Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Party blues

I just took DS8 to a classmate's birthday party. He insisted he wanted to take his Nintendo, and even though I told him no, it still made it into the car. So on the way, I explained that taking your own entertainment to a party is telling the hosts that you assume their party is going to be boring, and that is rude, and that it was not going to happen. So he got out of the car, and while I was getting his sister out, he took the Nintendo with him. I took it away from him, with a battle, and he started getting his mad face on, so I told him he could go home if he was going to be that way. He went out in the yard and hid behind a tree. Finally two of the kids were able to talk him out, and apparently the agreement that got him out was that he could go play on the computer. So now he's at a birthday party where the kids are dancing and playing outside in the carport, and he is sitting in the house playing on the computer. Which he could have done at home. Arrrgh!

this is tough. We have also had issues where the play gets too rough, or guns/ammo are not shared well and ds takes things VERY personally, ends up dejected behind a tree/couch. Mostly when he was a few years younger, but yesterday we invited another family for dinner and this band of girls, his age and younger got ahold of all the guns and ended up attacking him. Mildly, I'm sure, and in the spirit of the original game, but it did not sit well with him at ALL. Anyway previously it would have taken hours or even days to recover his self esteem and hurt feelings, but he chilled by himself for a bit and in about an hour was feeling ok again.

yeah, that is tough. did you stay for the party? I'm curious if he played on the computer the whole time or joined the kids eventually.

I had similar happen with playdates. I'd arrange for a school friend to come play with DS (the kids lived all over the place and traveled to school so playdates were not easy to arrange)and I'd end up finding DS on the computer or going upstairs to play nintendoDS, bored with the kid! That left me to entertain him! I would explain the social rules of entertaining your guest and not being rude but usually the guest and DS's little sister would end up playing a game!

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I was there for a while, but DD (who wasn't really invited anyway) got fed up with the noise and started holding her hands over her ears, so I took her off to the park to play.

When I picked him up, I got the report that he did eventually come out when it was time for the presents, and played games after that.

DS has made great strides in his social skills, with years of social counseling at school and with a private counselor, but he is an Aspie and it's all uphill. I try to explain things in that way to him, but it's in one ear and out the other, and I'm not a lot of help because I don't do social very well myself. I can explain it, but I don't feel it -- I guess you'd say I get my socialization from book-learning!

Antsy, we have the same thing here, except the kids are all in the neighborhood -- just today, he's had a couple of friends in and out, and I keep having to send him back to his room to play with them because he tries to wander off to his computer or something, leaving his sister playing with his friends. I can't let friends hang out too long, because he starts getting cranky and fed up with company, and his hard-earned but fragile social skills go out the window.

Wheewh!
Hard to watch the little one, while you have an even smaller one to keep an eye on.

I worried a lot about 'that my kid will know that I mean what I say' - but then I only had one, so that was a lot easier. You are 'allowed' and even encouraged, to act as obstinate as he is.

If you say "leave the Gameboy home" and it gets into the car, you are allowed to pull the car over until the Gameboy is in your hand...or turn the car around and go back home.

It's always easier to have a confrontation where you control the situation, than it is to get to the party and add in the public humiliation.

You are also allowed to put all electronics in 'lock down' if they are so enticing that your child isn't obeying you.

It took me a long time to get comfortable with the idea that 'I'm the parent, you are the child - You must obey me.' I kept expecting my son to be more like how I was as a child (a stern look would have me feeling terrible.) It isn't uncommon for boys to be very different indeed.

There is great appeal to explaining why, but if you are expecting your son to be able to go as you say because you gave such a good explanation, then you are expecting more from him then he can give at this stage of life.

I think you'll get more milage from pulling over the car - insisting that he put the device into your hand, and then asking him why he thinks it's a bad idea to bring a Gameboy to a party.

Disobedient behavior is very distracting to the driver.

I'm assuming in all this that he wanted to go to this party. If he doesn't actually look forward to parties and want to go in the first place, then that's a more difficult situation. If he isn't really that interested in the first place, then you'll have an idea of why you are bending over backwards. Some kids just hate birthday parties, that is ok. My son's best friend hates birthday cake, and his mom always provided a corn muffin for him to eat at his birthdays. I have a great picture of this kid at age 8, in full party hat and ballons, looking dejectedly at the 'first slice' that was served to him at one of those party gyms, before his mom made it over with the corn muffin. Parenting is so different from what I expected!


Love and More Love,
Grinity

true - my kids both hate cake and frosting. DS gets ice cream on his, DD had donuts for hers. They are usually ready to leave bday parties before cake time and I sometimes prod them to stay and sing before we bolt!

I used to have to pull a FMB - Full Media Blackout. It was the only punishment that got his attention. No DS, no Wii, no Computer.

This sounds oh so familiar! We have to force DS7 to parties, unless there is laser tag or similar. And since he was a baby, he has hated "The Birthday Song" and refused to participate. When he was younger, this was probably a noise sensitivity issue, and now I think he does put up with it better at school, but how fun it was to watch the boy cover his ears and run away at cake time.... At his own birthdays, we have agreed to no song.

I have allowed the DS on the way to things, since we live far away from many places, but always request it before we get out of the car. At first he was unwilling and argumentative, but now he complies.

things change too. DS10 was very into computer games from very early on (by age 2.5 but it was unbelievable what he was doing!) anyway, that was his passion - there was so much stimuli, problem solving, hand eye coordination and it was the only thing he liked to do for years. He always brought his nintendo DS with him. I allowed it in the car but never in restaurants or people's houses (unless we were in for a particularly long, boring, grown-up visit where there would be no other kids or source of entertainment) BUT... now he chooses to take a book everywhere we go.

socially, i think he's improved too but I thought when he was younger he'd be a video game addict at age 10 and he isn't.