How to people cope with birthday parties?

[prozacpopsie]

Went to a kids birthday party with my AS son yesterday. He spent most of it on my lap very tearful/upset, but when we asked if we should leave he got even more upset.

The place was ridiculously noisy and hectic (35 kids and their parents, loud magician with a microphone, lots of unexpected noises etc).

I'm afraid I got a bit upset too (seeing how upset he was) and felt kind of embarrassed in front of the other parents because my boy clearly wasn't enjoying it at all. I get annoyed with myself because I care too much about what other people think - stupid, I know. My husband thinks I overreact about everything but he's Aspie too and we recently seem to disagree about how to 'handle' our son. (In fact we disagree about whether we should seek a formal diagnosis. It's a major sticking point.)

I didn't think my son he enjoyed any of the party but this morning he's talking about all the stuff he loved about the party.

Is it always like this with AS kids (we've only recently found out that he has AS)? (IE Hating it at the time but liking bits of it in retrospect?)

Does anyone have any ideas/strategies for coping with these stressful type of situations?

Thanks for any feedback/advice, in advance.

PP

I think a lot of it is preparation - finding out what the programme is for the party, where it's going to be, how many people will be coming, what there'll be to eat, trying to take as much of the unknown out. I've heard of people who go to the house or location where the party is going to be beforehand so the child can get used to it. It depends how well you know the people having the party and how open you are about your son's AS. I'd like to think that if you explained it in a couple of sentences to the host, they would accommodate.