My sons heart is hurt. :,(

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[b]My 8yr old HFA son has finally realized that he hasn't been invited to a birthday party in a year and a half. His party is Saturday and we sent 30 invitations to his class and have received only 1 RSVP (we know the parents of this child). He asked me today how come the teacher always gives all the other kids a invitation to parties but he never gets one? I don't know what to do. I can tell he is upset and just told me that nobody is his friend. This just kills me inside. He is the sweetest loving boy to everyone, WHY DONT THEY SEE THAT???

I am sad to read this.

One option maybe cancel the party, spend the money instead on taking your son and the one who rsvpd to something really special.

And when the others hear what they missed out on, they can suck it up.

Might be time to talk to the teacher too? What is happening to your son is social exclusion, and it is a very real form of oppression. I relate it to bullying, in its impacts.

You sound like a parent who is very capable of giving your son TLC and he certainly will be benefiting from that now. Extra cuddle time?

Hmm, as someone who went through this sort of thing back when I was a kid, I dont think it's anything truly bad on the part of the other kids, nothing like "Well you're like this, so we dont want to be your friend", even though it might sometimes seem that way (though, there ARE bully-types out there that will do this, but who cares what jerks like that think?). Granted, the teacher not handing him an invitation when giving the others one is a little... odd... though I question why the teacher is giving the things out in the first place? But that's another matter.

But as for not having friends.... how is he at interacting with others? Does he go up and talk to them? If so, what is he like when doing so? These things need to be thought of, with something like this. There's also the question of how he responds to others that come to him.... it's hard to make friends with someone if they sort of hide or turn away from you, as many autistic kids will tend to. I did the same dang thing myself, way back when. Not that I knew anything about it at the time of course. Which is part of the problem. I wasnt aware of any of the things I was doing that made it hard for anyone to even get close to me, and I suspect that's the case for many autistic kids.

Things like that can make it very difficult to really make friends. There's no easy way to put that, really. I went through school myself mostly knowing nobody, and in some cases just not caring, or being tired of those around me, though partly that's just my personality. But, generally on the occaision, rare as it was, that I did make a friend, they're generally permanent.... as in, people that I still know really well, all these years later. The one who I knew the best back then, still lives near me and I pop over to his house at least a couple of times a week for gaming fun and such.

So I always think it's totally possible to make friends even with autism of any kind, and I mean the "real" sort of friend that sticks with you for good, as opposed to the sort of friends that a popular kid might make, where they lose contact with most of them when school ends (which always makes it sound pointless to me). So dont give up, frustrating though it may be, difficult though it may be. Work with him on this, on the whole "dealing with others" sorts of issues, and that might help alot. I aint gonna lie and say it wont be that hard, but I can say that it can be done. The good thing is that once it's been recognized, it's something that can be WORKED on.... it's hardly a lost cause or something like that. The more it's worked on, the easier it will get.

....I hope I'm making sense, I'm never too good about explaining stuff like this. But I'll help if I can.

I know the feeling well. I never had a birthday party with other kids after age 7 or 8 (I'm not sure which).

I'm sorry your son feels hurt.

What are his special interests? Maybe he could meet kids who share those interests.

My kid is an NT, and we stopped the big class birthday parties at age 7.

Why?

Like your kid, my kid's birthday is in the spring. Spring Saturday sports is starting. We have soccer and baseball in full swing for the 8-10 year old crowd. We never did Saturday parties. None of the friends could come.

Is the party your house or a venue? We had much better luck at a venue where the parents were welcomed to stay. Many parents are not thrilled leaving their kids at someone's home, whom they know nothing about.

We can not pass out invitations at school, even if the whole class is invited. Who knows where the invitations wound up? I actually had to mail mine.

For an NT kid, parties are a PITA. I had to mail out the invites and call all the parents.

Do you know any of the parents? This makes a huge difference. Parents feel more comfortable letting kids come over if they've talk to you.

I faced all the above crap for my daughter's b'day parties. I would never just had out invitations and expect anyone to show up. Especially if they went into a kid's back pack.

If it was me, I would cold call the families. You have nothing to lose. Yes, there are kids who don't want to go to *that* kid's party, but who knows who might actually show up? Does he have friends, in a younger grade, that might come? Call them.

Many kids, who have everyone and their dog at functions, have really active social lives. They are in scouting, sports....the families sort of know each other. My kid isn't one of them. I had to let the parents know I wasn't a freak. It was a ton of work on my part, but everyone mostly showed up.

I think your issue is more the above than everyone hating your kid. Kids just don't show up at parties. It's the parent behind the scenes making the magic happen.

I hope things work out for you and your child.

((♡hugs♡))

We also did a "Save The Date" card one month before the party, and the invitations two weeks before. That made a huge difference who could set the date aside.

*more hugs*

With the economy so cruddy, there aren't that many parties anymore....

Does your son have ASD? If so, does he receive any help from the school? The way you wrote the post, it seems like invitations are being given out in class, that is something the school and you could work together on. Especially if he gets any services or accommodations.

I would talk with whoever I had the best relationship with and try to get them to "come up with" the idea that party invitations aren't given out in school unless the whole class is invited. This isn't minor, it's the tone the adults are setting in the classroom of inclusion or exclusion, and the children learn how to treat your child from this. But you have to be nice about it so they maybe fix it instead of getting defensive.

One thing that's hard for me in this kind of situation is to step back from my reaction and listen and try to understand what it is my child feels and wants---it's often different from what I want. If you can get one child to celebrate his birthday, help them really enjoy it, maybe they can be friends, and if no one wants to come, help him enjoy something special that he wouldn't be able to do with a lot of kids.

