Training for NT kids?

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Joined: 21 Oct 2010
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10 Jul 2013, 8:15 pm

Is it fair that our kids have to spend hours and hours in therapy even if they're mildly challenged, whereas there is no formal training for NT kids about how to get along with people who are outside their clique? All too often the parents of NT kids are neglecting this, so why not have schools teach this formally to their NT students?

My adult life is so much better than my childhood that I don't believe school helped me socially at all. In fact, my spirit was all but crushed - luckily college was fantastic beyond my wildest dreams and things just kept getting better from there. So why is it I get met with blank stares when I present people with the basic unfairness of the situation - that kids who are even mildly challenged socially have to devote hours to learning how to get along with peers, whereas most of those peers (who are so full of hate it isn't even funny) aren't being taught even the most basic of manners? Why is it that the victim is blamed, and not the perps? Why is it so very important to doctors, therapists, etc. that the child fit in, when the peer group is so full of soul-killing poison?!? I simply don't understand the attitude that fitting in is everything!! ! Guess what - the majority of one's life is spent in the adult world with people who are not peers! The majority of adults are OK with my child, so why should I sweat it that my child doesn't have a coterie of friends born within the same year?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

By the way, my Mom has always said she'll stack her grandchild against any typical teen any day. She says her friends are oh so worried about my challenged kid and pity her and me, but meanwhile, their own grandkids won't give Mom the time of day even when introduced. It's not cool to have even so much as a brief, polite conversation with your grandma's friend. My kid might have a bit of a hard time sometimes, but Mom says it's obvious whose grandkids are better socialized and who has better manners...

Shellfish
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11 Jul 2013, 7:21 am

I would say that if you are a person like my son, who has aspergers but is someone who longs for friendships and interaction then he needs to learn how to socialise and interpret body language as best he can in order to nuture these friendships because he is the one with the most to lose - i.e. friends. Having said that, most of his friends are very accepting of his 'quirkiness' and certainly 'have his back' and keep an eye out for him and make sure that he is okay which I would say is meeting him halfway (the best a 6 year old can).

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Mum to 7 year old DS (AS) and 3 year old DD (NT)

MotherBear
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11 Jul 2013, 7:43 am

Shellfish wrote:

most of his friends are very accepting of his 'quirkiness' and certainly 'have his back' and keep an eye out for him and make sure that he is okay which I would say is meeting him halfway (the best a 6 year old can).

I'm glad your son has the goodwill of his peers. I hope that never changes.

momsparky
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11 Jul 2013, 8:43 am

MotherBear wrote:

I would agree that one of the easiest fixes for our "overtaxed" school systems would be to offer social skills, executive functioning skills and pragmatic speech to everyone as a core class, and grade it/offer support for the kids who need it just like everything else. There are plenty of kids who have deficits in these areas that have nothing to do with neurology or a diagnosis - and those deficits hold them back in school (my personal belief is that the "achievement gap" might really be caused by a deficit in these three skills caused not by neurology but by parents who, without meaning to, didn't provide this infrastructure.)

I think schools might actually save money, for instance in early interevention for the sorts of kids who don't get diagnosed until after age 9; in actually educating the "hard to educate" kids who tend to drop out in high school, they might also be at a lower risk for lawsuits from special needs parents, and there may well be less risk of bullying. I can also see where teachers might be better able to do their jobs more effectively, and that could be a benefit. I'd love to see education advocates pushing for it.

That said, one thing I found out this year is that typically PE class is where NT kids are taught broad social skills like conflict resolution, cooperation (teamwork) etc. Within your own school in particular, you might check with your State's standards and see whether or not your school is meeting those expectations.

cubedemon6073
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11 Jul 2013, 10:19 am

Quote:

Oh my gosh! You are the 1st person I have ever met who has questioned the belief, idea and tenet that "children should learn social skills from their peers." I have never understood this myself. How do peers learn proper social skills from each other. If my child is surrounded my other children who are considered teachers what will my child learn. He or she will learn crap.

