the aspie and socializing...

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One of things with my girl is that she does not participate in any group activities with the other kids.. she doesnt play with the kids who are there everyday, she doesnt talk to the kids who visit... etc etc etc..

So I asked the big ole question of what things do they do together that goes well. The lovely answer... Nothing.

Movie or tv is the only thing she does with the other kids. Some days she doesnt really talk to anyone at all. She rarely plays with anyone. If anyone asks her to play she is rude and gets mad at them so they do not ask her anymore. She either doesnt want to play or she is the 'puppetmaster' (Jennifers words) and then yells at anyone who doesnt do what she wanted. She often doesnt tell the children what they are supposed to do either btw.. just gets furious that they didnt know

On the other hand.. she doesnt complain about this, never whines or fusses that no one is playing with her, and according to Jennifer is happier now that they children have stopped trying to interact with her. She has always preferred to play alone even in the preschool years, etc. She used to go to an afterschool program and enjoyed it. She was rather popular but only truly liked one other child there.

Soooo should I try to 'help' her be more social with other children? I'm considering going there one afternoon a week and doing an activity with all the kids so Jordan would be participating and she follows my direction better than she does Jennifers. Thinking here the activity would be fun and cooperative but not just 'child led' like free play is.

Should I work things out so that she is around the children less since the very NT kids irritate her so much? That seems to be the big source of stress. It is possible for her time there to be shorter and pretty much like 3 hrs just for school and lunch and the occasional extra curricular activity. This would be a pain for us working parents but possible.

Since she doesnt complain .. and lord knows she doesnt suffer in silence LOL.... Im inclined to think she doesnt want the social aspect. How much social time do aspie kids need or want? she is more 'social' at home but still it is altogether probably an hour or two a day of actual interaction. Any social interaction that isnt initiated by her is usually met pretty poorly.

But is this the way she wants it and is happy? Or does she want friends?

Everyone has differ social needs. There is this belief that people need to have social interaction in order to be happy. I think it is perfectly logical that htere are Aspies that would prefer to NOT interact.

I wouldn't force interaction on her - it will only make her resentful. I would still work on scripting social skills - pointing out social cues during routine times of the day, even on tv just to keep her hand in it. there may be a tiem where she wants to interact. You didn't mention how old she is... in high school or so, some kids actually crave interaction. She may always be more enthralled in her own world. If you can help support her interests that may blossom into a career down the road, all the better.

She will need some social skills and I would definitely make family interaction skills clear and an expected part of her day. It sounds like she is more than capable of letting you know if she is having trouble making friends. My Aspie is 9 and she very clearly tells us how sad she is that she can't make and keep friends.

I think its true that sooner or later she is going to need to be able to interact with other human beings on some level and needs to learn at least some basic social skills so she can get a job, an apartement, get into college...

We practice identifying emotions so that DS can learn how to recognize when other people are happy, sad angry... We do this with people on TV in books and people we see when we are out and about in the world. I think it is important for them to learn that other people have feelings then you ask things like"How do you think that amde Sara feel when you screamed at her?" (for not playing the game right, for example).

If she isn't expressing concern about not having friends, I would not worry about that right now. That may change later on, or it might not. You can however work on some basic social skills that she will need later in life even if she chooses a path that involves little personal interaction.

If you have ever read the posts in this site you would know that happiness wont last forever. People gets lonely, people gets depressed, people wants friends (at least one). She will get there. Just wait. It is important for her to learn how to socialize NOW. I started training my kid very little, about 2 years old, as soon as I noticed she did not play w/other kids. Now she is 11, and she is doing better but still have problems, specially w/conversation. If she has s therapist you can ask for help or ideas. When my daughter was in second grade the class teacher also helped.

this is a very difficult question to answer, for a large part becouse the amount of socialisation wanted doesn't only differ from person to person, but also from time to time.
there are times that i go out of my way to socialize; drop everything i'm doing as soon as i even think i hear a conversation going on, and the next day i will close my door and curtains in the middle of the day and just curve up under the sheets of my bed with earplugs in...

as long as your daughter appears happy, i think the best thing is to just let her be, although educating the class about her ASD isn't a bad idea.

Jordan is 10. She is with a family during the day - mom, a 6 yr old boy and 10 and 12 yr old girls. That is not going well socially at all. The children irritate her to no end. (not purposely.. just being NT kids) Interactions at home are more difficult because of her stress level from the day. She spent the day with her dad at work yesterday and was easy and pleasant last night. Very conversational and animated, relaxed..

I'm thinking I may just need to quit working and stay home with her again. She used to do much better socially all around than she is now. She has been outside of the home for a little over a year and the problems (due to stress) came then. Not immediately but she was much better before. I've done what I can to reduce stress there but the bottom line is I dont think the situation is working well for her and it might be better for her to just be home. Then she wouldnt be so stressed out and we could work on social stuff better. It's hard to work on anything when she is just a little ball of frustration and only wants to be left alone.

Jordan recognizes others emotions.. she just finds them irritating.. LOL Like me, she can be excellent at reading other people. Her problem is she either doesnt know how to best respond or she is irritated at having to deal with it. I'm like that too. She quite often knows exactly what upset someone and why and all but when she is stressed she has little to no control. She tells me that all the time .. that when she is upset she cant help how she talks.. she says she tries but it just comes out anyway and she cant stop it.

Her social skills arent bad when she is not stressed. Add stress and she is a little nightmare.

I really think the stress is the problem and unfortunately having her home with me may be the only way to solve that one. I like my job and I'm good at it and it's my 'social' time so I would miss it. But I think she will do much better at home without the stress and then we can go back to outings and social times that are less stressful, more controlled, and shorter.

