Mom of Autistic Child Demands That Sports Camp Lets Him Win Every Game To Avoid Meltdowns

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Summer camps can be tricky to navigate for any parent. Parents of neurodivergent kids, however, often have an extra layer of potential issues to take into consideration. Anticipating sensory or social triggers and advocating for accommodations can feel like a never-ending battle, for sure.

But there are well-meaning parents of neurodivergent kids who get it wrong. As one sports camp coach detailed in the Am I the A–hole forum on Reddit, the mother of an autistic child laid down a stipulation for her child that simply could not be followed.

A Redditor explained that she works as a coach at a summer sports camp.

AITA for telling a parent that her autistic child shouldn't be at a sports camp?
byu/Fragrant-Cook6054 inAmItheAsshole

The 20-year-old Reddit user detailed her experience in the AITA forum this past week, noting that she coaches at a summer sports camp for elementary school-aged kids. This year, the camp implemented "inclusion specialists" to help children on the spectrum through the camp if needed.

Recently, she met a camper with autism named Connor.

"Connor is 10, on the older side for this camp, and when we first met him in the morning, he seemed like a pretty good kid to work with at a camp," the OP (original poster) explained in her post. "The problem was his mother."

His mother demanded the camp ensure that Connor won at everything he participated in.

The Redditor explained that on the first day of the sports camp, Connor's mom, Sara, pulled her aside to let her know that Connor "had pretty severe meltdowns and what triggered them was losing."

"His mother asked me to make sure Connor never lost a game," she added. "This included his team never losing, letting him win all the races, making sure his team came first in the relays, never letting him get tagged in tag, and never letting him get eliminated in any sort of last-man-standing game."

When she told the mom they could not do this, Sara was furious.

The OP pushed back against Sara's demand.

"I told her on no uncertain terms that I couldn't control that, and that was unfair to the other kids if I told them to always let him win," she shared. "I told her that she really shouldn’t have sent him to a sports camp if she thought it would put him in distress or force all the other kids to cater to him."

The Reddit user continued, "She asked me what the h— the inclusion program was for, and I told her it meant I as a coach could help him and his inclusion specialist could help him, but the other kids weren’t a part of this inclusion program."

According to the OP, the mother was angry but left Connor at the camp for the day. He had two meltdowns during the camp, but the inclusion specialist dealt with them.

The camp staffer, whoever, admitted she "started feeling guilty, explaining it this way: "The whole point of the program was to allow kids like him to participate, but I didn’t want to sacrifice the other kids' experience just for him. So, AITA?"

In the comments, Reddit users resoundingly agreed the OP was not in the wrong.

Most folks in the comments agreed the original poster was not the a–hole, but many pointed out better ways of handling the situation.

One Redditor wrote, "Inclusion doesn't mean being unfair to the other participants."

"NTA, but you need to loop in your supervisor," another commenter suggested. "It’s not your call on who should and shouldn’t be in this camp."

"I think you’ve worded it wrong, unfortunately…Instead of telling the mom to withdraw her kid, you could have told her that the camp has specialists to help her kid cope with losing," someone else wrote.

That same Reddit user continued, "Mom too needs a lesson in parenting special needs kid, she can’t just keep letting him win to avoid meltdowns. She should work on helping him deal with winning and losing, meltdowns are part of the learning process, work through it."

What do you think?