AIBU to discourage DD's friendship due to the mum?

[WelcomeToMonkeyTown]

DD is 8 and has Asperger's.

She's very very literal- i have to be careful what I say to her as she really struggles if I've said something is happening and then it doesn't. She's having therapy to work on this as sadly it's something that is going to happen in life.

She's had a hard year at school with some low-level bullying, and has no friends at school. She has about 4-5 outside of school who are my friends' kids who she sees occasionally, maybe every 2-3 months.

One in particular is M who she loves. We don't see M often as she's very busy and very popular - always out at parties or play dates.

M's mum is very strict and will insist on work being done before playing. And if the work isn't done, you don't go.

We arranged to meet M at the pool yesterday, and M's mum warned me that M had to do her work first. She texted at 12 to say our agreed 1.30 meet was unlikely. At 3 I messaged asking how long she'd be as DD was getting upset & going back & forth to the pool entrance every 5 mins looking for her. M's mum then called and said sorry, M hasn't done her work so they aren't coming.

DD was gutted and now thinks M doesn't like her as if she wanted to come, she'd have done the work.

For context M was also 2 hours late for DD's last 2 birthday parties. This year her mum got the time wrong apparently. Last year she wasn't allowed to leave until she'd tidied her bedroom.

I know my DD has to learn that sometimes people let you down. And sometimes people say they'll do something and then don't.

But AIBU to think this friendship is going to cause more pain than it's worth?

And also AIBU to think that it's fucking rude to let us wait 90 mins and then say you're not coming ?! I respect her right to punish her daughter as she sees fit but she's punishing mine too, who has done nothing wrong.

To be fair, that's not an unreasonable way for her to view it. If M really wanted to go, knowing her mother enforces these rules, she would have done the work. My 2.5 year old can understand the concept of "if you don't tidy this, you don't get to do x" so an 8 year old can.

Appreciate at 8 they may not fully make that connection. But it is there, in part, and M has made that decision whether it was deliberately or not.

Maybe let your DD decide whether she wants to keep waiting for M to turn up to places or not?

M's mum is a shit and I get you were trying to be so flexible and understanding to facilitate the playdate for your daughter's sake. It's so sad, my child doesn't have Aspergers but she is an only child and loved a popular kid with a flaky mum. It was a nightmare but I tried really hard to reassure my daughter it wasn't because of her. Sadly in primary school a lot of the friendships are down to the mums.
Edited to stay on topic

Your kid may be upset but she is very lucky to have a mum like you instead of a mum like M's. Is M's mum actually your friend then? She sounds extremely controlling of her poor kid.

Anyway you can just take her as you find her, which means that if the opportunity arises to do something and it works out, great. No need to completely ditch the friendship. It will be useful for your daughter to understand that people have different rules and ways of being. I know this is difficult with ASD and your DD may decide she would rather not deal with the uncertainty than have the friend, which is fine too, but if you can model insouciance and 'that's just how she is' ness that will help her (again. I know this is difficult for a child with ASD).

Definitely no hanging around places for other people though. You will need a firm plan for yourselves if others can't provide one. 'We will go to the pool at 1 and if M joins us there we will have fun with her. If she doesn't we will have fun together.' I wouldn't even mention their complicated (and horrid) conditional behaviour setting shit.

Does the mother do this to others? You said M gets invited out a lot? The mother sounds very inflexible & unreasonable. She's teaching M that it's ok to let a friend down, despite knowing how upsetting that is for an ASD kid. Then instead of taking the blame, she dumps all the guilt onto her 8 year old! That's poisonous frankly. The only way I could see a playdate working would be if M stayed over at a time when it was certain she had no 'work' (is it homework, chores or both?) Maybe during school holidays, pick her up early as possible and take her back the day after. That way the mother can't interfere and you might actually get a nice outing together without the needles stress of mommy dearest throwing a spanner in the works. Otherwise, sadly it all sounds too upsetting to continue. In that case, I'd be inclined to have one last attempt at negotiation where both you & the mother take them somewhere together. Then explain exactly why it's not working and how sad you both are, but if a compromise can't be found you'll have to call it a day for now. Hopefully there are ASD support groups where you might find more understanding families to socialise with.

Exactly. DH and I were both high achievers at school, both school swots but we also did a lot of activities and had parents who knew that holidays meant holidays. We are the same with our son. He does well enough in term time and deserves a break. We do keep up his 'learning' through fun activities so he doesn't even realise he is doing it, make sure he reads and we are screen free. No formal learning, workbooks etc FGS.
He is currently taking it upon himself to be the next Olympics commentator/analyst and is 'reporting' all the swimming events. It's quite funny to see how excited he gets about it and I guess it can all help.

I imagine poor M is a total anxious wreck and doesn't finish her "work " on time for fear of it being wrong in the mother's eyes.

This. My friend often let's us down so I only mention it last minute.

