To be struggling with friends SEN child??

[KimbleThimble]

I feel bad to write this but I also don’t want to discuss this IRL.

My friend popped over to my house today with her autistic child, and I feel like I have only just managed to sort all the destruction. I really want to spend time with my friend, and I adore her child, but she is so destructive and some of it is not repairable. For example, today she tore apart a book that my DC were gifted by a grandparent, she ripped flowers up in the garden, she broke my child’s favourite toy, that was expensive and I can’t afford to replace. We try so hard to hide away the precious things before a visit, but I can’t literally box their entire rooms up.

My friend is really down because she has had other friends make comments about similar scenarios, but believes that these things are material. She does do her best, but her daughter is 7 and very physically able. My eldest is absolutely distraught about the book and the toy. There are also jigsaw pieces that have been chewed up. The trouble is, if friend just follows her around our house, she doesn’t get any break, and even with eyes on, the destruction takes seconds.

My children are upset every time they come to visit, with fear about what will happen to their belongings.

I don’t know how to manage this situation. AIBU to be feeling this way? Especially when my friend is a single parent and this is her daily reality?

I couldn’t and wouldn’t do that to my child. Nor would I want to see my friend in an environment where I can’t actually spend quality time with my friend. The only thing I can suggest is she has a babysitter or you go to see her on an evening when her child is in bed. Your home and belongings are not there for others to destroy.

Disability is not an excuse for damaging other peoples’ property - why would you think it is ? If friend is struggling she needs to seek professional support, not lean on the good nature of friends to the detriment of their own family. OP should absolutely bring up the damaged toys. She can’t afford to replace them and it’s not acceptable to ask her own children to accept the consequences of her friends’ inability to cope. What kind of message about inclusivity and empathy does that send ?

OP, you sound like you make a wonderful friend, but it is disrespectful of your friend for her to tell you she’s visiting when she knows your children’s things are going to be broken and that it will be hard work for all of you. Your children might care for her, but she is t showing them the same care or any courtesy.

I expect your friends attitude is what has made her lose all her other friends and social circles, and not her daughter’s behaviour. Most decent people would try and accommodate a child with SN, but not for an ungrateful parent who doesn’t care about anyone else’s children’s feelings.

Professional support for disabled children isn’t a given. The reality is having a disabled child is a lonely and exhausting experience.

Yes, it is upsetting for a child that a toy was broken. But it wasn’t done by a bold or nasty child.

To the friend whose life has been taken over by a disabled child, who can’t sit down for a cup of tea without her child breaking something a toy is a material item. Because a child being upset about a toy doesn’t come close to the struggle she has to endure.

If you have a disabled child in Ireland the likelihood is you will have to mind them until you drop dead & then they will be stuck in
an OAP nursing home. Let’s not kid ourselves that there is support elsewhere the friend can avail of. It’s likely minimal.

Spend a bit a time online and see people talk about how other people react to their disabled children.

That the child isn’t doing it deliberately makes it no less upsetting for the children getting their belongings destroyed. That the child isn’t doing it deliberately doesn’t mean the others have to tolerate this level of destruction of the things, and the hand waving away of it by the mother.

That her life is hard does not give her carte blanche to ride roughshod over others and the things valuable to them, and it’s ludicrous to suggest that it does. “Suck it up because I have to” isn’t an attitude that is going to gain her support, and nor should it.

Also children aren't great at empathy. Doesn't mean they aren't kind.It means they're children. You can't apply adult standards of logic and empathy to children.They just don't get it.

They won't be able to say or the poor child and the poor mum all they see is my stuff is getting broken and I m sick of this.

I can nigh on guarantee you that that woman doesn’t have the energy to ride roughshod over anyone, which is probably why OP is so keen to support her, and how they’ve arrived here.

Parenting a SENd child can at points be nothing short of a crisis. And PP are right - it’s incredibly isolating.

We’ve had to organise my partner’s birthday this year, without our son. He’s going into respite so we can have family round, otherwise he just wouldn’t tolerate us even celebrating it at all.

There are no family Sunday lunches, no play dates, no days out with other families, and quite often a trip to the park to encounter other humans involves leaving shortly after. It’s a very, very difficult life sometimes.

There are things OP’s friend could do, and the last time our son broke something (grandparents £500 TV), we replaced it. But she’s probably just trying to inject some normality into her life and really that needs to be considered too.

Like I’ve said earlier, we don’t condone destruction from our kid, and we absolutely act on it. But we can’t keep him under lock and key because he’s got needs.

Suggest you meet in a softplay instead next time so the kids can run wild in a safe, enclosed space and you can possibly get a 5 min conversation

Riding rough shod over everybody doesn't take any energy.

She just takes her child to somebody's house and sits back, and allows her to break everything and rip things up. Zero energy required.

You can ride roughshod over somebody or something passively, you know.

