My heart hurts when the kids come home with their friendship dramas. I guess I should get a thicker skin, because this will only go on for forever. But, what do you do with the autistic child (of any form) who just doesn't understand alot of social skills, nuances, and aspects, yet he WANTS friends? And friends usually think he is weird................
He is weird, and it's heartbreaking.
All three boys, and one of our girls when she was here, go thru the "nobody wants to be my friend. I have no friends." I can honestly say that is false for all those children.
Perhaps they want something different, or situations hurt their feelings, and/or they feel disappointment. I've expressed many times this week to come home and tell me how they FEEL, not to just scream, shove a brother, and say "people treat me like dirt!"
Could they be more specific please?
So I tell them to tell me what is going on and tell me how they feel. They I ask them, "so what are you going to do about that?" I want them to first look inside them self for alternatives and solutions. Then we can talk about lots of options, including ones I throw out there.
What I really loathe is the drama queen routine. sigh. Any suggestions? This really only goes on currently with the 11yr old & almost 10yr old. Could be kids at school, could be neighborhood kids. What I really dislike about our neighborhood kids for the most part is that they are spoiled rotten little rich kids. We live in a neighborhood where the homes are $500K thru a million dollars. Pretty nice. Most of these people do things like shove tons of gifts and monetary extravagance at their kids. Hmmm, wonder how their kids will like it when they want to move out of mom & pops, and discover the world does not hand them a silver platter. We insist on the kids pitching in, rare trips, and we do not keep up with the latest gadgets and electronics. Apparently in most circles, this is extremely important. We are trying to drive home the point that kids who are nice & share something in common with you are going to make the best friends. We've noticed that the kids who are filthy stinking rich and spoiled are not really nice for the most part. We don't like their parents (typically) and we do not have the same values. We live in the Pac NW, and one of these families will take their kids to DisneyLand just because it's someones birthday. Ah, my kids have been once. ONCE! And that's probably the only trip they will get there on my dime! I'm not being stingy. I feel we have good financial grounding and we are realistic. At the same time we are saving for retirement and the future.
So, what else can I do to help with the friendship dramas that will go on until they move out? Diana, perhaps you can write a post about this? You always have such great insight....................
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4 comments:
I wish I had some words of wisdom or even insight on this one...but I don't. I deal with it every single day myself. I do a lot of reassuring that they are valued and loved by me and our family and that is what matters most.
At this point, my kids aren't really capable of changing the situations. They just don't have the cognative ability to be able to connect the dots. We still talk to them about choices the could make and what they can do to be better friends...but most of the time, they just don't get it enough to have it be a long term fix to the problem. Nor do they get that what they are doing is either too agressive, too immature, too invasive, or too something that more often than not just freaks other kids out. Perhaps down the road they'll get it, but not now.
Put a call into the SW at your kids school. A lot of time they have good ideas on stuff you can talk about with your kids in these situations. In fact in some school systems, they come into the classrooms ( in elem. school) and do mini lessons on how to handle situations and how to treat others.
One of the hardest things about HFA is how aware the kids are that they want friends, and that they do not have any. I have worked with a lot of kids on the spectrum that were able to find friends at comic book shops, or gamer stores, the library on Japanese Anime day etc. I don't know how old your kids are, but if they have special interests (aka, obsessions) often they can make friends around that, trains or dinosaurs are commom. I hope they can find some kids to be friends with! I worry about my 5 year old, she can be so overwhelming and needy sometimes, that does not go over well with other kids either!!
JM is starting the trauma/drama thing and we, too, need some help in this area. Although she can't express herself verbally, we think that a lot oof the drama is her frustration in not being able to communicate. We'll be monitoring this one.
The boys have a real good thing going for them - their mom. E, you may have sensitive insides but you keep on keepin' on and that's very admirable. And you're not afraid to tell it like it is.
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