Your child when you stay overnight at peoples' homes

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Hi I am new to this, my child is still being diagnosed and as of today, we are not sure if he has Asperger's or not.

Anyway, I would like to post something and see if maybe y'll could help me figure out and how to do better next time it happens.

We went on vacation to Disney World, we stayed at a motel for seven days, visited one friend's home overnight at their RV and then we went to another friends' home. Now, this particular friend had just bought a new home and there was no furniture being delivered yet. We brought our air mattresses along to sleep on the floor. The kitchen only had two hard folding chairs and folding tables. It is a very very small kitchen, it adjoins to the living/dining room like a new home would be so it is not a separate kitchen. The kitchen has a hard floor while the living/dining room has carpeting.

Anyway back to the point, when it was time to eat dinner, after we arrived from another friends' home, they were serving us dinner. My son did not want to sit in the folding chair/table in the kitchen, he wanted to sit on the carpet. My friend did not like this idea and insisted that he eat in the kitchen. My husband tried to come up with solutions and he suggested that we could bring a huge mat that we brought along and we could sit on the floor so that the new carpet wouldn't get dirty to eat. My friend would not have any of that and kept on insisting that he eat in the kitchen. My son is not very comfortable in eating with other people for some reason (Im not sure why).

So anyway, I left it alone, after everyone except him ate dinner taking turns in eating in the very tiny kitchen, a few hours later, I decided that I would go out for a ride with my daughter, I asked my son if he would like to go with me to Burger King to eat dinner. My son declined the invitation as he was preoccupied in playing computer games on the laptop. So he stayed behind with my husband. My husband was getting worried because he had not been eating well and he needed to eat something all of suddenly called me and asked me to go ahead and order food from Burger King and conceal it in a bag so that my son could eat it privately. After coming home, I gave the concealed bag to my son and he went upstairs to eat privately, my friend went up and caught him. She was SOOO mad at me and told me that we had to leave their house right away, my husband had to calm her down saying that it was his fault, not me for bringing the food and tried to explain that my son was very hungry, he tried to offer solutions but she was very insistent on eating in the kitchen and we could not come to a compromise with her. So she let us sleep overnight, my son felt really bad about it and then the next day, we decided to leave and sleep in a motel for a couple of days as we knew that it would not work out very well as they were very tense as they were waiting for furniture to arrive and we did not feel very welcome in their house.

In the past, we have always welcomed them in our house, they stayed at our house for a couple of weeks so we felt betrayed by them.

So in hindsight, was there anything we could have done differently? Because we still do not have a diagnosis for my son, we cannot really explain what is wrong with him, and we thought they were understanding people and that is the reason why we accepted to stay over their house. But it turned out that we were wrong about them. We tried to explain to them about our son's problem, we tried our best to cajole him to go out to eat dinner, we tried to offer ideas because their kitchen is so tiny and when they get their furniture, they will be eating in the dining room that has carpeting so we did not understand their logic behind it but of course it is their house and they can please whatever they want to.

In other words, what could we have done differently and for next time, we think maybe it would be to our best benefit to stay in a motel or whatever until my son gets proper diagnosis (we strongly think he may have Asperger's but we are not sure yet).

Thanks

Just because you don't have a diagnosis (label) for your son's overall condition doesn't mean you can't explain that he has certain idiosyncracies that you need to handle in your own way.

I certainly think with the mat idea you were trying to make a good compromise so that your son could eat comfortably while your friend's new carpets wouldn't get food on them. Since you don't stay there often, it's not like she had to fear setting a pattern of eating in the living room or something.

Was there somewhere outside he could have sat comfortably to eat - a porch or something? It doesn't sound like she was prepared for company of any sort to begin with.

I would steer clear of staying with these folks in the future. If your son does well in other environments (like a hotel) then it will be well worth the money spent. The fact that you could go to Disney and stay in various hotels speaks to how well he copes with change/stress, etc. (I can't go away more than one night as we can't get our son to shower anywhere but his own tub).

Probably sneaking the food in was a bad idea - you should have just come back and taken him to the diner. It was her home, and however much you may disagree with them she's entitled to set her own rules.

Good luck.

