Meltdown during his b-day party

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My son had a birthday party today. The list included 2 boys his age and 2 younger boys and his sister.

They were playing on the Wii and he wasn't "taking turns" properly. We tried explaining about sharing, turn taking and fairness included examples of if the situation were reversed and he was at his friend's house and he went upstairs and shut down and when into complete meltdown. He sounded as if he was hyperventilating. After 15 minutes of sitting and talking to him calmly, he settled but still wouldn't listen.

When the others wanted to play of course he said since they couldn't share no one was to play and another meltdown occurred generally the same as above.

I know that its hard for the above things. But he's 11 and I'm not sure what more I can do than to keep explaining and reminding.

Thoughts?

How is he in regular play date situations, with one or two other children? Does he take turns then? Does he take turns with his sister? If he can take turns in those situations, then you need to build on that. If not, you need to start with that before you can expect him to manage something with the numbers you're talking about (even though it was small). Have you tried using social stories? It sounds like social stories might be good tools for him, not only to prepare ahead of time for situations like this, and the turn taking that would need to occur, but also to explain the difference between taking turns appropriately and withholding a game punitively because he thinks someone isn't taking turns, when they might only be expecting to have a fair turn of their own. All of this is very complicated, and the preparation needs to happen well in advance, and be reviewed multiple times. If you try to go over it while you're in the middle of the situation, it will be too overwhelming: you'll be stressed by the people waiting for resolution, and your stress will be obvious to your son; your stress will blur the message you are trying to convey to your son, and he won't understand what you're trying to explain to him; and he'll be too upset from the situation to start learning a new social skill at that point.

Birthday parties can be rather stressful for kids, so some regression is also somewhat to be expected. But if you can try to make sure that your son has gotten lots of advance preparation, it will lessen the likelihood of a meltdown. The other thing is to try to avoid situations where he has to share in uncomfortable ways during his birthday celebration. Sometimes that can be done by not having more people than Wii controllers (and using only games that allow for multiple players), so everyone can play together. Even with typical kids, many families avoid that kind of situation in birthday situations, or the birthday child is given a "pass" on the normal rules of sharing because it's "his day." But whatever you decide to do, lots of preparation is key. You may also want to allow your child the opportunity to withdraw without embarrassment or shame if he needs to, so if your son is starting to melt down, and he needs to go to his room and be by himself for a while, he knows he can do so.

Your posts are so timely as we will face almost same bday situation next month with similar ages involved. My son has sharing struggles, but is better with his sister. I think because he knows her better and she has figured out how to negotiate with him. Playing host and dealing with free-play situations is particularly hard for my son so I learned (painfully) to pick activities where he is less host, more participant, and the activity has an outward goal (like mini-golf with no scoring). I think it is great that you had a birthday party for him and that it provided a teachable moment for him. The other boys will forget the meltdown in years to come. (How many adults remember what happened when they were 11 and went to someone else's party?). I used to avoid these situations, but my husband takes the view that the only way to learn the social rules is repeat exposure. So good for you for having the party and my confidence is shored up for our own situation next month.

Birthday parties are so stressful. I think there is so much expectation and anticipation, and all kids spend time imagining the day, and they build up so much false vision. The day is all about them and they imagine that every little moment is going to be their perfect moment. Well, you know, it never works out that way.

We've found that structured venture parties solve the problem, for the most part. An activity that has nothing open to opinion about it. For my son, that means a hiking party. He picks the trail, the time, the guests, and then my husband leads the hike. They come back and eat a meal that my son selected, have cake, and go home. There just isn't space for all the moments that tend to go wrong.

Even when I was planning the parties at home, and planning every little aspect, it always broke down, because every game held the possibility for some child to do something that wasn't in my son's vision.

My son and I are both glad to be rid of all that. We've done 3 hiking parties in a row and they've all gone off without a hitch. His friends look forward to it, and he looks forward to it, and they all agree at the end that it's been great fun.

November last year my son turned 10, I held an aspie only birthday party and it was according to all involved the best party ever.

It started with 15 minutes of game time (my son isn't great at sharing games, we have enough consoles for everyone) We used this as transition time/meet and greet time.
Then we went into structured activities-namely a treasure hunt.
6 kids 2 per group with one adult to help if needed. Each group were given a list of 5 cryptic clues (each list had the same clues but in a different order) Each clue when answered led the kids to a puzzle piece. When all 5 pieces were collected and put together they led to the final clue which led to a prize for each child (same thing for each kid (leggo)
Next we had food-wide variety and plastic divided plates.
Next was piniata-all lollies(candy) was warapped into enough individual parcels for each child all exactly the same as each other.
Then ice cream cake.
Then home time.
one and a half hours of structured fun activities. Plenty long enough. I even thought about posting the schedule on the wall for all kids to see, so that there would be no need for anxiety with the unknown.

Prior to my sons dx, we have held other parties without the same level of structure and for the standard 2 hours, just like most kids have. Pfft my child has always ended up in meltdown or in his room totally overwhelmed. I guess looking back now, those parties were always catering to his guests and not to him and his needs. (mind you I didn't completely understand his needs then)
The other thing that helped for my son was going over the schedule a few times with him prior to the event.
Anyway just some tips that worked really really well for me.

Ironically the opposite has proven to be true for my son. We set a time to start, a time to eat, a time for cake a time for presents, and a time to go home. (which he and I negotiated. You just can't open presents before everyone gets there THEY bring you the presents.)

We had no structured activities and I left everything loose in between. No one noticed during the party (except for me and one other adult) that my child escaped for a couple minutes while everyone else played. To keep everyone occupied I leave the balloons unblown so that the children that might come early have something to do. I say: "Hey, you think you could help me out? I have all these balloons to blow up but I am still making dinner. Could you help blow them up for me? To get my child involved I asked him to ask everyone if they would help him with the balloons.

I had put out a little "gator golf" game that you use a plastic club to hit a ball into an aligator's mouth and it pops up in the corner and the kids thought it was cool.

Over all, he had a wonderful party and "thinks he would like to do it again next year" and I think that the stress of being expected to do something each moment would have been more overwhelming for my son. It was his 9th (first year interested in inviting someone from school to the party).

[edit]Sorry, just noticed something in someone's post above mine. I made sure to have a talk with my child before hand about if it gets too loud or if he starts to get frusterated he can find a quiet spot for a couple minutes if he needs too. [/edit]