nightmare social occasions

[jmb1964]

We've just returned from lunch with friends who live in the country. The whole outing was arranged so that ds 1 (nearly 6, Aspergers) could see an old friend of his from nursery (and I get on well with the Mum too). Unfortunately ds1 and Sam fell out as soon as we got there, and there was a lot of hitting, kicking, etc. I wanted to turn round and come home, but dd1 and our two younger ones were having a nice time with Sam's younger brother, and they hadn't done anything wrong. So we stayed - Sam's parents were fine about it, but his grandparents were clearly thinking I should be handling things differently. Ds1 got so worked up, his asthma and eczema flared up (or perhaps it was hayfever), and he scratched madly all the way home.
Should I just GIVE UP trying to do things like this at all? Maybe ds1 just can't do socialising with 'normal' children, but what does that mean for the rest of the family?

oh jmb, I'm sorry it didn't work out, but I wouldn't think that it is always going to be that way. It is boiling hot, he was probably not having a good day anyway, and I often find that meeting old friends who my children haven't seen for a while is often tricky, takes them a while to get used to each other again. they are often much better with brand new children iyswim.
I don't know anything about aspergers and socialising (you'll get much better advice from others) but I do know that some days my children are just horrible and there isn't anything I can do about it! Don't let it stop you from trying again..

Dear jmb, sounds awful, especially judgmental in-laws. Our son with ASD tends to get better in different places/settings with practice but he surprises us sometimes, its all play it by ear but with strong reference to your instincts and experience. I think the boiling hot ocnditions mentioned by princesspeahead also have a LOT to do with both children's behaviour, remember it wasn't only your son not "playing nicely" so he was probably quite appropriate, its just stressful for you and I do sympathise.

agree with pph, this wretched weather does not do much for anyone's temper, our whole family are distinctly crotchety atm! jmb, every time ds (2) "plays up" i always think people are looking and judging and they probably are - i'm slowly developing a thicker skin... sorry don't have anything specific to say on the special needs front, hope others will come up with better advice there.

sorry, meant to add that i have frequently been tempted to give up on the social front (our "issue" is that many of our close friends don't have children, enough said!) but have been really glad that we have persevered with things, just tried to get them to be more "on our terms", e.g. not in an environment where we can't unleash him etc. hth a little and good luck!

jumb, something similar happend to us recently. I took my two sons, 9 and nearly 4 to the park to meet another friend with her 9 year old son, best buddies with my eldest. The two older boys played well together but the youngest became so unbelievably naughty. He's usually plays well with them but I was taken by suprise this time. After a few tantrums including running into my friend on his bicycle, he emptied all our drinking bottles, even our friend's, wouldn't say sorry to her and was extremely defiant when told off.

The friend and her son were meant to be coming back to our house, but I felt my youngest son was not fit for their company and I threatened to cancel the visit. My friend told me not to, since it would be punishing all the children. However, I really felt bad about my son's behaviour towards her, even though I know she is a sweet and tolerant person.

What I did in the end was ask her what she thought we should do, given the fact that the other boys were fine. I felt that way she would realise I was taking the bad behaviour towards her seriously and I was genuinely keen to hear her suggestions. We get on well and I know she would have spoken her mind. She couldn't think of a good way round this either and said go ahead, invite us back, it was OK. I apologied for my son and said I would talk to him when the visit had ended. As it happened, he fell asleep in the car before we got back home, bearing out my theory that some of the tantrums was because he was tired and hot.

Tricky one isn't it jmb. I can't be much use on the socialising bit as I don't socialise with normal children (unless they have autistic siblings)! I suppose it'll become a problem when ds2 gets older.

One word of encouragement though. A year ago I thought there was no way we would ever get to go to the beach, for a walk on the moors and we had just about given up on going to farms, zoos etc. We were seriously worried about how we were ever going to take ds2 anywhere. Family days out seemed an impossibility. A year later ds1 will do all those things. OK I can't do them by myself - we need one adult per child, but we can do them, and we do them frequently. We even visit stately homes successfully! So give yourself a rest if its too much at the moment, but do keep trying occasionally- and you will be pleasantly surprised in the future I'm sure!

jimjams, I never seem to get round to reading all the posts here so didn't realise you find it so difficult at present to socialise with other children. I hope this changes for you in the same way that the going-on-outings thing has.

