To ask his mum to stay at the party?

[heywhatsgoingon]

Have name changed. My 6 year old son wants a full class party for his 7th birthday in August. The class are really nice and all get on well ... aside from one child. I don't know if he is on the spectrum or not but what I do know is that every day he is physically abusive to the other kids - but mainly the girls. He has only punched my son once but some of the other kids have had continuous physical abuse from him on a regular basis. My son doesn't want to invite him to the party at all - which is if course an option - however I would feel bad not inviting one child - and before anyone says anything I am not going to have a scaled down party just because one child doesn't behave - that's not fair on my son or the other kids. However I don't want to carry the responsibility of watching him as I will have 30 other kids to watch over. I also don't know how to deal with the child if he starts behaving like this. AIBU to say to his mother that I need her to fart to ensure there are not incidents?

For me @justchangingagain, with having special needs kids/kids on the spectrum, when I read something like that, I tend to take a little bit of offence, so will pick up on it. My bad!

oh everyone give over with the "not allowed to mention autism being a possibility to consider" When you have a young child with continuous behaviour issues it is ALWAYS worth looking at all possibilities. Far worse to write the kid off as a little bastard or a little shit, than to accept that some bad behaviours in schools are due to things like adhd or asd and that school is often a difficult environment for these kids. Theres at least one autistic kid in most classes surely.

I think its beside the point anyway, whatever his needs or difficulties, if you dont feel comfortable excluding him, then just a hint about parents staying if necessary should be enough, or that each child should be left with a contact number

If it was me, I probably just wouldn't invite the whole class. As other PPs have said, they won't all be around in August anyway. I would just ask your DS to decide which of his classmates he actually wants to invite, and give him a limit, so you don't have to invite this boy. Yes, he might have SN, but that really isn't your problem to worry about. I just think it's too complicated with not seeing his parents ever at the school gate. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable asking the childminder, she might not feel able to answer honestly.

Or just invite everyone apart from this boy. With the party being in August, it's not as if he's ever going to realise that he's the only one not going, with a lot of families likely to be away.

There are children with SN but there are also children with bad home lives, terrible parents, weak ineffective parents, never has boundary's set for them there can be other reasons for bad behaviour.

My intent wasn't to dismiss children with SN nor to say that every possibility shouldn't be examined to explain bad behaviour, it was more to highlight how quickly it gets mentioned some times as the only possibility for bad behaviour.

KalindaBlack sorry didn't mean to offend you.

Lizzie48

Scottish schools go back in August, we don't know where the op is.

Point taken. If that's the case, I personally just wouldn't invite the whole class, so it's not a problem to leave the boy out.

But Branleuse the op didn’t consider all possibilities. She only considered autism.
Not adhd, not violence at home or any other possible reason for this child behaving the way he is. The op basically equates violence and autism. I’m not sure how anyone can think that’s not going to cause offence.

are you in Scotland OP? Because if you are in the UK I doubt if everyone will be coming to an August birthday party

Scotland (at least for the moment) is still part of the UK.

If your ds's school is out in August, would the boy even hear about the party?

I think it’s entirely appropriate at age 7 that parents don’t stay. I just hosted 17 7-year-old boys and it was fine. I actually wouldn’t ask the mother to stay; rather I’d have another adult tagged to watch him (your husband, perhaps) and be ready to intervene if necessary. I read the riot act to the boys at the beginning of my son’s party - any aggression on the bouncy castle or shooting water guns at adults and I would call their parents RIGHT AWAY. It did the trick, despite one or two being -little shits- particularly energetic. Do the same and tell the parents at the start that you’ll be doing that - she may actually offer to stay.

I think if you've never met the mum and the childminder is the only one you've ever seen with the boy, then you're going to need to actually speak to the mum first and say that him coming to the party is conditional upon a parent staying with him.

My worry though is that she will agree to this, and then drop him off and leave before you've even seen her, so it's not a secure proposition.
You'd be better to do as others have suggested - have an adult already at the party earmarked to be this child's "watcher", so they can step in and prevent any bad/disruptive behaviour before it causes problems.

And I agree that you did need to mention SN in your OP or someone else would have jumped on you within about 10 posts for not considering it. You may have thought that ASD covers things like ADHD too - it doesn't, although they're often comorbities - but I doubt you meant to offend people.