Children don't have knowledge nor wisdom about things like life. They have to learn things like proper social skills and wisdom from whomever has knowledge and who has the knowledge and wisdom about life and social skills? Well, adults supposedly do? The truth is, you're correct. It isn't fair. IMHO, It is because the schools are going by a set of tenets and beliefs that make no sense. For instance, self-esteem and attitude are treated as the antecedent instead of the consequent. Instead of trying to change external circumstances that lead to low self-esteem like poor pragmatic skills or bullying they try to change the self-esteem itself or the attitude itself to change the external circumstances. To me, it's like saying the birth of the child causes its conception. The thinking makes no sense to me.

Sometimes I wonder if the administrators and top heads are smoking to much marijuana. I am sorry for your horrible experiences. You're dealing in a philosophy that is wick-whacky and not grounded in any kind of truth whatsoever and goes against reality itself.

cubedemon6073
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11 Jul 2013, 10:29 am

momsparky wrote:

MotherBear wrote:

momsparky, I have a wife who teacher. The teachers are overworked and underpaid and have to go through nonsense from administration. I can tell you that teachers fudge some of the grades because they have to meet standards set forth by administration. The administration has to follow standards set forth by even more top heads. The top heads are in their ivory towers and do not understand what goes on in the classrooms. In Atlanta public schools there was a scandal about cheating in the schools on the CRCT. The administrators went through the tests and changed answers. Some of the teachers were a part of this.

I can tell you this will not go well with a lot of teachers. They're going to see it as unfair that parents are passing the buck. In their mind,
they're thinking "I teach your kid, I keep him safe to the best of my ability, I follow all of these rules the administration sets down that makes no sense, and I have to have a certain percentage pass nationalized tests set down by the Department of Education. In addition, we're underpaid and disrespected as well. Now I have to raise your child as well. WTF! This is so unfair!"

The problem is systemic. Most people would blame the teachers and administration. To me, this is wrong. The whole national education system is screwed up. Honestly, looking outside of the education system itself at society as a whole. I believe society itself and the system itself is the problem. When my father was a child, if a child did something wrong somewhere like at school the whole community knew about it. This was more efficient than the internet. I believe we've lost our sense of community and I believe we have this level of individualism that has gone to far.

Basketball players are paid millions while teachers are paid crap. Our society values basketball more than education. Something is wrong.

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 11 Jul 2013, 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

mikassyna
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11 Jul 2013, 10:32 am

Funny you say this. My family was visited by my in-laws over the 4th of July extended holiday weekend. DC7 is my children's older cousin and supposedly "neurotypical". Quite a histrionic Drama Queen. Her behavior was rude, obnoxious, invasive and baffling. Other than that, she is a sweet kid LOL My DS5 was baffled by their interactions. He was being taught how to behave, not grab from others, not invade their personal space, and all these lessons were basically undermined by this tasmanian devil in disguise. I could see he really wanted to get angry at her behavior, but quite frankly he was too confounded by it to really know what to do. He just stood there with a half-mix of anger and bewilderment. I couldn't even explain to him what she did, because it made no sense to me either, but since her Ultra Liberal mother just lets her behave with Total Freedom, she exhibits no manners and no self-discipline. And then they see me being structured with my kids and think I'm a Total Control Freak because of my "rigid" standards. Sigh, you just can't win in this world, no matter what you do. You try to build a beautiful block tower but inevitably some entitled creep will just come and knock it over.

cubedemon6073
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11 Jul 2013, 10:41 am

mikassyna wrote:

Read "How I found freedom in an Unfree World" by Harry Browne. http://eiiiforum.com/picsfromusers/howifoundfreedom.pdf

Especially read the chapter entitled "Freedom from Social Restrictions" on page 137. In essence, there is no safe social code you can follow that will please everyone. You're always going to upset someone. I've come to the conclusion that it is best to please those who matter the most. Develop relationships that you feel comfortable in and you don't have to tip toe around.

twinplets
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11 Jul 2013, 10:54 am

I have had conversations with friends about social skills. When they hear about social interaction activities we may be working on with my son, they always say they think it is something all kids need these days, especially since their own kids losing social skills and empathy with constant texting and living via social media.

