Making Friends

Nothing is as contagious as my son's sense of humor. Nothing quite as exasperating as his stubbornness or his high pierced scream when he's arguing with me. The way his eyes twinkle and sparkle with glee over something fun or when he's thinking of misbehaving. All these unique parts make up my wonderful little boy. When he can't make friends, when friends snub him, when kids don't want to play because of his social challenges-- it breaks my heart, it really does.

 

JD loves to play with kids & he loves play dates. But he struggles with the greetings A LOT! He needs to be reminded each and every time to say hello, state his name, and ask if they want to play. His excitement gets the better of him, his speech goes a mile a minute, his slaps his hands over his wrists (his version of flapping), he stomps his feet sometimes too. JD tells me it doesn't feel good-- meaning it doesn't feel normal for him to do the "normal" greet. He's very vague when I ask him but he seems to be trying to express that discomfort. He says "say hi is not good, playing is better. I say hi and then play. Say hi and name is bad, not good." Expressing his emotions is difficult, although that itself is not atypical for a toddler. Toddlers aren't very good at explaining their emotions.

 

This past Thursday we were at the playground for Apple's PT (our therapist met us there) and an older girl who didn't want to play or be chased by JD called him weird--you should have seen how fast my head whipped around! I was ready to eviscerate her. What type of parent does this little girl have that she thinks calling kids weird or anything mean is appropriate? Then I took a deep breath and I reminded myself she's a little girl and I shouldn't be mean to her. I've met grown people, some supposedly friends, who don't understand that we can't be mean or use people when its convenient. 

It was fine to play with him for 5 minutes but now not so much since my kid beat her at tag?

 

I said he's not weird, he's a little boy who wants to play, he has autism and he has a hard time greeting and calming down. He's smaller than you, you should be nice to him. Calling kids weird is not nice. One of her other playmates spoke up and said his brother had autism and he'd play with him. The other girls grabbed his hand and off they went. I watched my little boy being lead back into the group to play. From then on the whole group played with my son for about an hour.

Whenever he got too excited one of the girls counted down with him to calm him down. They'd by now seen that I give him hand massages or deep pressure hugs. They asked me why, and I explained since he's little, that he needs help to know when he needs to calm down. The kids were great with him! The sounds of JD running and screaming his little head off was the background noise through the rest of our physical therapy session.

 

It was pure magic. I almost didn't want to bring them home. I never wanted it to end, judging by my sweaty smiling boy-- neither did he. As we rolled back home-- all 3 kids in their wagon, me pulling it along, I asked if he had fun. "Yes I had friends."