I agree, they had no furniture at all in their house, not even in their porch. There was no place to sit down except on the floor/carpeting. We made arrangements with them a couple of months ago before visiting them and they informed us in advance that they may not be able to get furniture on time and to bring our air mattresses.

I don't know what prompted my husband to have me sneak food in, I think he was feeling desperate and worried about my son having a major meltdown especially if he was going to go hungry all night. My son absolutely refused to go out with me, I could not just pick him up and have him go in the van, he weighs over 80 pounds, he is almost 10 years old.

I think the best course was to stay in motels and visit them during the day and that would have solved the problem.

I just feel that some people do not understand what we have to go through with our children and be more sympathetic and understanding.

Thanks for your quick response.

I think I would seriously re-think my friendship with this person.

Generally, when you INVITE someone to be a guest in your home you accomodate THEM. You are adults and not children to be told what to do and where to sit and what to eat. I am amazed that you stayed there overnight or that you tried to calmly explain that it was not your son who snuck in food. Did she think he drove to Burger King or something? If anything she should have spoken to you quietly and not have made your son feel bad. If she had no furniture and was so fanatical about pushing the idea of taking turns eating in folding chairs than it probably would not work out with any kids staying overnight - not just someone with an AS. I think a good hostess would more likely have been concerned with making sure the child was able to have something to eat than have everyone conform to her standards.

It sounds as if your 'friend' is the one with the neurological problem.

even though your friend's requests seem ludicrous to you, it *is* her house.....i would've taken my son out or asked to bring their folding chair into the backyard or porch so that son would be more comfortable. with or without a diagnosis, many people will not understand your son's ( or my son's ) idiosyncracies....

Most kids have behaviors like this - they won't want to eat certain food being served or whatever - it is not exclusive to AS. I think it is better to be more proactive and inform people of the situation beforehand and what to expect but that doesn't necessarily make a difference either. We were having Thanksgiving dinner at a relative's house last year and she knows about our son and became very upset because he wasn't being a perfect child. So I simply said if the comments didn't stop we were going to leave. So it may be another person's house, but that doesn't mean you have to subject your kid to their behavior either. And if they are supposed to be so "normal" than they shouldn't be so rude. I mean the hostess expected them to leave the house immediately because she thought the boy had snuck some food in. I don't think that is in Miss Manners handbook anywhere.

i'm not advocating the way the friend acted....it is , however, her house adn she gets to make the rules...what i was trying to say in my earlier post was that some people just don't understand kids. i've had ridiculous expectations put on my kids by my own brother ( clueless and kidless).there's absolutely nothing wrong with discussing your child's idiosyncracies with others, but don't expect them to always understand or respect your way of thinking and doing things.

don;t have a lot of time to reply but this persons behavior is horrible.. I am sick and tired of aspies kids getting the attitude from people about their rude behavior and see the behavior of that so called friend is down right RUDE! we can no longer fault our children when adults behave in such a way.. that person is no friends of yours and she is so selfish that she can not understand your child.. i would have taken off and never looked back.. to think that she says you are not welcome.. i would have given her the international sign of peace and told her where to go.. for those who don't know what the sign of peace is... the Middle finger!

C

I am sad for you and your family! What a damper that must have put on your vacation. I suppose your friend must not have kids because people who do understand that no child Aspie or not is not 100% perfect all of the time. A lot of kids are picky eaters and a lot of kids experience stress in different situations (even if it is plesant stress like a family vacation). I think her behavior is inexcusable. I would hope that most adults would treat children better than your friend treated your son. Poor kid! I hope you guys had fun once you got out of that bad situation!

Katherine

Yes, it's their house and they can do what they want. It's your family and you do not need to subjugate yourself to their actions. If you want to keep this person as a friend, then do not stay at their house and suggest they not stay at yours, since how you two keep households is at odds with each other and it would be best to avoid further problems.

Mark Twain said, "Fish and houseguests both begin to smell after three days."

Oh yes, we decided to drive to Tampa. There we found a mom & pop motel on the ocean at Treasure Island so we stayed there for two days. It was a blissful time for all of us as we could easily walk to the beach and go swimming. My family had a great time. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that we found this place instead.