So what? SEN mum should just understand. She should just understand that she was handed harder cards in life than her friends. But none of them will have her over any more, in case her SEN child breaks something. Even though according to the first post SEN mum does her best & she is nice person who is a good friend So she can just endure her hard & lonely life.

What a bloody awful existence.

Did you read this bit?

“The trouble is, if friend just follows her around our house, she doesn’t get any break, and even with eyes on, the destruction takes seconds.”

She isn’t sat there letting it happen, and her friend would like her to get a break because she needs one.

IMO they should leave when the child becomes destructive, I said that earlier. That is what we have to do.

But giving her a hard time and implying she’s a lazy parent who allows it to happen, isn’t helpful.

I think you have to write and say what you’ve written here. You feel so bad for her and are so grateful for her friendship but your own kids are having their property destroyed and you can’t afford to replace things. Tbh this child could harm herself by her behaviour if mum isn’t watching her.. it can’t be easy for her at all. Does she have any support? Does she get any respite at all? I do think you wrote very compassionately but your kids matter too even if they aren’t SEN.

Uh, yes? She has been handed harder cards in life than her friends, and what else is she supposed to do than accept it? She can’t change it, and she can’t expect everyone around her to accept having their things destroyed.

She isn’t being a good friend by allowing her child to wander around her friends houses, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. She isn’t being a good friend by shrugging this off because ‘they’re just things’ and expecting this to be tolerated. She’s taking the piss.

Im sorry, that sounds very difficult.

I do not understand why this is so hard for people to understand. The OP is the woman’s last friend standing. The friend has committed the “crime” of wanting to do something normal like go to a friend’s house for tea & a chat.

Friend has been accused of “being unable to cope”, of course she is! It’s not a personal failing! She’s bloody human! She just wants a bit of company & a cuppa that most of us take for granted!

The friend likely just wants to be able to do what everyone else is able to do!

The child broke things and people are acting as if the Op did something awful to her own kids which might be appropriate if physical harm had taken place.

I have an autistic son who causes havoc and the only way to avoid it is that we have to have visitors in our own home. It’s isolating but it’s the only way that both my child will feel less inclined to be a bother and that the friend/family member will be at ease and not have their property destroyed. Can you not suggest popping round to them?

I would just point out that I didn’t “allow” my son to throw a juice bottle at his grandparents TV.

I didn’t confiscate it, because children are allowed liquids, and I don’t control his arms. I also can’t read the future and know he’s about to do that.

The woman just wants some company and a cup of tea. OP was trying to help that happen.

Her desire for normality should not come at the expense of OP and her children. No one is saying the friend’s life isn’t hard or even utterly shit. It sounds very much like it is. However, this does not mean OP is obliged to allow the child to upset her own children and destroy their belongings in their own home.

It’s all so dramatic. Children lose & break toys every day of the week themselves without assistance from anyone. Lego is hoovered up etc. There is upset & they move on.

A favourite toy & a book from grandma should have been put away. A jigsaw can be replaced.

You’d swear the child was tearing the other kids’ eyes out, and Op let it happen.

The way you phrase things sound very othering to me “her inability to cope”, “her desire for normality”.

It can sound to you however you would like it to.

You have no idea whether OP’s children lose and break toys every day of the week, but even if they did that doesn’t mean they should be happy for another child to come in and do it too.

As it is, OP has said it’s really upsetting her children and they don’t look forward to the visits, fearing the chaos that invariably ensues. They’re not just ‘moving on’, and nor should they have to.

It does, tbf. It sounds like this woman is at fault somehow, and she isn’t. Nobody is intending to upset anyone’s children.

It’s worth remembering that the other child, the one who people “fear the chaos” of, is also someone’s child. They’re different, sure, but we’re talking about a 7 year old, who cognitively sounds much younger if they’re eating jigsaws.

Empathy does work all ways.

No one has forgotten that. The other child is not OP’s priority. Her own children are, and they shouldn’t have to put up with someone coming into their home and destroying their things.

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Today’s society is increasingly me & mine ahead of others. When I was in primary school in the 1990s there was huge focus on kindness & empathy for those less fortunate. On loving your neighbour as yourself.

A person slightly further up this thread shared their story of living with a child with additional needs & I can’t see one person who took the time to say “that sounds difficult”, or “I’m sorry”

It just but the children’s toys on repeat. The OP has been scolded on the thread for not “prioritising” her own children. When both she & they left a toy & a book out of sentimental value.

In 10 years time the OP’s children will likely have gotten rid of every single toy they have now. They will have grown up and moved on as they should. And the friend will still be dealing with the needs of her SEN child. And all her old friends who stoped inviting her wound will have moved on too. They will sit in coffee shops & exchange tales of had kids uni experiences etc. And she will left lonely & isolated.

So you’re suggesting the OP should just let it go?