How can this be managed when in a few years time, the girls get phones and arrange things themselves, only for M’s mum to slam down and cancel it all on a whim? Poor kid.

I'd find it odd that she's making her 8 year old "work" in the summer holidays.
I'm assuming not school work, so chores around the house?
If it's so intense that she can't see her friend, I would be concerned about that to be honest.

That aside though, I think you are right to move on from it.

I did this once or twice with my eldest.
My friend gave me a right bolllocking. Basically said don’t use my child to punish yours. He’s a real little person and not a prop for you to use in discipline.

I hadn’t really thought. Big apologies and I didn’t do it again.

That mum sounds horrible and a bully. She's punishing both your children, over minor things e.g. cleaning the bedroom. My daughter had a friend, who's mum would always be late or cancel at the last minute. Once we waited 1.5 hours in the park. We'd had enough of hanging around, and bumoed into them on the way out! My daughter would get upset because her friend didn't show up, because they had to do something else?! I'd had enough of it so told her, we won't leave the house unless they messaged saying they had left the house. I stopped telling my daughter about the play dates, we'd just leave at the last minute if it happened. That friendship frizzled out thank goodness, as the mum was difficult to arrange play dates with.

Nah couldn't be doing with this. Also can't believe that M is that popular if she pulls this shit all the time. Meant to meet at 130 and still not there by 3???? That's just plain rude. If they did that once that would be it for me.

" We don't see M often as she's very busy and very popular - always out at parties or play dates."

So M must get her "work done" on all those very many occasions then

Just don't tell DD you are arranging a play date. Next time you arrange to meet at the pool just don't tell her. Let her think it's just you and her going to the pool, then if her friend turns up it will be a surprise. She may well have a point anyway, if her friend wanted to see her she wouldn't mess about not doing her chores when she knows what the consequence will be.

I agree with this. When my kids were younger a close friend of mine used to do this kind of stuff and my kids would be left upset and disappointed. I learnt to not mention anything so if it happened great for them and if not a silent sigh from me and my kids knew no better.

I had a friend do this to someone else. She cancelled the play date because of her 6 year olds dds ‘poor behaviour’ (nothing crazy, just normal kid stuff).

Friend was telling me about it and said ‘I’m Sure they understand’. I told her in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t ‘understand’ if she ever punished my dd for her dds mistakes, and that if she did it would be the last time her dd was invited. She seemed to genuinely not have considered the impact of cancelling on the other (totally innocent) child.

The friendship ended a couple of years later over an unrelated issue, but it was another ‘control’ one. Looking back I wish I’d distanced myself a bit then let the girls work out their own friendship once they had phones.

Fwiw I do think it can be part of a pattern of emotional abuse and manipulation to say ‘if you really cared about your friend you’d do what I want. See look now you’ve upset her.’ It’s also a way to isolate the child from friends as most people won’t put up with it. I

It’s horrible for the child but sadly there’s not much you can do until she’s a bit older and you can offer her safe haven at yours.

Either M won't ever be allowed out anyway, or there will be a massive kick-off one day when another tween ends up alone in town (initially unbeknownst to their parents) because M was pulled out of meeting them there at the last minute.

It’s even harder for your dd, but most people would find this very annoying, never knowing if an arrangement is likely to happen or not! I can see that M’s mother wants to be consistent but imo her approach is wrong. She needs to avoid these ultimatums right before engagements or commitments. If she won’t agree to that at least in your case then I would let the friendship lapse, more trouble than it is worth. I doubt you’ll be the only one.

Hey OP, my eldest has Autism and struggles with changes and disappointment too.
One of the things that helps us is saying something like "On Monday our plan is to do X. However, if anything happens and we can't, we're going to do Y instead." Or better still, to let him feel like he's still in control of things, we'll say that he can choose between Y and Z if X doesn't go to plan.

I'm sorry for you both, your friend hasn't considered your daughter at all. Anyone who cared and understood how upsetting it would be to her would have turned up regardless. I wouldn't put your daughter through this again, she deserves better and so do you.

She's just making excuses. She don't want
Her daughter mixing with your daughter .

Basically said don’t use my child to punish yours. He’s a real little person and not a prop for you to use in discipline.

That was perfect on the part of your friend. And good on you for recognising her point @BaselineDrop .

@WelcomeToMonkeyTown could you use that to respond to her little lecture?

Is M home educated? Is it that kind of work she is doing or something else?

I’d stop inviting M and focus on building other friendships. The mum sounds like an incredible arse and I feel very sorry for M.
And her message is shitty.

My dd is autistic and wouldn’t cope with the surprise element if i didn’t tell her someone was coming, and would then hope she might turn up every time we went out!

My son’s best friend didn’t turn up for his birthday party because his mum said he’d been naughty. I was secretly furious as by stopping her son from going she greatly upset my son not having his best friend there. Shitty parenting in my books.

Sorry not aiming my venom at you lol.