This particular friend is a wife of my husband's friend -- my husband used to go college with him, he fell in love with her (she is from Europe) and moved to Europe with her. They have three teenaged boys. So I'm not sure what prompted her to act that way toward us. It was our first time to stay at her house -- they bought a second home in Florida so that they could visit here every so often and when they told us that they bought a second home, they asked us to come and visit with them. They have been to our house a few times, I think maybe she saw how drastically my son has changed over the years and she is a very strict mom to her three teenaged boys. One of her teenaged boys could not go sleep at night and he would stay up most of the night and get up early -- his parents gave up and let him do that because it was a struggle and he did so well in school.

It is very hard for me to explain to people about my son -- especially when I don't have a diagnosis yet (but he has been evaluated by a neuropsychologist and she isn't too sure yet as he wouldn't cooperate with her at all when she tried to evaluate him) so she recommended us to try behavior therapy and then go back to her and hopefully she will be able to give us a diagnosis.

Thanks for all of your comments.

"It is very hard for me to explain to people about my son -- especially when I don't have a diagnosis yet (but he has been evaluated by a neuropsychologist and she isn't too sure yet as he wouldn't cooperate with her at all when she tried to evaluate him) so she recommended us to try behavior therapy and then go back to her and hopefully she will be able to give us a diagnosis"


I too have this issue.. and you know what I gave up trying to get others to understand. I lost my childhood friend who was what I thought my best friend for life.. she just could not understand Ryan and what his issues were. she thought he should be like normal kids and she could never understand that I was all over him all the time.. impule control is a huge issue for my son. she thought that I needed to give him space.. I told her that he has all the space he needs. you never know what he might do.. especially at other people's houses. I could never know what he could do. I have lost many so called friends and when I was single future mates.. it was not worth all the stress I was under.. the person who felt the need to unload on you was a horrible person.. you son has enough stress. so the alternative that you did was wonderful.. for all of you.. its a hard lesson you learned but a good one. you know your sons limits and how stress/shange effects him. you do not need the clinical diagnosis to know that your child is not like others. you know as a mother.. and you now know that he has limits..

my son can not an will not stay at anyones house.. even with me.. he can not tolerate anyone to be in the house while he is trying to wind down for the night. he has told people to leave at night that he was going to bed.. its pretty bad but he calls the shots.. he tells people point blank that they need to leave because he can not sleep with them in his house.. gotta love them aspie kids. direct, to the point and the heck with the consequences..

Aspie or not - what was she thinking inviting overnight guests with nothing in the house but two folding chairs??? Were you all expected to just stand around all day? She might be particular and inflexible, but this is ridiculous. We have folding chairs that fit in a bag - $6 each. How about those plastic lawn chairs, also around $5-10 each.

It sounds like you need to keep the friendship due to the history the men share from college. It is aggravating to know you welcomed them into your home, but she couldn't find a way to return the favor when you went to visit. Hopefully, you can still remain friendly with them (but mention they may want to stay elsewhere when visiting - I dunno, maybe you could suddenly have some home improvement project where you just don't have room??). When visiting Florida, keep it to day visits.

Now, about explaining your son's potential condition - every child has quirks. I have two older, nonASD kids and they had their own ways about things. And, like the pepper on the mashed potatoes, about the time I figure something out about my youngest, he will change.

Just explain the behaviors as they occur - don't worry about the big picture all the time. I'll tell people, yes, sometimes he gets overwhelmed and needs some quiet time. He's a picky eater, please don't force him. Well, you know how kids are - they have their own ways - we hope he'll grow out of it.

And you're going to find that once you do have a diagnosis, two things:

1) You'll be very particular who you give it out to (you may need to get burned once or twice to figure this one out, but I hope not)

2) The people you do tell (If your son gets an AS dx) will have not the faintest idea what you are talking about anyway. Once you explain to the end of your breath, they'll come away with "oh, it's the new adhd".

And so at the end of the day you and your child are better served by just knowing his needs and trying to avoid things that stress you guys out. Like I said before, just the fact that he's so okay with travelling and sleeping different places, etc, is awesome. I can't imagine ever taking such a seat of the pants vacation with our son.

You only get one chance with him, friends will come and go.