To pull away from my close friendship because of her kids

[abouttimeforu]

My close friendship is with my sister. We are extremely close. My child can be very challenging , currently waiting on ASD assessment , attention seeking and has a hard time managing his anger although this has improved greatly .
My child struggles socially and doesn't have many friends.
He is also so kind and loving, very sensitive , thoughtful and funny He is 11.

My sister's two children are by and large, rude and moody. Their mother will often put this down to tiredness and hunger but reality is they are actually just rude and moody, mostly

They will engage with my child when there's no other option but if there are other kids around, they will practically ignore him.
So for example if we were grouping up for an activity, they will purposely say that they want to do x with 'Jen' and completely omit to mention my child's name or include him.
Despite him being the only one left out.
My sister does not intervene or correct them. I would be disgusted if my kids did this and very ashamed tbh.

Her attitude is that they don't have to socialise with people they don't want to socialise with .... until they have no one else and then ask to socialise with my
Child .He has been too available .. my fault.

To me he seems only good enough for them as a stand in but tbh I'm highly sensitive about this issue and biased.
I am very protective of himSo at times I am guilty of overthinking and over reacting when it comes to how I view his interactions with others , when In fact, he is absolutely fine with being on his own sometimes.

My child is always with me when we see my sister and her family. I generally make the effort more as her kids are younger and I have the time.

I think that for my sons self esteem and general happiness, I need to move away from the intensity of the contact , when with my child. He craves their attention and his self worth is so low that he will tolerate being second choice or not a choice at all, as the case may be.
This has only developed recently and I'm
Disgusted if I'm honest but then again , I'm highly sensitive when it comes to him.

My sister has zero insight with her own kids and has never once stepped in and said to her children, for example, to include my child or insist that he be part of a specific group that they were creating. They feel
Very Comfortable leaving him out and she feels very comfortable enabling that .
So, can you advise me here. I really need objectivity thanks.

I will add again that I can be very defensive as he was always labelled the 'troublemaker' which he was mostly, but not always, and always the one that was blamed when there was trouble among them... again, it was mostly him but not always. He has that label now though sadly as it has stuck.
Thanks .

But he’s behaved badly to them for years. Being polite/friendly to someone you don’t particularly like, if you have to on social occasions, is generally seen as good manners, not being a user.

You can totally see why so many kids lack awareness and understanding of neurodiversity, look at the attitudes they're being brought up with.

I don’t think anyone should be intentionally left out and they should be taught that they wouldn’t like to be left out and it’s not fair to do it to others.

But I do think they shouldn’t be forced to play with your child, especially as you say he’s challenging and aggressive.

It’s finding the balance between not leaving him out and forcing them to put up with inappropriate behaviour.

I would have a chat to your sister and say you don’t want to force them to play but you are thinking of pulling back because it makes you sad to see your child being left out.

My nieces are all close in age apart from 1 who is much younger and who always want to join in.
We have to tell the older ones that although they don’t have nothing in common they need to make an effort because it’s not nice to be left out.

If one of my nieces or nephews behaved inappropriately and had challenging or aggressive behaviour then I would tell my DD she doesn’t need to play with them.

I think it’s very important that we teach children to be kind and inclusive but to not put up with inappropriate behaviour, even if it’s from a family member.

There would be a lot less people putting up with disrespectful or abusive partners if they were taught self-worth and to not put up with inappropriate behaviour.
This starts from childhood.

In summary, you can’t force them to be “real” friends with your ds. They play with him because he is a relative, not because he is a friend. When they have friends available, they prefer to play with their friends. Of course it hurts, but that does appear to be the way it is. If they see your ds less often, they might be able to cover that up a bit more, so that he doesn’t have to realise. Ime, cousins are seldom really good friends.

And equally, you can totally see why people lack boundaries, stay in abusive relationships or lack autonomy - because they have been taught that as children.

Sorry, I dunno if you're saying that abusers are autistic or something?

That's not what's happening though. They're choosing to play with him sometimes and leaving him out at other times because it suits them. That is using someone.

Sorry, I dunno if you're saying that abusers are autistic or something?

No, I think you must know they're saying that if kids are taught to override their own feelings in this way then that becomes a pattern of behaviour that they can't drop later in life and means they can fall prey to abusers and put up with unacceptable behaviour.

That's not what's happening though. They're choosing to play with him sometimes and leaving him out at other times because it suits them. That is using someone.

So as per a previous comment - would you rather they ignored him all the time for consistency? Because the playing with him all the time is not going to happen.

There has to be a balance between teaching children to ignore their feelings and teaching them that some people with neurological disorders behave differently due to said neurological disorders. It's clear from this thread that teaching children any sort of disability awareness is not a priority for most parents.

Yes. Be consistent. Either be his friend or don't be. Look how many threads there are on MN about one person being treated differently within their friendship group and being hurt by it. Invited to some things, then ignored for others. They're rightly told they are being used and should ditch those friends.

In this case they're not even friends. They're just playing with him when it's convenient to them. They don't give a toss about him. I would not keep taking my child to people who treat him like that.

Sorry if I’ve missed this, but how long has he been “greatly improved”?

years of being challenging, aggressive and loud are not going to be completely forgotten about in a few months? Relationships take time, trust needs to be earned.