I have watched my non autistic son (4) play happily for an hour or more with two autistic little boys aged 2.5 and 5 years old. They were all having a great time and were very good boys. The playtime drew to a close without tantrums simply because it was time for us to do something else(I know you know this already jimjams, this was the mystery Newton Abbot woman), so from this very tiny snapshot experience I can say in answer to your question jmb, that socialising with 'normal' children is possible. I don't know how unusual this situation is, though.

Oh the problem isn't with ds1 tigermoth- he's fine. He just gets on with his own thing and pretty much ignores the other children (or watches them from afar). DS2 is fine as well. The problem's mine! I avoid the majority of NT mothers as they comepletely do my head in! Not all of them, and I have some very good friends with totally normal kids (although we have moved away from a number of those- down here I have one- but her family situation is a little unusual). I just haven't been able to face mixing with NT mothers too much really, and I see a lot of my auti mothers (who do also have NT kids), so I don't feel the need for more friends. We have all found it easier to ghettoise ourselves really, but we have enede up with very strong friendships. A foray into reality usually end up with us ranting to each other on the phone. It's just easier to be around other people who understand - otherwise you spend the whole time explaining and that's hard work.

Jimjams for me I dont think its because these women have NT kids its just I cannot tolerate their attitudes anyway and wouldnt have chosen to be friends with them if my dd was normal. I only have 1 friend with SN kids and the rest of my friends have NT kids. I think I have ended up with mothers of NT who just dont bother about dd's special needs just treat her the same without judgement. There is one woman though who lives a couple of doors up from me whos son was due for his pre school boosters who thought it was highly appropriate to come and discuss the issues of MMR with me. She even said she didnt want her ds to end up like my dd (in a world of her own!) I honestly didnt even try to justify us, I just cant be bothered with people like her anymore. I dont think its because her kids are NORMAL I think shes just like that-very self centered.
Sorry if I sound like a right b**ch I just find it irritating.

I think you're right fio2. There are stil NT mothers I would see if I lived closer to them (and we still speak on the phone)- but often they do have slightly unusualy circumstances. A chid who had some early problems, a large family, twins- something that makes them see things differently.

A lot of my original baby friends are so unbelievably self centred. One emailed me this week. her ds is about to go to shcool, cost of private school uniforms blah blah (all perfectly inoffessive if a little irrelevant and boring) but then she said that her dd "had reached that stage- you know where you suddenly realise they understand a lot more than you thought". Eh? errr no have absolutely no idea actually. I know that stage where you suddenly realise they understand a lot less than you thought!

Friends have had the same experience. I have a friend who's dd has many problems- including ones which hospitalise her frequently. She was asked by thse NT parents to babysit- she said she would but warned them that her dd had to go into hospital frequently. Sure enough she did and NT friends has a go at her for leting them down! They have also told her she never has anything cheerfull to tell them!

Yesterday a group of SN friends went to a respite day and had a group meeting with a stress councellor. The stress councellor ended up in tears (!!- lot of bloody use) and told them she had been so upset by her previous session that she had found it really hard to come back and talk to them again!!!!!!

FWIW I think I'm a bad friend for a lot of my original friends anyway. I can't really help them out with their concerns because quite frankly I do think they have bugger all to worry about. I can listen but I don't feel I have anything much to offer. I suppose I do just feel like I'm living in a totally different world. I suppose I'd rather be talking about social services and SALT (lack of) than SATS results, and I'd rather be talking about incontinence pants than shcool uniforms!

Yes I think you are right jimjams as my NT friends seem to have other 'issues' aswell. My closet friend of 'NT' children may turn out not to have NT children at all. Her daughter had delays but came through them but her son, to me, has some more serious issues than just delays-shes just at that stage at the moment where she is pretending things are happening IYKWIM. I do think that friendships are harder to maintain because people dont understand you have little time or consequences change like in your friends case. My Mum always said where were her friends when my sister was in hospital for weeks on end? I suppose they are what you call fairweather friends.

Your story about the family therapy made me smile (Im a sicko I know) my sister had to see a phychiatrist following a bad case of rejection after her heart and lung transplant. The shrink asked her about her family history (my Dad is very dysfunctional and has kids scattered around all over the place) her medical history and whether she had hobbies etc. At the end of all this questioning she turned around to my sister and said 'no wonder you're depressed I would be too' and that was it, no words of wisdom, no advice or reassurance, utter waste of time. Must say though it did make my sister smile and months after she had a good laugh about it

fio2 I can't believe the cheek of that woman about MMR. How dare she?! Did she think you had no feelings?

