Party disaster.

[Holycowiloveyoureyes]

Yet again I've had to drag ds out a party, kicking and screaming. He enjoys them but 2 hours of sweets, loudness, music, colours and people just causes a total overload for him.

I knew he'd kick off, just was hoping it,d be when we got home. But no, it was at the end when everyone was bashing each other with balloons and he got carried away. DH asked him to calm down and bam, he's gone. Screaming, shouting, punching DH and having to be physically removed :(

I'm now in tears. Is this going to be how it always is. He's going to stop getting invited places.

I can remember that knife-edge feeling, but think you just keep on going to parties and eventually he gets better

Or go just for first half?

I always felt so on edge at parties, especially soft play ones. Dd3 would always get the wrong food or not get enough goes on the slide or something tomake her meltdow.

I used to sit at the side with the other Mums watching for the signs and try to step in before it got too bad.

She always wanted to go but hated it when she was there. The ones in church halls were a different matter, she went to one, never moved off my lap and refused to go to another (thank goodness)

The best ones for us were swimming parties but generally they are a nightmare.

Try not to worry too much, they dont go on forever and your Ds might decide they are not worth the hassle, I sometimes offer a day out as an alternative if Dd3 gets an invite now!

Good luck

My son, now 6 (ASD) would always steer clear of the organised party games, refuse to join in, even for the group carpet-picnic. I so wanted him to join in but I think now, I wanted it more for me, than for him. He was perfectly happy in a corner, with a bowl of crisps, dressing up (though not at first) and getting a goody bag afterwards!

I wanted to feel part of the group, so felt miserable to be disjointed from it. Now, he joins in some parts, leaves others and still happy to sit away from the general hubbub, with some crisps, and that's fine. I go and do my own thing, rather than fussing over him and check up on him from time-to-time, to see he is ok. When he is ready to go, we go.

So much pressure to just all come together, or be an outsider. Parties can be a nightmare but, for us, they have got better and i'm sure they will for you. Good Luck

Thank you all.

We've not got a DX yet and I know people were sat there thinking "what a little sod". I guess I need to stop caring what other people think.

As one who always care what people think, I have to re-train myself into not caring. It's hard but I am trying, because it only makes me miserable when I do! x

holycow even when you have a dx the other parents at child parties rarely know. Most of the time they're just glad it's not their DC kicking off.
Dd only manages 1.5hrs of party. We arrive late and leave early.

I've been there! after a party in which the party girls mum told ds to stop strangling other children and I started crying I decided we wouldn't go to whole class parties anymore. I had been trying to get him out of their for about half an hour at that point but it was like trying to deal with a whirling dervish.

DS is fine with that, I just say I think it might be a bit noisy, I will check with x's mum.

The worst for DS are big echoey rooms, adventure playgrounds and swimming parties are fine.

Ds struggles with parties and is rarely invited, not meltdowns, just being able to even go into the room or join in. We spend all of the time sitting outside, watching from a distant. But he does enjoy the goody bag and cake. I suppose he enjoys parties, just in his own way!

Sympathies? I remember my DS having a mega-meltdown towards the end of one of his own birthday parties. We got through it somehow! The one good thing was that afterwards he didn?t really remember, he just remembered having a good time. DS didn?t get invited to many parties but he liked having his own party each year and he had two or three good friends who always invited him to theirs, and he was satisfied with that. And he did get less prone to party meltdowns as he got older.

Once my DS got his diagnosis I was able to tell myself ?those other parents know nothing about managing a kid with autism and I don?t have to care what they think because I know more than they do? and that helped me pretend to keep my cool.

yes parties are the stuff nightmares are made off. Ds is still invited and he still wants to go (which is impressive considering his track record) and he still doesn't cope with them at all. Most of our close friends now know how to steer things so will make sure there is somewhere he can retreat perferably with something electronic when it gets overwhelming and only having 1.5 hour maximum for him as any longer and it all goes south quickly. Sadly for us ds focuses totally on whatever has gone wrong and that is all he will take away from the party and yet he wants to go the next one. He wants a sleep over this year with another lad on the spectrum and two non spectrum children who we can throw back over the fence if needed (neighbours he has known since infancy)....he is turning 9 and in general I think it will go ok until the next day when he hasn't had enough sleep...we will see.