My 6 year old daughter is a nightmare on playdates

[Joddlebod]

The past 3/4 times my daughter has had friends round, she is an absolute nightmare, I am at the end of my tether with it. She always falls out with whoever has come round and thinks they are out to get her/ shouting at her/ they won’t play what she wants. This is with different children as well, so it’s not an issue with it being 1 certain child. They always seem bemused when she is saying things things, e.g. she came to me when her friend was last here saying they wouldn’t play with her/ were saying mean things to her sister - however they kept saying what shall we play/ what’s wrong etc, and her sister (3) was happily playing along with her.

it does subside and she gets over it, but
it will probably happen for 20 mins x 2, over an average 3 hour play date.

is this normal 6 year old behaviour or AIBU to stop any future play dates until this behaviour stops?

This is just nonsense, it really is.

I'm autistic and school never noticed or flagged a thing. Neither did university. It wasn't until I had three autistic burnouts in six years and did my own research that I realised there was something more going on and spoke to my GP.

It's very, very common for high-masking girls and women to go decades without any kind of diagnosis. They're labelled as quiet, or a "pleasure to have in class", or quirky, or awkward, or shy.

TBH not much works in the moment to calm things so we have to adapt the overall environment/expectations/parenting in general in order that it's less likely to happen, or he's more able to cope with the situation in the first place.

That's quite tricky, because you don't want to end up with a situation where you've removed or avoided the stressful expectation entirely because they do still need opportunities to practice that skill. (In fact, they probably need that MORE than other children.) It's just that the opportunities to practice need to be at a level they can actually succeed. It's a bit exhausting TBH but that's part of why it's classed as SEND. It might be that you don't need to go quite this far! The article I shared before has some good suggestions about how to handle difficult playdates both in terms of setting the child up for success in advance, but also what to do in the moment if it's going wrong.

I always found lavender oil calmed my stressed dd. Just a sniff

I have noticed with my 6 year old that sometimes playdates at home can lead to issues because she wants to control things because it's her home environment and her stuff that they are playing with. And if the friend isn't as receptive to her ideas or wants to play with very special things this can be difficult for her to accept. Putting special things away, exploring expectations in advance and what if the friend doesn't want to do exactly as she wants and shortening play dates have all helped.

Any advice for mothers of such children pls?
My daughter is entering her final year of school with high expectations of herself and her future.

Exercise is so good for children.
Gymnastic, tennis and hockey were all great for my child.

Self sabotage on play dates. My neuro diverse children are like this

We managed this with DS by running adult mediated activities for example science club, D&D. Things that required some level of adult supervision.
Have you tried things like craft activities or baking which requires you to be present so your daughter doesn't need to feel overwhelmed, responsible and uncomfortable at the reality of having friends over?

@Batherssss I would say, treat them as though they have ASD even though they don't have an official diagnosis, and do a lot of reading on how neurodiversity presents in girls.

@tumblingdowntherabbithole With respect it really is not. As others have said dc can feel ownership of what happens in their house and with their toys. It’s very normal! Saying it’s this or that diagnosis is wrong. It’s probably jealousy and immaturity in a 6 year old. My DD did it with one child. Also dc don’t always play nicely. Even very reasonable pleasant dc can react badly to things they aren’t ready for.

I think schools will have noticed inability to work with others and playground spats. On MN every single issue is now Sen. We are crying out for some common sense!

I almost always kept my kids apart for playdates as something about the friend + sibling setup was really problematic. So either I'd purposefully do something with the other sibling, or I'd set up a separate playdate for one of them elsewhere, or have my husband take one out while I hosted a playdate for the other one. Combining 3 children never worked out well for me.

I also didn't have playdates longer than 2 hours unless there was a specific situation (babysitting or whatnot) as that's when it all would start going wrong.

Personally I'd stop this setup and try something altogether different as maybe it's hard for her to balance having someone in her space AND for a long time AND with a younger sibling. Bring her and a friend to go do something together. Meet up at a park with a picnic. Have a specific activity (craft or lego set or whatever) set up for them. My daughter would sometimes struggle with the 'go play' bit of starting a playdate but if she had a focus to start it would be easier.

