Anyone been let down by a very good friend with a NT DC?

[mumgoingcrazy]

I'm absolutely gutted today. I have a very close knit group of friends from DD1's NCT group. We have all had a 2nd child roughly the same age as well, we all muck in and help eachother out and are very close. My DD2 has sn and one of my good friends said something today that made me feel that she was socialising her DC2 with mine as a favour to me and not really because she wanted to.

I have started to feel more comfortable recently with my sn mums, but I always felt we were equal and today she just made me feel shit. I really don't think she meant it as she is lovely but still, I've hit rock bottom (temporarily, I'm used to picking myself up).

What would you all do or say?

I wouldn't say anything but just wait and see how the land lies in the future.Children will play with whoever she can not make her child play with someone that child didnt want to play with. Maybe you read her wrong maybe you didnt just bide your time and if it arrises again deal with that bridge when you get there.

You say that what she said made you 'feel' she was just doing you a favour. I find I am very over sensitive to what people say - could this have happened and maybe she did not mean it that way at all ?

Quite possibly. We have been friends for a long time and she is a genuinely nice person. Our 2nd kids are only 12 months so too young to choose who they spend time with but her DC2 has health issues to we have always been closer as we've had a sort of similar journey. Her child is ok now whereas mine will always have development issues. I am sensitive, I'm much more comfortable now with the mums at a sn therapy group we go to.

I'll see how it goes when I see her tomorrow.

Thanks for making me see sense!! xx

What exactly did she say? It can be easy to misinterpret, but also people can be very insensitive so could be either.

She was joking about how since her DC's op he has become tactile defensive in his mouth area (DD2 is very tactile defensive everywhere), so I said "he should come over and we'll do messy play together or come to our therapy group" and she said "Oh they wouldn't let me he's not bad enough for that". The suggestion from me wasn't a serious one as you need to be referred anyway but she made it seem that DD2 was really bad.

When I read this back, I can see I am actually being over sensitive and ridiculous. I'm very protective of DD2 (more so that DD1 for some reason) and seem to get insulted quite easily. I feel I'm ready to bite anyone's head off for saying something remotely insulting.

Actually no, I think I would have been a bit hurt by that comment. I don't think it's the worst thing someone can say, but it is a bit foot in mouth syndrome. She may be sitting at home feeling awful though.

See how it goes, but she may be feeling defensive about her own child and therefore over-sensitive herself.

I'm glad you think it was a bit hurtful too. I'll be seeing her tomorrow so I'll see if she says anything, I was a bit too taken aback earlier to say anything myself.

Feel better for having got it off my chest though.

Thank you xxx

Definitely insensitive and tactless but it could just have slipped out. If you like her, I would give it another chance. How would she react if you tried to make a 'joke' of it and said ' Well I'm off to that therapy class for those who are bad enough to need it' ?

I think she would cringe badly and realise what she said. I do feel better having got it off my chest so I may just leave it and then if she says anything else as tactless I'll talk to her about it.

I'll see if she mentions it tomorrow. Usually she is straight on the phone if she thinks she has said anything offensive about any of our friends and she hasn't called me yet so I don't even think she realises she's upset me.

Well I've seen her today and nothing has been said and she's chatting away as if nothing has happened. I think she has no clue she upset me yesterday.

I'll see how it goes but I'll say something if it happens again. For some reason it has still put me off her a bit, just because she thinks that of DD2.

If she showed no sign of embarrisment it may be she remembers what she meant to say not what she actually said!

Yes I think you're are probably right. xx

It's also possible that she complaining about something that she then realized was small in comparison to what your child had and then wanted to acknowledge that maybe her daily life wasn't as difficult as yours.
My ds is not sn but his best friend is and sometimes when I'm talking to his bf's mum I feel like my complaints about my ds being on another planet or not getting social cues are really sort of ridiculous in comparison to her daily life with a child with aspergers and then I try to compensate for it by belittling my ds' problems and probably inadvertently augmenting her ds' at the same. And really all I'm trying to do is commiserate with another mother about the difficulties of parenting and have probably just succeeded in making a mess of the whole thing.
So my advice would be that if this woman is a good friend, then forget what she said and put it down to just another parent with her own daily trials trying to be friends within the stressful confines of being a parent.

Thanks Sofia, it's good to hear it from her perspective. Since writing this post I've seen her a lot and it has never been brought up. I met my friends the other day and they were all asking what their DC's 1st word was and they went all around the group and missed me out assuming DD2 hadn't said anything. I'm guessing they didn't want me to have say that she hasn't said anything yet but it was almost as hurtful to have been skipped like that.

I'm becoming more and more comfortable with my sn mums now.