Anyway - it's kind of you to not wish to exclude this boy despite his obviously violent tendencies, for whatever reason, but I think you do absolutely need to make your own provision for keeping him under control, not rely on his parents to do so.

khalindablack
Does your child have behavioural issues? If so are the other patents in he class aware of the reasons for it? If not would you prefer that someone presumed that they had some sort of issues and invited them to a party or presumed they were just badly behaved and therefore, like many kids of many parents on here, excluded them. I am actually starting to think, from some of the posts here getting stroppy about me saying he MAY be in the spectrum, that even if he is I would be better off excluding because his mum might get the arse like some of you seem to. Invites are being handed out at school so it would be obvious he wasn't invited.

As a parent of ds's who have had some pretty violent meltdowns at school then I would have been extremely grateful that you would even consider asking them to your party instead of just excluding them. dh and I would have been more than willing to accompany them. Infact, at one stage we would have been very wary to let them go unaccompanied because it would not have been fair to ask a stranger to be able to recognise their trigger points and calm them down whereas in a lot of instances we would have been able to.

The problem is you keeping saying on the spectrum rather than saying sn.

When there have been posts about children hitting others, people generally point out that the child may have sn. They don't usually say they may be on the spectrum unless there are other things that indicate autism.

You don't know here so you are not going to fall out with a friend you are only trying to do the right thing .Invite him and ask the mother to text you and reply so no akward telephone calls and just be honest and ask her to stay due to there has been some issues with other kids and her son and you would appreciate her support as it's a full class party and wouldn't dream of leave any kids out . An uncomfortable text to send but not much else you can do. Dropping hints is a waste of time you need to be direct

For the record most of the mums I have spoken to have said they would not invite him

I could get past the 'spectrum' comment pretty easily but this comment not so much. Tells me all I need to know about you OP.

Hope the party goes well.

Ignorance is bliss hey OP. Not everything is as it seems. Try talking to the Mum instead of assuming.

Uh oh another "snapped and farted" hilarious!thread.

I'm spitting my coffee, literally crying, actual tears, peeing my pants laughing because someone used the word fart in an alleged typo. May as well sling in DC and DDog are looking at me like . Not.

I suppose, if your DS really wants to invite the whole class, you could ask the boy's childminder for his mum's mobile number so you can talk to her. I have a DD with SN and it would make me really grateful if the other mums would call me with their concerns rather than just not inviting her. (In her case she's not violent at school, just lacking in social skills.)

I take your point about the invitations being handed out at school. A whole class party is hard to keep quiet.

OneInEight I feel exactly the same. My son can lash out during sensory overload or meltdown. (Autism, ADHD and other conditions.) His behaviours in KS1 were very challenging. Now he’s older, we see only occasional flashes. He is (out of meltdown) actually the kindest kid - his teachers always write this in his reports.
He rarely gets invited to parties, even now, and so for a mum to reach out and invite is a pretty incredible thing. I would always attend, and his behaviour at parties is very good, actually. This boy’s mum will probably be so relieved and attend to help support.
I think it’s very difficult to exclude just one child from a party. That IS bullying. (If you did it in the workplace, it would definitely be regarded as such.) As much as this child is known as ‘that kid’, do you want to be known as ‘that parent’. (Believe me, school will be aware that this one child has been excluded and will judge you. Teachers and TAs will never say anything, but they will know and it may affect how they view you and your son in future.)
Whatever the reason this boy is acting violently, it won’t be because he’s a ‘little shit’, it will most likely be because of other factors - maybe autism, sensory issues, or some other condition, or maybe a really shitty homelife, maybe something else. 7 year old children aren’t evil, if their behaviour is challenging it’s because of something quite difficult in his little life. It’s hard, but I would say this lad is deserving of some empathy and a little kindness. The more children like this are excluded from parties, group events, etc, the less opportunity they have to learn different behaviours.

Beautifully put @Twofigsnotgiven

Why do threads always go like this, people hone in on a part of the op rather than the actual question

Probably because people living with an ASD or who have children who have an ASD have to live their lives with constant judgement and misconceptions around the condition. To say that children with ASD specifically are more violent than other children is wrong and discriminatory. And people should always call out discrimination. If the op had made sweeping generalisations about a certain race or sexuality, she would have been pounced on, but it seems that neuro-divergent children are fair game. This is wrong.

heywhatsgoingon

You have been told multiple times on this thread that it was your specificity in linking autism and violence that upsets people and yet instead of apologising and moving on you repeated your assertion and called us all "stroppy". To me that means you are wilfully ignorant.

DancingDot

To say that children with ASD specifically are more violent than other children is wrong and discriminatory

...and that’s why it’s lucky that no one has said that. 🙄

theres a big difference between saying that when a 6 year old has certain behavioural issues that its worth considering autism, to saying that autistic people are violent

Why just consider autism though?