the aspie and socializing...

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and this is what we are doing as well. Just letting her be in the evenings and most of saturday so she can just recover. But isnt that trading 'good' social time for 'crappy' social time? You know what I mean.. We used to talk more, do more together, etc but now she is stressed out and just wants to left alone most of the time and some nights everything is just a struggle bc her mood is so horrible.

She is in a very small group of 5 including herself and has still managed to be ostracized.. <sigh> and at this point she has no friends. She only really talks to me and plays with no one. She used to have friends and be fairly popular with the other kids in the groups she was in. She would even tolerate the irritating ones to 'not hurt thier feelings'. I had to encourage her that it was ok to tell another girl that she would not be friends with her if she lied. (the other girl had a major problem with lying that really upset Jordan as she is very truthful and often felt misled, etc by the lying) So things have gone very off track somewhere and I am really just trying to understand where that is.

I agree with you to an extent but honestly, as an adult, I have learned to cut things out of my life that cause me too much stress. Being late causes me to be in a panic so I am always early. Jobs that were horrible were quit for a new job. Boyfriends that were jerks were walked away from, etc. So yes you have to learn to manage difficult situations but you also have to learn when to move on from a difficult situation. As an adult I ultimately have a lot of control over my environment that the average child does not. And while my job/ life isnt always cupcakes and puppies I do have things to where they are within what I can manage and not be stressed out and miserable all the time. I think it comes down to whether the benefits outweigh the difficulties or not.

I talked to hubby last night and we are going to look at all the options. My job is not flexible on the hours. I'm full time state employee.. but I do have her with me at work frequently and may be able to do that more. Dad can also have her with him at work. We may be able to reduce her time there and see if that helps. On the other end, if I do quit I'm at a community center so I can volunteer and what not so I would still see everyone regularly.

Right now I;m trying to evaluate things.. she is on a 3 night sleepover with one child now that is going great.. she has summer camp next week.. and then 2 weeks at Jennifers without school work (they are on break) I'm going to see how she does in all the different situations and take a day or 2 off to go with Jenn on some of the field trips and all and see how that goes.

I completely agree. She is in a small group but I dont think there is any structure to it or real supervision. No one is stepping in to help Jordan navigate any of this. Things just explode and then its no one is allowed to play with her.

At this point the children do not ask Jordan to join in anything and are not encouraged to do so. It is up to her to initiate that she would like to play. This isnt going to happen. Schedules have been created so when she has free time the other children are doing school work and she is doing school while they have their free time. She stays very separate from everyone and this is the only way they have found to keep Jordan from being rude and ugly to the other children. Jennifer says she is mean rude and aggressive continually to the others. I have never seen / heard this about her in any other situation.

New children coming there at this point are also being told ahead of time to not try to interact with her. Not to talk to her or try to play with her etc. Everything requires her to make the first move. I think this is a disaster for an aspie as I dont believe she will make that move. I'm just not sure what to do about the situation other than I do not think this is helpful or appropriate in any way.

But at the same I do know that if she is stressed she is very rude if you speak to her at all. This is what is happening. She is stressed. A child asks her to play and she is rude to them. Jen says Jordan seems happier with the children ignoring her. But this is not going to teach her anything in the long run.

On the up side Jen is open to making changes, etc but I dont really know what changes to make either and if its just a matter of her kids and mine dont mix well it may not be able to be worked out. I just dont know but this is not a good situation for her or any child IMO.

This is a lot of how I'm feeling. Like maybe it would be better if she were just home with me and we could do social outings together, arrange playdates, etc in a less stressful setting, and I could help her figure some of this out.

I understand that you want the best for your daughter; but I think if you are going to achieve this you need to BACK OFF. As a child, I had very little interest in socializing with other people. As an adult, I have only slightly more. But one thing I can tell you is that people were constantly trying to force me into social interaction and I hated it and it stressed me out and I learned nothing. Yes, it would be a benefit to her if she learned better social interaction. But she needs to come to that realization on her own and eventually, she will. How she decides to act on it at that point is really up to her, but she may decide that she is ready to come to you or someone else she is close to and ask for help and advice. Forcing it on her is not going to work. She is only ten. She has a lot of time to learn. Let her do it on her own time. If dealing with other people becomes a source of dread for her, she may never want to deal with it and be socially phobic.