Anti-bullying campaigns are very big in our schools here. They even have started a weekly class on it in middle school that all the kids have to take. It isn't doing much good. I have a friend whose 8th grade daughter was being bullied. She is a girl you wouldn't think it would happen to. She is the goalie for the soccer team and is a star player. She is athletic, but very cute. She seems very confident. One of the kids you would think would tell people were to go if they messed with her. I guess a group of girls have been relentless all year and it came to a head at the end of the year and she almost killed herself. The funny thing is these mean girls are the ones heading the anti-bullying campaign and are the girls who work in the office as the aides, so they appear to have halos to all the adults.

I know they are trying to teach the kids. My boys' summer reading for Language Arts is Stargirl, which is about a girl that seems odd to everyone else at her high school. You can see that the discussion is going to be about differences when school starts.

I know adolescence is a rough time, but it does seem like it is a lot rougher than I was there. Maybe that is just an old person looking back though.

mikassyna
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11 Jul 2013, 10:56 am

cubedemon6073 wrote:

Especially read the chapter entitled "Freedom from Social Restrictions" on page 137. In essence, there is no safe social code you can follow that will please everyone. You're always going to upset someone. I've come to the conclusion that it is best to please those who matter the most. Develop relationships that you feel comfortable in and you don't have to tip toe around.

I really do understand "closed societies" and why they remain closed LOL It reduces so much of the confusion and complexity. I love confusion and complexity when it comes to academic ideas, but not so much when it plays out in my own home!

I also have seriously pondered what it would be like to be free from society and be totally self-sufficient, free from buying anything and surviving solely on one's own skills of self-care. Free from the need to have a mate or any financial security or projected ideas of "responsibility".

However, I have kids now and all of that indulgent thinking flies out the window when I actually do have a responsibility to raise offspring. Community does need to be involved. I also do not like community so much. But community helps me when I'm not feeling particularly fond toward my husband or stepdaughter LOL So I guess it's a symbiotic relationship.

Just how DO you get a five-year old to understand any of all this though? I guess it's back to the School of Hard Knocks.

momsparky
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11 Jul 2013, 11:19 am

twinplets wrote:

Anti-bullying campaigns are very big in our schools here. They even have started a weekly class on it in middle school that all the kids have to take. It isn't doing much good. I have a friend whose 8th grade daughter was being bullied. She is a girl you wouldn't think it would happen to. She is the goalie for the soccer team and is a star player. She is athletic, but very cute. She seems very confident. One of the kids you would think would tell people were to go if they messed with her. I guess a group of girls have been relentless all year and it came to a head at the end of the year and she almost killed herself. The funny thing is these mean girls are the ones heading the anti-bullying campaign and are the girls who work in the office as the aides, so they appear to have halos to all the adults.

This is a major problem with anti-bullying campaigns: they frame social intricacies in a black-and-white way and don't discuss social skills or teach children appropriate conflict resolution. I'm sad for your friend's daughter; I've seen similar things happen in our schools. Simply put, kids who are bullies just frame their victims as a "bully," and then their behavior is lauded instead of punished. "Bullyproofing" is another problem with anti-bullying campaigns: it puts the victims in a position of fault.

The problem is that bullying is usually a system of behavior that all kids engage in; there aren't clear-cut "bullies" and "victims." Even when DS was a victim (and might now be a victim) of bullying, his own behavior was a part of the problem - in his case, this was due to his difficulties with social communication that the school was supposed to be helping him with. In other words, while it didn't excuse the behavior of the children who were tormeting him, it also couldn't be said that he wasn't often mean himself.

MotherBear
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11 Jul 2013, 1:42 pm

momsparky wrote:

Any society that can pay professional athletes multimillion dollar salaries could easily support more and better teachers, programs, etc. The teachers I currently know are paid a measly little pittance, yet they are worth their weight in gold every single day. You'd see more young people choosing teaching if the pay was competitive. You'd see all sorts of special programs at all levels of functionality if there were more funding, more teachers, and smaller classrooms. More research would be funded for development of new theories and methods of teaching concepts, classroom management, etc. if teaching were as highly valued by this society as professional athletics.

momsparky wrote:

That said, one thing I found out this year is that typically PE class is where NT kids are taught broad social skills like conflict resolution, cooperation (teamwork) etc.

