One woman has caused quite a stir on the internet after she took to an online forum to ask for advice.
The mum told how her son’s friend refused to leave their home and she took drastic action to remove him from the premises.
Her story concerned her 13-year-old son, Brian, and his friend, Tom, who is the same age. The mother expressed that she feels Tom isn’t a true friend to her son and only uses him to play his Nintendo Switch. However, since her son is on the autism spectrum and doesn’t have many friends, she has put up with Tom hanging around their house and staying for sleepovers.
However, during Tom’s most recent visit, he refused to leave their home when the parent said it was time to drive him back to his house – and his mum also would not come and collect him.
The mom tried unplugging the gaming console, but Tom was able to continue using it as a handheld device. The mom tried calling Tom’s mother, but she rebuffed her, as she was busy at the time and couldn’t come to pick her son up.
Feeling as if she had no choice left, the mother called the local police — they live in a small town, and the officer is a family friend — and he came over to escort Tom out of their house. Unsure if she did the right thing in the situation, the mother took to Reddit for advice, where she was met with a mix of responses.
The anonymous person explained: “My son, Brian [13] has a friend, Tom [13] who I really dislike.
“However, since Brian is on the spectrum, very few other children want to hang out with him. I have tried to tell him that Tom is using him for his Nintendo Switch, but he is unable to process that. Every time Tom comes over, he’ll hog the Switch to play one of the games (oftentimes a single-player game).
“Over the weekend, Tom came over for a sleepover. As usual, he raced right up to Brian’s room, turned on the game, and sat there for hours. He played until 3am on Sunday morning, and then he woke up at 10am, and without joining us for breakfast, started playing more.
“At around 12, Brian had reached his limit and told Tom that it was time to go home. He was tuned out completely. Brian then came to me asking what he should do, and I told him to be more assertive. An hour later, he came back, basically in tears, saying that no matter what he said, Tom was just ignoring him.”
The parent continued to explain: “I told [Tom] that he had to go home, and the kid legitimately looked me in the eye and said ‘No, I don’t think I will.’
“I then called his mother who didn’t pick up.
“Finally, I unplugged the machine from the wall causing his game to turn off, but he attached the controller to the handheld part and sat on Brian’s beanbag chair, again impervious to anything we said.
“At my limit, I went into the other room and called the police. Since we live in a small town, the police officer (a good friend of ours) came right over.
“Tom finally got his act together and was taken home by the police, but on his way out I told him that he was never going to step foot in my house again. I told him not to talk to Brian at school and not to text Brian privately.”
An hour later the parent says Tom’s mother called and “shrieked” about how “horribly” her son had been treated.
“I stayed calm and told her I had called her, but she said she was busy in a meeting and couldn’t talk,” the other parent added.
“I’ve received dozens of anger-filled texts, both from Tom’s mother and numbers I don’t know. I wouldn’t care what those trashy parents think, but I wonder if they have a point.”
Many commenters wrote that the mom was not the person in the wrong in the situation, but just as many others pointed out that she could have tried a few other options, including informing Tom’s mom that she was about to call the police, taking the handheld console out of his hands and even enforcing stricter rules from the get-go rather than waiting until the situation became so extreme.
Source:
apost.com, dailyrecord.co.uk
