One sided play dates

[lollipoprainbow]

My dd has a friend that is always inviting herself over for play dates but my dd never gets invited back to hers. In transpires that her mum doesn't like my dd going round as she always goes go up the stairs, we don't have stairs as we have a ground floor flat so stairs are a bit of novelty. My dd is autistic and I'm sure this is the real reason for the non invites. My dd adores it when this girl comes round to play as she doesn't have any other friends due to her struggling with social communication. I can't help feeling really resentful towards this other mum especially as she often has another girl over to play. Should I carry on having this girl over or refuse which would make my dd unhappy.

I wouldn't invite your DD round if she kept disobeying requests. I don't have the time to be hovering around children on a playdate. Obviously you can see that the other mum must find it a lot easier to facilitate a playdate with a friend that can follow rules? I can see it feels unfair and discrimatory from your perspective but I just think the other mum wants a easy life.

OK the thread has moved on from the actual play date issue.
The REAL issue is that your daughter doesn’t have any other friends, so you have to put up with this one. Whom you don’t like. And who if I’m being honest doesn’t sound great.
The other mother is under no obligation to invite yours.

The only recourse you have is to guide your daughter to make other friends. Which is difficult when she’s autistic.

Your daughter goes upstairs in another persons house when she is expressly told not to do so, and you don’t see this is an issue for the other parent?

it’s probably the reason why she hadn’t been invited back, so maybe you need to accept that other folk have the right to set boundaries in their homes and that breaking those boundaries piss them off.

@lollipoprainbow - my 5 year old son is autistic, and has only once been invited on a play date and it was (politely) made clear that he was being invited to play but I would need to stay with him. We invite his friends here pretty much every week, and never expect the parents to stay (unless they want to).

Chatting to other parents of autistic kids has been really helpful (I’m in a support/advice group) - this is a really really common pattern.

A lot of parents don’t feel able/willing to deal with any issues my son might have.

Plus he has a restricted range of kids he’s able to play with so I have to foster any friendships even where I feel the parents are just using us for childcare!

So I feel your pain, unfortunately it’s just one of those challenges that can come with having a child with different needs to average.

I think you’ve done the right thing just politely making clear that your dd would like to be invited: hopefully something will come of it.

Are you friendly enough with the mum that you could chat about any needs/issues your daughter might have on a playdate so she feels more confident?

I rarely have one of my sons best friends over, even though they have mine a lot. Even took him on holiday in May. His Mum knows he is a handful (undiagnosed but clearly something going on) and that I already have my hands full with my younger ones without adding another. Weve discussed it like adults and shes happy to continue as we are for their friendship. Maybe try speaking to her instead of accusing her of something?

Why is going upstairs a problem? How strange.

This

A lot of parents don’t feel able/willing to deal with any issues my son might have.

Rightly so. I'm pretty sure if they tried handling a situation the parent would have a lot to say about that.

As the mum of an autistic child I would say: get over it fast. Yes it's unfair, and yes in an ideal world, it would be reciprocal. But it never will be. NT parents seldom 'get' ND children, don't know how to parent them. It's tough. We had to work hard to find how to do it. They don't have that specialist knowledge so having our DC over can be quite challenging to them.

Don't let your desire for reciprocation mean your DD misses out. Just keep inviting the kids your DD enjoys playing with and be glad they like coming over. It will help keep her socialised as there may be periods late rin life when she is temporarily isolated (in early teens for example) due to her autism, so the more social practise she has now, the better.

Might be a good idea to try to find an autistic parents network too so you can mix more freely as families.

Because that is the rule of the house.

there could be any number of reasons, but that doesn’t matter.

their house = their rules.

it is not strange for different people to have different rules and to expect that they are not flouted.

@Mally100 - That’s an unnecessarily hostile response, bearing in mind you don’t know my son’s needs or my likely response to people trying to deal with him.

If anybody wanted to ask how to best support him and try having him over, I’d be delighted, and would recognise that they’d done their best even if there was a problem.

sadly one of the (many) ways that parents of children with additional needs are isolated is that other families exclude us.

we’re doing our best to support him socialising, which is why I end up doing free childcare for other 5 year olds every weekend!

Of course it is awful seeing your DD upset.

Have you started a proper adult conversation with the mother, without her mumbling, and finding out exactly what the issue is. Your DDs friend might not know the full reason ?