Jimjams I think you are very fortunate to have friends with SN children. It is very difficult when the only friends you have have the most perfect children ever! I am starting to get to know a few Aspergers/hfa mums but it takes time.

We are finding it harder for ds to play with nt friends (I don't know if it would be any better with non-nt) and now one of his 'friends' happens to not turn up with his mum when we arrange to meet up with all the kids. That hurts for ds as he really looks forward to seeing 'friend' but on the other hand I think the 'friend' finds it more and more difficult to deal with ds tantrums and one track mind. (if you can make sense of any of that!).

I guess the MMR comment is just symptomatic of people really not understanding that we love our children just as much as they love their precious little perfect darling.

I've had similar. A number of people have rung me up to ask whether they should give their child the MMR. My answer is always the same- it's up to them, nothing to do with me. Then I get "well what would you do?" to which i say "well you know what I've done, they haven't had it". This is then followed by "yes but what would you do if X was yours" as if precious X is so much more precious than mine!
And at the end of the day that's one of the reaosns why I can't be round these people. An hour of them bleating on about little Johnny's this that or the other, then they look at ds1, head on one side "well at least he's happy". Been there done it can't be bothered anymore!

You're right Rebi- I am very lucky with my SN friends. To be honest I get so much out of their friendships I don't really need anymore anyway.

oh I see what you mean jimjams.... read post in m and t thread. None of our friends have children with sn yet they are incredibly brilliant when it comes to dd... I have only had one strange/silly comment.. and that was about not having anymore children. Everyone else is fine - having said that - dd is still in the cute baby stage so we have not had any of the other issues YET ( no doubt things will change) and most of our friends' children are much older than dd.

I think we are just lucky with friends - so far.

Just the mother and toddler groups that do me in.

I'm really sorry it's so hard for you, jimjams and others to be friends with parents with NT children. I didn't realise there was such a barrier, honestly. I am surprised and saddened at the implication that most NT parents have the same attitudes and approach.

I can see that as your son gets older, differences in development become more apparent and this must hurt. Well I know it would cut me up.

I'm sure you've said this elsewhere, but briefly, how would you like to see your NT friends behaving as your son gets older? I suppose this ties in with jmb's orignal question.

I think the main thing is to treat SN children as induviduals in their own right and not as freaks. I hate the judging that goes on. I think developmental disorders are much more difficult for people to understand. It doesnt sound like you are doing anything wrong anyway tigermoth and its a shame we dont get to befriend more people like you. I was always felt more sorry for parents of children with more obvious disfigurements because they must get it alot worse than we do, my daughter 'looks' normal, apart from the fact she is exceptionally pretty of course, its just that her mental development is slower than her peers so I suppose if she is sitiing in a pushcahair or at a table people wouldnt know anyway. I know some people have it alot worse than me.

Thanks everyone for all the support, and I'm interested to read all your views. I can see the attraction of limiting ourselves socially to people who understand, and I'm intending to try and get to know some other families through the local autistic society, BUT when there are three other children to try and please I have to try and balance ds1's needs/limitations against theirs.
Days like yesterday make me feel so GUILTY too - sometimes think if I had known how ds1 was going to be I might not have gone on to have two more babies, but it's a bit late now, and both dd2 and ds2 do a lot of pointing, and playing with teapots (I'm sure you know what I mean Jimjams!)
Other people - I can just about cope with disapproval, and some judgement (I can FEEL them wondering why that woman has so many kids when she doesn't seem to know how to handle them..), but what really gets me is PITY! Ds2 is still bottom shuffling happily at 16 months - I'm not worrying about it (too much else to think about anyway) but an old lady stopped me the other day and said 'oh the poor little thing, is there something wrong with his legs? Grrr !! It was good to be able to point to my beautiful graceful dd1 whizzing around on her bike as proof that bottom shuffling is not necessarily a sign of disability
Just been for a swim, on my own, in an outdoor pool at the gym - good for the soul.

