Why cant I have my friends round?

*Disclaimer – this is a long one. And this happened 2 weeks ago. It has been too raw to post about it.

My daughter is 14 and has her friends round a lot. They come round straight from school, they have baked here, she has had sleepovers with 1 or sometimes 2 of them and my son has seen all this. And one day he asked:

“Why can’t I have my friends round?”

Well, the simple answer is he can. However he is only 5 and he’s finding his feet with his friendship group at school and he loves his routine and although he thinks he wants his friends to come round, and I am sure he does, the upset to his routine will be worse to him than not having them round. I knew this but I thought well let’s give it a go. I might be surprised. So, I suggested he pick one friend from his class and they could come for tea. We wrote out a little invite for his friend and my son gave him the invite at school. The tea play date was arranged between me and his mum and everything was sorted. I was so worried about this – my son liked to do things in his own way and was not flexible with this but maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe it was me who wasn’t flexible. Any how we got to the night before the play date and I reminded my son that his friend was coming and he seemed pleased about it. But when it came to bedtime my son was all over – couldn’t pick books, seemed agitated. I thought it was because he didn’t want to go to school the next day but he said he felt nervous about his friend coming round.

“Can I still go on my ipad?”

“Can I still eat my custard?”

He wanted his friend to come but he also wanted to do all the things he normally does after school. I explained that it would be a different night, but he would enjoy it. And that he didn’t need to worry about anything. My son went to sleep and I said to my husband it’s going to be a bad morning I can feel it. Little did I know that not only would it be a bad morning…it would be the worst morning we have ever had. Ever. By far.

My son woke at 5am and shouted me and when I went in his room he immediately said:

“I am NOT going to school”

Followed by

“Get out of my room”

And I say said but it was more like viciously spat out.

I retreated back to my bedroom, my heart beating fast and stomach in knots. I knew he was worried about his friend coming but I also knew there would be no placating him. For around an hour we played this back and forth where he would shout me sounding distressed:

“Mummy, Mummy, Mummy”

I would go in his room and he would shout at me to get out. Now I could have just ignored him when he shouted but there are other children in the house and I don’t want everyone to be woken up mega early. And so after an hour of this I told him when he was ready to get up to let me know. And I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Now another issue we have is my son likes to be first up. Its part of his routine that he is the first one to go downstairs. As soon as I made steps to go into the kitchen he went mad. He shouted I wasn’t allowed to be first up, raced out of bed, pulled my dressing gown off me leaving me cold and half naked. He raced round the downstairs with my dressing gown not quite sure what to do with it, he took my dressing gown into the bathroom and nearly put it in the toilet. He then ran back to the kitchen and put it in the bin, he ordered me out of the kitchen. The only way I can describe him is like a crazed animal racing about. It was almost scary to watch. It was 6.30ish by this point and I was trying to keep a lid on this so as not to wake all the other members of our household and so I stood in the kitchen in the cold, half naked waiting for my son to calm down. He was quite clearly extremely distressed and as far as I could tell there was absolutely no reason for his behaviour other than his own anxieties. I retreated from the kitchen, I turned all the lights off, my son got back into his bed, I got back into my bed and I put my head into the pillow and started to cry with no clue how I was going to pull this situation back round.

