's soooooo hard not to pull them up in public as it's normal to teach children as we go along. But for our children it's often a remainder to them how different they feel and can impact their self esteem. If you need to intervene in public try and do it beforehand. So my ds loves maths so I'd have said "oh ds there's 10 things, how many can you all have each?"

It's hard and you learn as you go along.

Neither of my sons understood food sharing at this age. My youngest still struggled with it at age 9 (likely to want to eat the whole tub of sweet treats) and I noticed his peers were similar.