Sometimes community building events can get tricky because what happens when you want to exclude someone for some reason?

This woman likes to host pool parties for the neighbors in her community, but there’s one particular child who misbehaves and is so disruptive that some of the other kids end up crying.

She’s considering not inviting this kid to the next party, but it’s not sure if that’s a good idea or not.

Check out the full story.

WIBTA for excluding a family with a badly-behaved, autistic child from the neighborhood pool party?

I host a monthly pool party/bbq for the neighborhood families.

I buy about $200 in steaks, hot dogs, and drinks, book the community party room, and send out invites and reminders.

She loves hosting for everyone…

It’s become a great way for the adults to connect and catch up, while the kids swim and play.

One of the neighborhood boys doesn’t behave appropriately – ie: splashes kids in the face when they ask him not to, pushes kids into the pool, calls them names, growls at kids if they win a game, doesn’t follow the rules of games, and such.

He’s been problematic all this time!

It’s unpleasant for the other kids, and he makes the younger ones cry.

His mom yells and threatens to take him home, but she doesn’t, so he continues misbehaving.

I’m not well-informed on autism, however, my stance is that the parents are responsible for ensuring their kids behave appropriately or removing them.

Instead, other parents have to get involved to yell at the kid to leave theirs alone or comfort their crying kid.

She knows she can’t ruin the event…

After the last party, two of the kids asked me not to invite that boy again because he ruined the day for them.

I agree with them and believe that as part of my responsibility of hosting is to create a guest list of people who add positively to the event.

The opinions are divided…

My husband disagrees because…

1) he thinks I should first bring up the issue to the boy’s parents and give him one more chance

2) we can’t actually “exclude” them since it’s a community pool

And 3) he’s just conflict-avoidant and doesn’t want to ruin relations with neighbors.

What do you think, would I be TA?

UH OH! That sounds tricky!

Let’s find out if folks on Reddit agree with husband or the wife.

This user suggests discussing the issue with the parents to keep them informed.

That’s right! This user thinks the parents have had enough chances to discipline their kid.

This user has an important question.

Exactly! This user knows she has a good enough reason to exclude the kid from the party.

This user believes it is the parent’s job to teach their kid how to behave in public.

If the kid’s parents had taken action, it wouldn’t have come to this.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.