Good advice someone gave me that works is when people are awful, to say I know you're upset, I don't understand why they did that, sometimes it's just really hard to understand people.

I hope this can still be a good birthday for him

I am almost 40 and the lack of friends and no relationships in my life still really kills me.

This is my opinion there is no point in feeding him a line of bull things in this regard are life long.

My family is still the most important thing in my life and being the youngest fills me with dread.

I am not trying to be mean I am going to be brutally honest with you the only reason your seeing this injustice is because YOUR son is on the spectrum.

Would YOU have been the one person the would have been nice to the weird kid when you were at school?


The world is full of selfish shallow people and the really nice people are few and far between.

Like another poster has said it's up to you to make your sons birthday special.

I never had a birthday party either.

My 40th birthday is coming in a few weeks and in all honesty I could hold it in a phone booth.

I have no time for tired cliches anymore you need to be honest with your son.

He has Autism and he will always have Autism sure over time he will learn coping skills by he is never going to have a hectic social life.

Your son is 8 you need to teach him to value himself and raise his self esteem tell him Autism makes mixing and making friends very very difficult.

It has taken me most of my life to raise my self esteem and rather then doubting myself I have learned to hate all those people who have been mean to me in life and to be honest I would take pleasure in any misfortune that befalls them.

Your son is nice that is how I was but children are cruel shallow selfish cowards that suck up to ring leaders.

I don't think I could endure my school years again.

Best wishes to your son I don't mean this post to sound cruel I UNDERSTAND what your son is going through.

I am in tears from your original post. It breaks my heart to read that. I like the idea of taking your son and the one friend out for a super fantastic day just the two of them. That would really be special and bonding for them.

I agree with SkiBum.

Never give up hope for your son's happiness.

I'm sorry to read that, I can imagine how that must feel like (for both of you).

I'm also advising the "super special private party for two" that was mentioned earlier. It sounds like a good idea.

Thank you all for your replies. As for his social skills, he really does not have any. He plays parellel with other kids, never really "with" them. Even when his 1 friend stays the night, he ends up by himself playing in his own world. This to me is 100% fine with me. I always told my wife, "1 good friend, is better then 10 fake friends!"

As for the invitations handed out in class, that is his schools policy I believe. We had to send them in a bag and he gave them to the teacher. He is only in 2nd grade.

The party is at our house, and of course parents are invited to stay. This is the irate year he asked for "ONLY" his classmates to be invited. I didn't want to book a venue without knowing if anybody will show up.

The special day for him and his friend we do all the time. We are trying to build them a strong lasting relationship. I believe he will grow and do great things in this world, it's just goin to be a bumpy road. But my wife and I are 110% dedicated to do any and everything we can to help

I have no advice to give. I just want you to know I experienced the same thing. Kids exclude the person who is different. It isn't about being nice. You know that. Remember how it was in elementary school? I have a big extended family, so I always had cousins to play with, so I was never really alone even though I had very few friends outside my family. Do you have friends that have kids around his age? Or do you have family nearby that have kids around his age? All it takes is one or two friends. Having ZERO friends is the part that is devastating.

I like some of the previous posts where they mentioned things other than popularity that could account for only one person signing up to attend the party.

Your son is only eight so he still has time. You can teach him social rules and be there for him when he gets excluded, letting him know that YOU love him and accept him. My parents made things worse when I was his age and talked to them about being rejected at school. Basically they said it was all my fault. I wish I had a mother like you who cared and went out of her way to help me deal with the realization that I was different and being excluded. Good luck.

I really, really wouldn't overreact to this one and assume that it's because of him.

At 7 and 8 the kids are still dependent on their parents -- almost exclusively the moms -- for social lives. The moms set up play dates, the moms get together and bring the kids, the moms talk to each other about what activities they'll all do, the moms congregate and hang out while the kids do gymnastics or what have you. If you're not part of that circle, you may as well not exist. The moms will not be anxious to hang out at a near-stranger's house for two hours so the kids can play with someone they never talk about.

I'm not saying that doing that, being part of that circle, is a cure-all for the isolation. But unless you're in it, yeah, both you and your son are invisible.

Ugh you are bringing back some mighty painful memories. I didn't have many kids show up to my spectacular 9th birthday (only 10 of 40) but that was because of a massive snowstorm. We moved when I was 9 and my 10th onward wasn't too good. I would get 3-4 kids and mostly because Mom went all out and practically bribed them. One of my most painful memories was "Brian's" 12th birthday (I was not yet 11). I thought he was my best friend at the time but the whole party EVERYONE teased and mocked me mercilessly in front of Brian's mother. She did NOTHING about it and when I beat them in a competition, they all cruelly told me what a weirdo I was being happy about it and continued to insult and mock me. It was a week later than Brian has to choose: bullies or keeping a friendship and guess which one he chose as he shoved me to the ground?

What's worse was that my mother and his mother became very good friends and that created a lot of friction with mom. She passed away a few years later due to cancer and I even remember thinking 'good riddance' and even said I hope Brian's heart was ripped out of his chest. That's an absolutely horrible thing to wish on anyone but that's how much being rejected hurts at that age. I was a sweet, caring boy too and I know how hard it was to be rejected by everyone. Took me many years to recover from that!

I found the story sad. I remember inviting all the girls from my class and only half showed up but you know what, it was overwhelming and I never had one again. I should have only invited my best friends and that would have been four kids so I don't think your kid would miss much and I am sure he would regret having a party if that many showed up or even half the class like I did. If only one shows up, do something special that day. Parties don't need to be big and have lot of people. They can have a few people and it can still be a party.

Yeah I would also talk to the teacher to see what that is all about about her giving out inventions to everyone but him.