The thing is, and I mean this in the nicest way, if you DD struggles to follow instruction the other mum might not feel confident supervising her, but unless you have a discussion with the mum yourself, you won't know.

I can't look after my own godson due to his Autism, it's not that I don't want to, it's because he won't cope with it, so we always go to their house. He loves seeing our DS but I couldn't give him a positive experience in our home.

If it brings joy to your DD, unless it's an unhealthy friendship, just let it continue and stop the expectation that it needs to be returned, it's an experience you either choose your DD to have or not.

But I am assuming if you thought it unhealthy it would have stopped by now, you just sound hurt and angry that your DD is being excluded. I would talk to the mum for the benefit of my DD

As a mum of Autistic children I'd echo this.

Practically it doesn't matter if what the other mum is doing is unreasonable or unfair or OK. Stopping having the child over will hurt you DD and it's unlikely it will result in the other mum inviting your DD over. A better counter could be to do playdates with another child DD likes or starting some after school activities or sports. Widening her social circle might result in another friendship or a couple of new friends and less focus on this child.

If I was in the other mums shoes I wouldn't dream of being so blatant in allowing the one side play dates. She shouldn't accept my invitation of a play date.

I suspect you'd then be annoyed she was stopping them being friends.

DD has SEN and wasn't invited to any birthday parties, playdates and social stuff for years. She was hard work. We worked extremely hard on her behaviour and she now has a little nerd herd at school and does get invites.

You can get angry at the whole world and tell everyone to FO, or you can accept the world is a bit shit and make the most of it for your DD. Your choice.

Sorry you’re getting a hard time, OP. Time to set some boundaries:

• the friend should not get to invite herself. If she invites herself, just say it’s not convenient. Only invite her if you/dd want her there.
• tell the friend/dd they need to stay in one room
• if friend asks to stay for tea, say no, it’s time to go home
• if you see manipulative / unkind behaviour, intervene and put a stop to it

And finally, maybe cool it with the invites for a couple of weeks, Don’t always be so willing comply.

Because thats the house rules.

My younger kids don't go upstairs during the day as they have no need to - their playroom is downstairs. I keep all the medication for my youngest upstairs safely out the way.

There could be someone sleeping off a night shift.

It doesn't actually matter why that's the rule, its not unreasonable to have the rule or except 10 year olds to respect it.

You may not see it a problem that your child goes up the stairs into her friends room, but her Mum obviously does, and it's her house, her rules.

I've often got DH working upstairs on calls, and sometimes a napping toddler in his room.
Whatever the reasons she shouldn't go upstairs are irrelevant really. A child who can't follow very simple instructions is more likely to have an accident or get hurt.

The thing is, if the parent doesn’t see any issue with a child going where she wants in someone else’s house, the chances are there are no rules around this at home. That’s fine, each to their own, but if you let your children behave as they want, they will likely do it out of the home, and if/when they do, people may get fed up of it, so it’s up to you how to parent, but asking children to listen to instructions is fairly basic. I think the autism is a misnomer here; the child is not being asked because she is not listening to adults.

Honestly play dates are hard work anyway without a child any child who needs constant entertainment or doesn’t follow rules. My middle child has a particular friend although while nice is extremely hard work we learnt the hard way after a sleep over and as bad as it sounds she has thus only been invited around again once since for a dinner evening and again was extremely hard work. She has one friend who’s a dream and basically has an open invite because you don’t even realise you’ve an extra child in the house really.

if you stop play dates for your child because you don’t like the fact she isn’t getting invited back all your doing is cutting off a friend for her. Not everyone has a house they like people in, or they have younger children who get upset and cause issues or sometimes your child is just harder work than one or two they do invite.

Bet the upstairs is a tip, like ours 99% of the time.

Another weekend and she's here yet again, I'm doing it through gritted teeth, I heard my dd ask her why she couldn't go to her house and she said her mum said she could come over at the end of the six weeks holiday, Marvellous 🙄

The unfair reality of have a DC who struggles socially is that you have to work harder to support their social life than other parents. There is no point in getting angry about it.

So, keep having the friend she has over, and also try to stretch her friendship groups. I invited (and still invite) tons of dc over, and I often found offers were accepted when they might not otherwise be if I offered days that helped with childcare over holidays and similar. My dc did much better at making friends on a 1:1 basis, and I was able to make the playdates more successful by thinking carefully about activities and offering structured things in-between periods of free play. Dc made friendships, and those friendships continued at school.

@Stompythedinosaur I'm sad too