He Refused To Let His Son Invite A Friend With Special Needs Over For A Sleepover
This man currently has an 11-year-old son. And recently, his son has been super excited about planning a sleepover with all of his friends from school.
At first, he had no issue with his son having a sleepover, either.
“Since I am already familiar with his friend group as they often come over to play basketball after school,” he said.
More recently, though, his son made a new friend at school named Jason– who reportedly has special needs.
He admitted that he is not entirely sure what condition Jason has. However, he claimed it is “clearly” a developmental disorder– since Jason apparently has the mind of a 5-year-old even though the child is nearly 12-years-old.
Regardless of that, his son really wanted to invite Jason to the sleepover, too. But he was not totally on board.
“I was hesitant since I wasn’t sure if I was equipped to handle someone with special needs,” he recalled.
In addition to that, he pointed out how Jason already had a caretaker who was always with him at school. So, due to that, he claimed to know that Jason required a lot of supervision and attention.
That’s why he initially told his son that they could not invite Jason over because of the little boy’s special needs.
Monkey Business – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
However, his son was not happy about that and claimed he did not want Jason to feel left out– especially because his son was Jason’s first and really only friend.
Despite that, he opted to still tell his son no since he did not think he would be able to take proper care of Jason. At the same time, he didn’t think it was right or appropriate for that responsibility to fall on his son, either.
His son really did not understand his perspective, though. And according to him, this pushed his son to start having a pretty bad attitude. That’s why, in the end, he decided to just cancel the entire sleepover. But, after he filled his wife in on what had happened, he was accused of being the problem.
More specifically, his wife claimed that he was an ableist by declining to invite Jason just because of the little boy’s disability. His wife also pointed out how he should have just contacted Jason’s mother. That way, they could have learned how to best accommodate Jason in order to make him feel included at the sleepover.
So, even though he thought he was doing the right thing in the beginning, he’s now been left wondering whether refusing to allow his son to invite Jason to the sleepover made him a real jerk.
Do you think it was his job to decide whether he was able to properly care for Jason without having any information about the little boy’s condition? Or should he have just reached out to Jason’s parents to find out about accommodations? Did his son have a right to be upset in this situation?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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