Just so you know, I'm still pretty solitary. But that's totally ok with me and most casual aquaintances have no idea I have social issues. The only time I wish I had better social skills is as involved with my job. But I still couldn't have worked on my skills until I was really ready and had the desire, maybe with a certain focus in mind.

I admit, this right here worries me. It sounds like there are very real issues with the situation that she is in and, from the above, it strikes me as though it may not be her fault she's having issues. I might just have the wrong context on this, but it sounds as though she is being deliberately isolated - and if she knows this than she might just be saying "Fine, I'm not supposed to interact with people, so I will not interact with people."

Rhiannon - this is what I think most parents worry about - that the skills aren't there when you want them. It takes a long, long time for someone to learn skills by rote - while I understand your point, I still think classes are valuable.

I second the concern about the child being isolated; such treatment not only negatively impacts your daughter, but all the other children as well: I have never forgotten about a little boy in preschool who had some kind of language/developmental disability. We were all able to converse, and this child would growl, grab, and knock things we were playing with out of our hands or off the table.

Sadly, nobody had any training in dealing with an inclusion situation, nor any training in dealing with a special needs child. People handled this boy by yelling at him - and the kids modeled this behavior. Even though I was probably between three or four years old, I still remember the following with shame: I was waiting in the lobby to be picked up, and this boy ran over to me and growled. I yelled at him. His mother reacted with extreme surprise, and said "Why would you treat (boy) that way." In a completely aspie sort of way, I answered what I thought was the truth (sadly, I was probably right) "Because nobody likes (boy) and that's the way everybody treats him."

This resulted in the entire preschool getting a lecture, but it didn't change the adult's behavior at all, and nobody took responsibility for teaching kids to respond inappropriately to a disabled child, even if it meant they were teaching kids to bully. The important piece of information I'm trying to impart: not only is this relationship damaging to your daughter, it's probably damaging to the other kids.

Contrasting that with our school, which isn't quite there yet, but which is working on it - kids who are really struggling have a trained aide who will step in when there is a conflict. There is a lot of discussion about differences, how to handle them, and specific steps on conflict resolution.

I noticed that you say your daughter has undiagnosed AS - not sure where you live, but you might want to consider getting a diagnosis so you can qualify for the services...which may even follow you to afterschool care, depending on what you qualify for. I know it's difficult to add extra labels on to an already-labeled child, but the truth is that AS typically gets better attention than SPD, plus it would qualify you specifically for social supports like pragmatic speech therapy, etc.

I'm not sure how much of this thread you have read. No one is trying to force her to constantly interact. Her current situation involves lots of alone time with limited social time. My concern is that the social situation she is in is creating problems rather than helping her. The question is how to improve the situation there or is it just not fixable and other arrangements need to be made. My daughter is rather solitary as am I. That is not an issue. She goes to the homeschool.. does her work, plays by herself , often talks to no one and comes home stressed and in a bad mood.

yeah.. I was really not happy with that one.. I just dont know how to handle this situation. I'm going to hang out there some next week and tag along on a few field trips and see if I can get an idea of what the problem is and how things should be handled there. I think she needs someone right there giving her clear correction / direction with the other kids but I dont think that is happening and from what I am hearing she does not take direction very well from her caregiver so that may not even be doable. I just dont know..

I agree that isolating her tell the visiting kids to ignore her is not good. Jordan told me yesterday that when they have company everyone completely ignores her. I dont think she knows they are being told this. she just knows she is being ignored. So even worse.

Dad is not in favor of an assessment. To stop the fighting I've agreed to hold off on that and we will do what we can ourselves. That will only go so far but has made improvements. I'm planning to see if the OT will write me a letter reccomending that she be evaluated further for aspergers / autism so that she can receive X support. The OT also feels that Jordans issues are more autistic / aspergers than sensory related although sensory is definitely an issue. That way though the suggestions is coming from someone other than me.