"With respect", I didn't say anything about OP's DD having SEN or not.

What I did say was that it's nonsense to say that schools will have flagged up issues if SEN are present. Many, many schools have no idea about autism in girls and will never raise a problem as long as the child flies under the radar.

No it’s not wrong.

My dd was like this. I didn’t have a clue what was causing it. I tried everything. She couldn’t interact with other children like they did. It was the first sign.

School were useless. Even when she had anxiety age 10 and couldn’t speak to someone through muteness. She was classed as difficult.

Sailed under the radar through being quiet and compliant.

Just don't do playdates. They aren't compulsory.

One of my DC doesn't like having friends round as home is his safe space. Park or soft play meetups are a good alternative, especially over the holidays.

Sounds like you aren’t actually supervising them, so best knock play dates on the head until you do or your daughter will end up with no friends.

I wouldn’t do play dates at home for a while. I would, like exercise, start small and build it up. Start with 30 minute park meet ups and once they are going well increase etc.

Also are there any patterns? Like does the play date start well and then something happens which triggers the behaviour? Perhaps if she gets tired as it goes on, shorter play dates may be the answer. If she’s always like that, I’d work on playing with her and her sister to work on argumentative behaviour but keep play dates short and in spaces where she can be with other children but doesn’t have to directly interact as much (parks, soft play, trampolining etc). Some children have the desire to be around others but need to be scaffolded with social skills.

Also worth asking her teacher if she has any experiences with this and if so, if there are any tips? It would be useful to work out if it’s just in the home or if there is different behaviour in different settings.

Savage 😂

Exactly. So many autistic girls never have any "issues" at school as they follow the rules, do well academically and don't cause a fuss.

My daughter was very controlling when children came to the house. She genuinely struggled to share her toys, her room etc. She was much better outside the house where she was actually very popular.

But this popularity didn't last - She turned to be diagnosed with autism and adhd. She had a type of asd called PDA, which is more sociable than other autism types.

Anyway I am not trying to diagnose your daughter with anything but it is worth noticing more about her relationships with other children and see how things pan out in future.

My daughter went under the radar at school as she role played being a happy, friendly pupil. This is very PDA. But things started to unravel from about year 4.

If you can, I would suggest you get her assessed by a speech and language therapist. They look at social communication as well as speech.

As others have said girls particularly can mask at school and can fly under the radar not saying there is anything but just keep an eye on things

Brilliant post

I tend to agree. Just for balance, my dd has a diagnosis of ASD and is totally fine on playdates. She has always been able to manage 1 on 1, its larger groups that are a problem. There are all sorts of things that could be making it hard for your dd. My older ds found the pressure of 'hosting' hard and feeling like he needed to entertain another person, then there is navigating having someone in your space without the structure and rules of school and sharing. At 6 she is tiny and still learning how to do all this, some kids will master it straight away and for others it will take a bit longer.

Or, masking at school, then struggling at safe space at home. This is common with children who have ASN

Yes agreed with others, change the scenery. If the park doesn’t work then try a softplay…to have a friend coming around is a more difficult skill for some to get and 6 is such a young age still. I would make it “easier” on her and take out the territory so she has to share more.

It does look like she doesn’t want to if I am honest.

The misreading tone thing is also very common in ASD - it is one of the ways the communication difficulties part can present.
A normal, firm or brisk voice can very very commonly be interpreted as aggressive 'shouting', an actually raised voice to anyone can be assumed to be personally directed.
Additionally, comments can be easily misinterpreted in both directions, especially if one person is being blunt and literal and the other reads everything as hints and 'jokes'. An assumption that other people have the same understanding as yourself can mean that if they don't and therefore do something unexpected which is not what the autistic person thinks is optimal they might seem to be 'choosing to be mean' rather than just being a different person.

We had a strict rule of only one play date a week, and it was never more than 90 minutes. That way, we had 20 minutes when we got back from school for snack/drinks, then it was just over an hour of play then tidy up time/get ready for other Mum to arrive. This kept it quite short and sweet and all 3 of mine coped better. They were often so tired after school that extending their time spent with others rarely ended well! It got much easier by ages 8 to 9.