It is really really offensive to suggest that teaching children to be inclusive of differently abled children means they will have poor boundaries and be prey to abusers as adults.

Fucking hell, I thought I'd read some revolting shit in my time on here about autistic people but that one is right up there.

my child had angry outbursts and would shout and generally be aggressive and bossy
I think it's obvious why they don't want to socialise with him. You're being very irrational and blinkered to assume everyone should like your son the way you do.

But if your sister's children were taught to pander to your son, then it would only lead to resentment from them anyway. Also, it wouldn't reflect how children are going to treat him in real life.
I understand that it's hard and that you are overprotective of your son, but I'm not sure if you'll be doing him any favours if you withdraw from this relationship. He needs real life social interactions that don't just come from his mother.
Instead of putting all the onus on your sister - which I can imagine is quite a pressure on her - couldn't you speak to your niece and nephew directly, encouraging them to include your son when you feel they're being unfair?

Yeah, you've put this much better than me tbh. No wonder so many autistic adults struggle so badly.

Eh? That makes no sense. That is not how social interactions work. If you are at a party, do you speak/engage with every person there equally? You have the choice to, but I bet anything you don’t. Or do you find that on one occasion you have hardly spoken to Bob but on another occasion you speak quite a lot to him. That is not using someone.

My sisters child is in the same situation as your son, and same age. Seeing this from the other side.....

Her son is always causing issues amongst any group he is in. He is destructive, things have to be his way, he is rude, he was awful with all of this when he was younger but has got better with it now. I can totally see why people take a back step with him. As much as people understand he has issues etc, he would always ruin every game and everything would end in tears. That is not fair to everyone.

He is very happy in his own space, he chooses not to be around people now as he says he doesn't really like people.

Having said all of the above, my kids never left him out because they didn't have the heart to. And he always had a better relationship with them than others, because they were very patient of him.

It's an awkward one, but I think you need to see it from both sides.

It's crystal clear (to me anyway) that's not what's being said.

Have you spoken to your child about it? He's 11 and should be able to tell you how he feels about it all or is this all coming from you?

What's it like at school?

I don't think there is much you can do but he's your only DS which I notice people have more time only focussing on one, possible special needs, you will always be more overprotective I suppose.

How unexpected, here on MN 🙄

You seem ridiculously determined to be offended. As I said upthread, my DS is autistic. I'm not 'suggesting' anything about autistic people, children or adults.

Absolutely what people are saying, well what I've seen is, it's not fair on children to be told 'it doesn't matter if someone had been aggressive, violent or threatening to you, it's all on you to #bekind and ensure their feelings aren't hurt'. This guidance/direction is of course circumstantial as to whether its always appropriate.

There is a difference between being taught to understand that everyone is different and some people will see the world differently to others, and that kindness, acceptance and respect are important, and being taught that it's acceptable and even desirable to put yourself in a position where you are being hurt or upset by someone else because they're not able to control their behaviour and you are.

Neurodiversity and all forms of additional needs exist and we all have to be able to rub along with one another in this world with kindness, respect and understanding. But some people's neurodiversity or other additional needs cause them to behave in ways that are violent, cruel and harmful to others. Asking children to accept being hit, shouted at, called names, manipulated etc by others because those other children have additional needs and they therefore need to be kind and accepting and just put up with it is not fair.

Some of the attitudes on here are unrealistic. While it's awful that so many neurodiverse children struggle socially, it's totally unreasonable to ask and expect other children and parents to put themselves/their children in harm's way so that a neurodiverse child doesn't feel left out. As a teacher, I've found it so challenging and heartbreaking over the years to see the loneliness of neurodiverse children whose behaviour pushes other children away, but there really is only so much you can ask of other children in terms of kindness, patience and understanding before their own needs need to come first.

Well, indeed. I think the anger on this thread towards the cousins is quite disheartening. As many people have pointed out: you can't force friendships and being cousins does not equal friends (ND or not). Of course, children have preferred peers they'd chose to hang out with. Don't you? I certainly grew up being dropped by family members when a friend was available. Yes, they should be being kind and respectful, but perhaps they are? And, as others have said, perhaps they are wary after previous aggressive outbursts? There was an excellent post earlier about engaging with children and explaining what is and isn't within your son's control. Are these conversations you can have with the cousins? Be a bridge, as it were in their communication? I'm sure it's hard not to leak your heartfelt disappointment and your understandable defensiveness when the cousins don't act as you'd like. Children pick up on those cues too. I sense what's really driving the distress here is the pain of realising DS and cousins are not close. That must be very painful and my heart goes out to you. You're probably noticing what your son is losing out on - but, if they're not close, is he losing out? Does he even want to hang out with them? There does appear to be a muddling of expectations re: family and friends as the sister is called a friend in the thread title. That says something about the dynamics at play and a possible muddying of boundaries. It's great you and your sister would choose each other as friends if you weren't related. I don't think that's necessarily true of many families and certainly is too high an expectation to put on the cousins.

Others have suggested finding other resources, support and friendships for your son. I would want to focus on that, myself. What does he engage with? What does he want? What interests does he have?

I wouldn't be pulling away from my sister but I would be more realistic about my expectations of that relationship and that of the cousins.

Wishing you the best (and yes, plenty of neuro-divergence in my family: siblings, cousins and their children).