After a few minutes once again he shouted, he shouted like he was distressed, it was a definite cry for help so I felt like this would be the time he would allow me to comfort him but when I went in he said he wanted 40 minutes extra in bed. By this point it was almost 6.45 – we usually got up at 7. My daughter got up not long after that and if we weren’t up first then it would be even worse. I knew I couldn’t give him 40 minutes and I told him we had 15. He asked what time it was and I said it was nearly 7am. He started sobbing. He was distraught that it was nearly 7am and for whatever reason he wasn’t ready in his head for it to be 7am. Now I am very resourceful, I can do many many things but I cant change the time. There was one occasion where I did change the time on my phone as he had said he wanted a late night so I told him it was 8pm and changed the time on my phone to say 8pm – yes I know I am shocking but I was tired that day and I needed some time to myself. Anyway as a one off I can do it but as a way of life I cant do it. And I couldn’t change the time this morning. He needed more time and I just couldn’t give him it. He was so upset, upset with himself, upset with me, upset with life. He couldn’t even tell me what was wrong with him, I had no idea what was wrong with him. I had my suspicions but the reaction had been extreme. It had been two hours of absolute distress for him and me, and other members of the house who were hiding in their bedrooms literally afraid to come out. I was afraid too but he needed me. And so I explained that he could have 20 minutes, we couldn’t do 40 but I reckon at a push I could give him 20 minutes to relax. It was at this point he asked if I could get his bed, and that is when I knew he was done with whatever had just happened. I got in bed next to him but I never touched him until he asked if I could put my hand on his back and I did. He was sweating.

We laid there for what I estimated to be 20 minutes. By the time we got up it was 7.20 and I was 20 minutes behind where I needed to be but my son was calmer. He certainly wasn’t calm but he was calmer. His face was red and blotchy from crying, his eyes were bloodshot from being awake so early. He looked like he had been through the mill. And he had. Could I send him to school? Could his friend still come for tea? It was going to be a horrible day for him at school having been awake so early and so distressed so early but that was the only way his friend could come. And so I carried on as normal somehow managing to get us all out the house on time. We got to school and he went in and I somehow made it back to the car before almost collapsing.  As the day wore on I started to feel really ill. Like I had had some sort of traumatic experience. And I had. I still had no idea what was wrong with my son, I don’t know why he woke up with such anger and rage, was it school, was it his friend coming, was it all of it, was he just having a bad day? But I did know I was struggling to cope with it, and I did know I could not go through that again.

I picked my son and his friend up from school and they were so happy. We got home and I asked if they wanted an after school snack. My son always has a custard followed by a rice pudding after school, always. And I was interested to see how this would play out. My son asked his friend:

“Do you like custard?”

And his friend said…..

“I absolutely love custard”

Who would have thought it he had found a kindred spirit when it came to custard. They both sat eating their custard, cold I might add, and watched tv. Next my son usually goes on his iPad and so he asked his friend if he wanted to sit and watch his iPad together and that is what they did.

The most crucial part of the tea pay date was the tea and I knew I was going to offer cheese and tomato pizza and chips. My son eats pasta most days but pasta is awkward for some kids to eat and messy and I thought pizza and chips is safer so I offered them pizza and chips. The friend said yes. My son said

“nahhhh don’t you want pasta?”

His friend said yes. And I realised his friend would just go along with whatever anyone said. With hindsight my son couldn’t have picked a better friend for him to have round, my son had picked a friend who would just fit in with what he wanted, whether he did this deliberately or not I don’t know but his friend was very amenable. I expect other children would be less so. I told them they would be having pizza and chips and that is what they had. And the rest of the play date went successfully. I knew that it would take me a long time to come to terms with what had happened that morning and although the play date was a success I needed to regroup before arranging another one. If indeed I was ever going to arrange again one…..

However when the childs mum picked him up….she asked

“Are we ok to have your son round at ours next Monday?“

Of course I managed to put her off, told her we were busy and I would be in touch after the school holidays in a couple of weeks time. At this point my son heard but didn’t react and he never mentioned it again. I fully believed that would be the end of it. I wanted it to be the end of it. I then proceeded to spend the next three days in bed. Not feeling sorry for myself….although I was, but genuinely ill. I knew I was running on empty most days and so after a big event such as this my immune system just said no. And to top it off my son had now been referred for a hearing test (that’s a whole other blog post I’m sure). All I wanted was my son to be happy and he wasn’t. But I picked myself up like I always do. I had just about recovered fully, both physically and mentally, in time for the school holidays, when I picked my son up from school on the last day before the holidays. I told him it was now the school holidays and he fist pumped and shouted…..

“You know what that means, I get to go to my friends for tea after the holidays”…….