Child bullies- wtf to do

[partygarden]

So I've name changed for this as this, combined with my other posts might be highly outing to anyone I know irl.

I'm just back from my SIL birthday party. Went with son, 5, husband and ds2. Yes, back insanely early as youngest fell asleep prematurely then woke up screaming, basically until we left and he fell back to sleep in the car.

My ds5 has adhd (diagnosed). He's a lovely boy but, as you'd expect, struggles with hyperactivity (to rein it in), with impulsiveness around communication (he's very enthusiastic). He literally just wants to play football, have a laugh and muck around. He doesn't always understand social cues.

My DB and SIL have two boys, 8 &5 and I've noticed at the last few meet-ups they've been whispering allot and running away from my ds5. It's been obvious but then eventually they'll all play.

Tonight they were really quite shit to my son. Originally they played for about 5 minutes, then I noticed my son was by himself and two nephews kept running off. Dn 5 whispered to dn8 something inaudible apart from "run away" and my sons name. My son kept trying to play with them and wouldn't listen to me and husband to leave nephews to it. Basically this went on and dn5 shouted in sons face.
Over 3 hours there were about 10 kids playing and both nephews got the group to run away from my son. I said to dn5 I was not happy with the way he was treating my son and he and these random kids just laughed.

Now, is this normal?
Should I contact my brother to tell him his sons are basically bullying mine? (They didn't supervise the kids at all this evening so didn't see any of this).

Yes absolutely, I’d have brought it up with DB while I was there tbh.

Yes, tell them and if they brush it off as ‘kids being kids’ you know whether to ever subject your poor DS to them again.
Your DNs are still very young so probably don’t fully understand the effect that this has on other children, but they need to be strongly parented to stop them in their tracks.
Someone in my DD’s class told her the other day that ‘everyone in your brother’s school thinks he is weird’ because he has ADHD and autism, and sounds the same as your son. I was so upset on his behalf. Don’t put up with it, especially from the ones who are supposed to love him and have his back.

You needed to flag it with your brother at the time so that he could address it really. I find a stern "leaving people out is not kind" works at this age.

Just to add, it may be nothing to do with your DS at all. Some children around the age of DN5 get quite territorial around people they think belong ‘to them’, so he might have been trying to make sure his brother and his friends didn’t run off with the ‘new boy’ and leave him alone (that still doesn’t make it ok, but 5 year olds generally don’t have enough social awareness to be ‘bullies’ as such). They’re still old enough to be taught though, and DN8 is old enough to be taught to say no because that wouldn’t be kind, and thus DN5 will learn that too. It’s your DB’s reaction that would tell me whether this will be OK going forwards or whether to step away from them.

That is horrible, your poor son . Definitely bring it up with your brother and sister in law. They should explain to their kids , I thought cousins always stick together.

One of my kids cousins did similar to my autism DS, we now only see them very occasionally at large family gatherings. It was a little awkward explaining to the grandparents why they can't see all the grandkids at once when they visit (they're out of town & we live near cousins), but I have limited sympathy as they ignored/allowed the behaviour. At the end of the day DS is my priority and he'll experience more then enough ableism I his life, without having to put up with it during family time.

Your ds needs you in his corner.. Especially with your bloody family. How awful their behaviour was.. I hope your db is embarrassed..

I am not a fan of forcing children to play together at any age. We are all different people. I wouldn't want to play with some of my colleagues (or indeed family), so I don't make my kids. It's like forcing them to give granny a kiss, when they should be allowed some autonomy.
It's very reasonable to explain to them that we are all different and sometimes it's kind to all play together, but I wouldn't force the issue.

But would you encourage other colleagues, who were previously happy to play with them to start excluding? That goes beyond polite avoiding

Db doesn't have to force his dc to play but ganging up with other dc to deliberately run away is bloody mean. We have acquired a step dgc similar age to ds but not close enough to be a chosen playmate.. He is still expected to engage in a friendly manner... And he is happy to do so.

Thanks all. Yes, ideally I should have addressed it yesterday but it just didn't feel appropriate, given my db and sil were completely disengaged from their kids. They just didn't supervise one iota so feel db would have thought I was being hysterical or something like that (he's abit like that).

I'll have to address next time when it happens but honestly couldn't believe how mean these kids all were. Makes me not want to do family meet ups in future with them tbh!

You need to say something to the children at the time.

When we have family gatherings the other adults say something to my child if they think she's doing something wrong