advice needed re friends and siblings

[yawningmonster]

ds has aspergers so has worked very hard to form friendships and succeeded in maintaining some throughout the year. Today one of those friends who happens to be a girl rang and said she was missing ds and really wanted someone to play with.

It was a family day but we thought lovely how nice for ds and said absolutely. Friend arrived and proceeded to want to play exclusively with our dd. (our ds and friend are 7, dd is 2) I tried to intervene a couple of times as ds was heartbroken and friend was explicitly rejected any attempts he made at joining in (dd on the other hand was loving the attention)

I ended up getting out the art and craft supplies and setting them up at the table in order to have something they could all do without excluding ds. Friend was only here for an hour and a half but I felt like it was actually more work than it was worth and felt devastated for ds.

I know on one hand that this is going to happen to some degree that dd will want to be a part of the play but today it was all coming from the friend asking dd to do this that and the other and turning down ds's requests to play/ ideas. How should I have handled this, and what do I do in the future?

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That's a tough one. I have a ds with aspergers and I would probably have glossed over it and jollied them all along. As much as we try and protect them they have to learn the hard way too sometimes. Do you think maybe it was the novelty of dd being there and also she is a girl too? I was just thinking maybe it would be an isolated incident and next time the novelty would have worn off?

My younger dd is often seen as an attraction when dd1 has friends over. Children who don't have younger siblings and girls who like babies are thrilled to have one to play with.

I have often packed my dd off with my dh when my dd1 has a friend over for this very reason. Or I try and do something with her to keep her away from the older ones for a while.

Now dd2 is older and has her own friends I will try and arrange for her to have a play somewhere else otherwise dd1 just doesn't get a look in.

It's just the novelty.

thanks for all the answers. It is so hard to watch and not interfere. Perhaps I need to follow advice and have dd have someone to play with to. I think it was both novelty and the fact that dd is a girl that got friend hooked. Not to mention that dd will do anything friend says.