Birthday party for autistic 9yr old

[peppajay]

My son is almost 9 he has high functioning autism and this year for the first time ever he has asked for a birthday party. He has asked for a bowling party - he has never been interested before and although he has a few little friends I am not sure how many would actually like to come to his party. I also know he isn't popular with parents and i have this horrible feeling that the parents of the children he has chosen won't let their children attend. I have visions of sending out the invites and everyone saying they can't make it. 😣

A bowling party is a good idea as it's quite structured. When we did this, we kept the numbers quite small (no more than 5 guests) and did the bowling then straight to McDonalds afterwards for a quick happy meal and the parents picked them up from there. I never send out invites - just email or phone the parents to see if their DC can attend. If not, I asked DS if there was anyone else he'd like to invite. Even with 2 or 3 friends, it's still a nice party.

I have a 7 year old son with high functioning ASD, so I feel for you! Could you approach the parents of the few friends he'd like to invite and explain? Do they all know that he has ASD? Maybe choose a small and manageable number and invite the parents to stay if they would like? perhaps if you get a negative reaction you could offer your son an alternative treat to a party, maybe a day trip somewhere he'd really love to go, rather than have to explain that no one wants to come?

Has he been bowling? The darkness of the arcade in front of the lanes and the bright lights was a bit of a struggle for us. Agree that keeping the number of kids down to one lane (ie 6 bowlers max)would be good - we had 2 lanes, two younger siblings, and getting everyone in and out was chaos and stress (not helped by the couple who were supposed to help out turning up an hour late...)
Also worth getting the bumpers put in to avoid frustration!