I used to try to fit my few friends in with my busy lifestyle and felt guilty that I was not able to do this...and even worse that I didnt want to. I wanted my husband and my kids only....and my ME time. My psychiatrist told me that due to my Aspergers I could only handle so many "relationships" at one time. Any more is taxing and will make me agitated and stressed. Maybe your daughter has the same problem. Maybe the social interaction she gets is enough for her and she is clever enough to know not to take on too much. Also a lot of kids around her age when you ask them what they did they will say "nothing". My son (aspie) will sometimes give me very gory details about what he did like the game he said he played with his friend where they pretended to eat each others hearts and vomit back at each other....I could have gone without that story and Im sure the rest of you could as well. Other times he just doesnt want to talk about school or what he did at therapy he wants to talk about whatever else is on his mind.
I think as long as she is happy and you are satisfied that she is then she is getting what she needs and wants. Any more than that could make her stressed and upset.

School provides a -lot- of social interaction. I managed to keep a friend in Jr. High and a couple of them in high school, but by the time I got home I was done. I went to the basement (cool, dark, quiet) and read or what not and decompressed.

I know for a fact that if I didn't have that time to myself I would have been a 'spaz' in school. In a bad way. My tolerance increased in high school, again in college, and again after that to where I don't need 4+ hours a day in isolation to process everything.

I know it sounds horrible to most people, but I can attribute the fact that I'm a reasonably well-adjusted adult (supportive job, amazing fiancée, etc.) entirely to two factors - One, that I always had a friend from 7th grade on who watched out for me and told me when I was wrong; and Two that my parents left me alone and never bothered me when I was decompressing. If they had been more interested in my life, I wouldn't have had enough time to decompress and I would have had constant meltdowns.

Every one of us is different, and what is true for one isn't always true for another. I do want you to consider, however, that the odd behavior you're seeing isn't a bad sign. It may be just how she is managing to cope with everything right now.

Does it have to be all or nothing with your job or is there a possibility of reducing your hours and being with her more but not dropping your job and the home school situation all together? Perhaps she could tolerate the school situation with the other family better if it were just fewer hours a day or fewer days a week. I'm all for doing what we can to meet our kids needs but at the same time we need to meet some of our own needs too. We can't be very good parents when our own buckets are constantly empty.

I agree with Bombaloo. I do not see staying at home as a good idea. You have to take care of yourself, too. And Jordan is big now. She needs her own space and needs to learn to handle things on her own. You cannot be trying to live her life for her. I am an expert on that subject. I am over protective and am always trying to do "what's best for her", trying to do things for her to make things easier. But I've had to learn that I have to let her do her stuff and let her be, because she has a live to life, and I cannot live it for her. If she does not fall she will never learn how to get up. The best you can do is be there for her when she falls, listen to her, comfort her, and let her stand up for herself again. For us as parents that's really hard, because we do not want to see our kids suffer, but it's better to see them suffer now, because things will only get tougher when they are adults. You are not saving them pain, just delaying it. If you really want to help her, get her a good therapist that will give her the tools she needs to handle things. That's the best you can do.

One thing we discovered in therapy with my son: he was actually pretty good at reading other people's emotions, at least the obvious ones...but could not read his own almost at all. This was causing all kinds of difficulties, one of which was that he got frustrated when other people had feelings because he didn't identify with them.

OTOH, I'm an adult now - never diagnosed - but being around other people who are having extreme emotions of any kind is very difficult for me. I think I adapted by carefully (and now unconsciously) copying what people around me do...so when someone is angry or sad or frustrated, it's hard for me not to "catch" it.

I'm with Bombaloo - I think a middle-of-the-road answer might be a good idea; it's one we're considering for middle school with my son. He needs to be exposed to social situations, but he also needs a break from them. DenvrDave, who used to be a more frequent poster, came up with the half-day school idea.

I think you have to come to terms that she does not get the same joy out of socializing with others that most people would. She likely see's the other children as an intrusion on her world, which apparently she likes to have complete control over.

I should say, this isn't the perspectives of all children on the spectrum. Some children on the spectrum desperately want to be accepted by the other children and play with them, but just don't know how.

Either way, it would be conductive to her well being when she is older if she at least knows some basics about interacting with groups of people. She should know at least two things, which you should tell her explicitly.

1. People are not robots and have things that they want to do, and ideas on how things should be done, just like she does. And sometimes, the ways they think to do things are going to be better than the ways she thinks to do thing, so she should stop and consider that their way might be better sometime. Ask how she would feel if someone never considered her ideas and tried to tell her what to do all the time, even if her idea was a better idea than theirs.

2. She has to understand that people can't read her mind, like she can't read theirs. Tell her, if she does want something to know to do something, she has to tell them with words. Ask how she would feel if someone got mad at her because she didn't do something that they never told her to do, and just expected her to know. Ask if she thinks that would be fair for them to get mad at her for doing something she didn't know to do.

I think a controlled activity would be a good idea. It'd be an even better idea with a very small group of people, maybe she and two others, or even one other, so you can better isolate her social difficulties and help correct them.

I never wanted to socialize as a kid or a teen either. I just wanted to ramble on and on about my special intrests to whom ever would listen.

I, too, think a middle of the road approach would be best. I totally agree with Ilka that moving the kids in the direction of handling things on their own is extremely important. I just can't see her learning it with this group. She doesn't know how to get there from here and you aren't there to teach her. There are materials you can buy online that help with social training. I would keep her home at least part time and work through some materials with her, while keeping some kind of part time job if you can. At home, invite kids in for one on one playdates. The next step would be moving toward finding friends in the neighborhood, if you live in one.