I find that hard to believe. PE class can often be a "different" kid's worst nightmare because that's when physical and verbal abuse are increased fivefold even if the coach isn't a bully himself.

momsparky wrote:

Within your own school in particular, you might check with your State's standards and see whether or not your school is meeting those expectations.

I gave this school district three decades to straighten out their act. They have not. I grew up here. Things are worse. It doesn't matter at the end of the day what's on the papers in the state capitol. What matters is what the children will do when their teacher's eyes aren't on them. That's where formal training comes in, and it's up to both parents and schools to teach it. If parents aren't doing the job, then the schools ought to.

MotherBear
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11 Jul 2013, 1:50 pm

cubedemon6073 wrote:

Oh my gosh! You are the 1st person I have ever met who has questioned the belief, idea and tenet that "children should learn social skills from their peers."

LOL, surely there are some home school parents on this forum? Home schoolers are very quick to point out that kids need to learn from older, hopefully wiser, mentors.

cubedemon6073 wrote:

Instead of trying to change external circumstances that lead to low self-esteem like poor pragmatic skills or bullying they try to change the self-esteem itself or the attitude itself to change the external circumstances.

Amen. It is pretty ****backward, isn't it? Make the physical buildings of the schools look less like prisons, help the society of the school to function less like the old caste system in India, encourage kids to follow their passions (let me put in a plug for art here, LOL), and hey presto, maybe even the kids from the most abusive homes might like going there to learn!

MotherBear
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11 Jul 2013, 2:20 pm

cubedemon6073 wrote:

I have a wife who teacher.

Please tell her I consider her to be worth her weight in gold, and I don't even know her, LOL!! !

cubedemon6073 wrote:

They're going to see it as unfair that parents are passing the buck. In their mind, they're thinking "I teach your kid, I keep him safe to the best of my ability, I follow all of these rules the administration sets down that makes no sense, and I have to have a certain percentage pass nationalized tests set down by the Department of Education. In addition, we're underpaid and disrespected as well. Now I have to raise your child as well. WTF! This is so unfair!"

You said it.

I sure do understand how a teacher would feel that way. I'm just curious, how about this perspective?

Schools require rules in order to function. Those rules must be enforced, otherwise the school will be dysfunctional. If formal training in "We don't do that and here's why we don't do that," is what it takes to get the school functioning as it ought, then so be it. Maybe the teachers could get a much-needed break in the lounge while the kids sit in sensitivity training sessions :wink:

Formal training for NTs isn't raising the kids, it's simply a way of making sure the rules and the reasons behind those rules are understood. If the parents don't like it that too much time is spent in such training and not enough time is spent on academics, too bad. That would be a consequence of the parents' poor choices.

MotherBear
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11 Jul 2013, 2:27 pm

mikassyna wrote:

My family was visited by my in-laws over the 4th of July extended holiday weekend. DC7 is my children's older cousin and supposedly "neurotypical". Quite a histrionic Drama Queen. Her behavior was rude, obnoxious, invasive and baffling.

I am reminded of one time when my child was two and we were over at my SIL's house. Her kids were making an earsplitting racket and my child was pacing like a caged panther. I remember my SIL was the first to slap a label on my child, and frankly, she used it pejoratively. It's one thing for a doctor to say it, it's another to hear it coming out with a tone of scorn and superiority. I remember wondering, "What are we doing here anyway," and it occurred to me that my child might, just might, be a better judge of character than I. That is often the case to this very day, over a decade later.

MotherBear
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11 Jul 2013, 2:29 pm

cubedemon6073 wrote:

there is no safe social code you can follow that will please everyone. You're always going to upset someone. I've come to the conclusion that it is best to please those who matter the most. Develop relationships that you feel comfortable in and you don't have to tip toe around.

AMEN! Thanks for encouraging all of us!

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Training for NT kids?