Is not giving a child any presents for their birthday a as punishment fair?

[ambergot]

I met a mum friend for a play date in the park after school last night and her dd was quite mean to my son, calling him fat which he is not, stupid and and idiot and swearing at him.
I ended up taking him home and this mum was hugely apologetic.
I was talking to the mum in the school playground this morning and she explained her daughter has been quite challenging lately, she’s in the process of having her assessed for ADHD and odd and as a consequence for the way she was with my son and the fact she refused to apologise she has said she won’t be getting any birthday presents next week.
I thought this was a bit harsh but didn’t want to get involved.
It’s not a punishment I would implement but then I don’t have a child with adhd and odd so I don’t know if she’s being unfair or does that sound reasonable in those circumstances?

Probably not true, she just said it so you'd feel like the child had been punished. Child will probably continue to be a terror.

That’s a terrible thing to do

This is awful. No it's not okay and I think it's emotional abuse. You should have said something to ease the situation even if you just said it was kids being kids. Poor girl.

This happened to me in my early teenage years. As punishment for sneaking out in the middle of the night, I spent my birthday in my room crying and was given half a packet of potato chips as a present. I have not forgotten how cruel this felt, especially the chips part. Would have been better not to have been given anything. Birthdays are a big deal when you are young.

That's disgraceful behaviour on that mum! I get that shes clutching at straws, but that is going to affect that girl negatively for life if she does that. What the girl has done is really awful, I have an asd and adhd daughter who went to additional needs school and this unfortunately was the norm. I have since removed her and consistently reminded her that not everyone is the same and it isn't nice to hear, but it definitely isn't the truth. I hope your son believes you aswell. It sounds like the other mum is all out of idea's and I do understand that (believe me i do!) But she's not doing the right rhing. If anything, the daughter is going to act out even more

I wonder if the daughter behaved to your son as the mother behaves towards her. No birthday presents as a punishment sounds more like abuse.

I’ve found most of this thread horrible.

Did you offer this woman any help or support in anyway or did you just write about her on here so she could be vilified? What are you trying to achieve, a gossip, make yourself feel superior?

There is minimal information about this woman in this post but she sounds like she is struggling. Instead of kicking her when she is down why don’t you show her the kindness everyone here is attesting to have. Empathise with her, ask her if she needs help, offer her a hot drink and a supportive chat after the school run sometime.

i am so disappointed by the reaction here. Everyone piling in to say some truly awful things about this woman. The truth is for most of us we don’t know what we do in her situation because we don’t even really know what her situation is. You can laud yourself being the worlds greatest parent but if you can’t show basic kindness to someone having a difficult time it all rings a bit hollow.

Her behaviour towards your son was appalling and she should be reprimanded by the parents for this. However, I would have just stopped her from having further play dates until she learnt to be kinder towards other children. Not getting a child birthday presents seems very cruel and this is the sort of memory that will stay with the child even as an adult. I couldn't do this to my DC.

Awful. Stay away. This is horrible dysfunctional.
.

From what you've said.. she sounds like a caring parent who doesnt want to be permissive but lacks effective parenting strategies.
She is uneducated/ uninformed and is doing what she thinks / understands to be best.

Yhst doesn't make it okay at all,but perhaps contextualise it

Kids with awful behaviour (e.g. OP & cricket bat post) have seen and learned the behaviour from somewhere, most often from their parents.

Did you sneak out at night again?

Horrible though it was it might have saved you from a lot worse if you’d built a habit of sneaking out at night.

Hrft, older posts don't load on this phone, but old enough for a play date - too young to lose presents as a consequence.

Maybe child is unregulated BC parents choose poor consequences.

@ambergot the fact she is using ADHD as an excuse for poor behaviour says it all.

He has learned these behaviours from somewhere, usually from home or unsupervised access to the internet.

My daughter is very defiant at the moment but will get birthday presents. At the moment we have told her that she wont be having a party if her behaviour doesn't improve.

How does having his head shaved teach him that hitting is unacceptable when the two things aren't connected in any way?

That’s awful id never take a child’s birthday away from them for their behaviour

Presumably the parent(s) would explain to him the reason for their actions, and that bad behaviour has consequences

But it's not really a consequence, it's just a punishment. A clear and logical consequence of hitting someone with a cricket bat would be not being allowed to play cricket, for example. The outcome is linked to the action. Shaving a child's head is just a bizarre punishment, the child has done something bad so they've decided to do something that they know will distress and humiliate them and this is what they've come up with. That's not a consequence, it's vengeance.

OK, whatever you say.

That’s awful. A year of that child’s life not celebrated for one act. There would definitely be consequences but a birthday isn’t the time to do it.

This should’ve been dealt with immediately by the girls mother the first time her child was rude. She should have taken her daughter home before you had to decide to take your son home.

I doubt very much her intention to deny her daughter any birthday gifts. I think it’s just lip service.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard something like this. We had a trade do some work for us after one Christmas and his (weird) wife and youngest son came along. I think he was about 7 or 8 and I asked if Santa had been good to them.

Mum replied that they didn’t have Christmas presents that year because she wanted to teach the boys the value of money…. 🤔.

I was embarrassed and the boy looked upset.

it wasn’t a matter of not having money either. Just something she decided on.

as another conversation starter, mum was reading and I enquired what book it was. Her reply was she was reading so if her children asked her anything, she would have the answer…

I have no idea what the book was.

The child plays up because parent threatens and doesn’t follow through!

No it’s not fair. But when you have a naughty child with SEN, there’s a lot of pressure from other parents to be seen to be giving out punishments. You see it on here all the time, lots of judgment about parents who don’t parent properly, no consequences for bad behaviour etc.

The problem with SEN DCs is that punishments or the threat thereof have no effect whatsoever on behaviour.

So maybe this mum was telling you what she thought you wanted to hear?

Are you for real? That's a huge part of what adhd is!