I COMPLETELY relate to what JimJams has said (as usual!). That's why I can't even look at all the threads on mumsnet about tantrums and would you have had kids if you'd known how difficult it is etc (boo bloody hoo!). I daren't even get started on those threads although I know JimJams bravely posted on one and I haven't looked since. I think its a sign that I'm actually LESS tolerant than I used to be (towards some things) rather than more! Its interesting too that if you mix more with parents of other kids with SEN you DON'T spend all your time talking about it but you can if you want to. As a couple we have stayed friends with parents of NT kids but my own day-to-day friends are usually parents of kids with SEN who often have NT kids too. I just like some of the things that only they can understand like when my husband got all excited that I had been looking at a book on Amazon about Oral-Motor exercises!!! Not what he thought at all.......

can I just ask what NT stands for? I can work out that you are talking about children without special needs, but what is the term you are using? excuse my ignorance here. thanks

Prinesspeahead - NT means neurologically typical, the PC term for "normal"! Have to say Ooops! I thought in earlier post that I was in the SEN section......

jmb I've just joined a gym with an outdoor pool and it is lush!! Mind you even there I was watching a woman there with three girls ranging in age form about 3-7. She was sitting on a sun longer reading a book, whuilst her girls were in and out of the pool. I was trying not to stare- thinking my god........

Tigermoth- I think its just that lives are poles apart. My NT friends (that I still have) just talk about ds1 absolutely normally, and listen to me moaning without looking embarrassed. Some of the best bits of advice I've ever had have come form NT parents. The ones I've ditched looked embarrassed/horrified if I started talking about ds1 or would spend ages talking about their childs achievements, or fussing about kids clubs or something really totally irrelevant. It's like the Jackson programme- lots of people have been stunned at how she coped, what she had to put up with etc. On chatters (and email group)_ we've all been telling her how normal it all seemed to us, and its other people's reaction to the programme whuch make you realise it isn't normal life at all. Then we swap poo stories (see I can't swap poo stories with my NT friends - most look horrified, the auti mums are on the floor laughing. ) And yes I was laughing at the oral- motor exercises. I can imagine dh getting very excited.

I don't have that problem of balancing the others needs jmb as ds2 is still only 18 months. At the moment he tends to mix with NT siblings (although I have to say the younder ones do a good impression on auti behaviour- ds2 realy copies ds1). It will become more of a problem later on. I did get one piece of very good advice from an NT mother on this. She has twins and then a much older daughter. I was veyr upset as we couldn;t get near a beach with ds1 and I was really worried about what we would do when ds2 got older. She just said that I had to think of it as my children having different needs. Her eldest daughter is 13 years older than her twins so family days out are just unrelaistic for them except very rarely, and she told me to think of it like that. It was exactly the right thing to say and it has made me ffel happier about doing different things with the boys rather than trying to please everyone at once.

Davros I am TOTALLY less tolerant of so many things. People bleating on when they haven't got a clue how bloody lucky they are. That's why I binned so many people- just haven't got the time- and don't trust myself not to explode with them. When I do see these I go home seething anyway so what's the point. I think sometimes I'm a bit twisted though as I come on here and say things I would never say to people to their faces. I'm not sure its healthy but I guess it's better than bottling it up.

The other thing I find about mixing with totally NT families is they either fee pity, or they think you are some sort of saint. SN friends know that its not like that. I don't need pity (I can think of 1001 things that would be worse than having an auti child) and I'm not a saint (I just get on with it like everyone else as like everyone else I don't have a choice!)

And Tigermoth

thank you - just curious, I couldn't work it out (and that always annoys me!). no need to apologise, you don't have to confine yourself to SN threads!!!

oh the "and tigermoth" isn't meant to be there- I was going to say something nice as you sound quite sane and sensible tigermoth, but then I couldn;t think of anything to say that didn't sound naff. Anyway just so you know the rant isn't directed at you tigermoth and I'd love to meet some day

ha aha ha jimjams I thought your computer had got that wormy virus thing

I agree with the less tolerant thing - like today women moaning about how inconvenient it is to breast feed for more than a few months - of course unless you want to lose weight... as I said somewhere else - I had to bite my tongue as I wanted to say - hey at least you had a choice... or moaning about their children being naughty and so on.... but then seeing them in action - not a lot is done when they are naughty....

i just shut up now and can't be a*d with it all.... others understand or at least ask about dd and what she is doing etc... find pity is hard to deal with and so is the saint thing like you said Jimjams- I said to someone that I was no saint I just got on with it... no point in moaning get about changing it instead

Particularly as I know a colleague of mine has twins boht of whom have a numbr of special needs... why could I possibly have to moan about when I compare myself to her - I am no 'saint' she has far more to cope with than me but like the SN mums here she just gets on with it.