advice please

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I hope you don't mind me using this site to ask for some help. I am a teacher in a primary school resource base for children with an ASC. One of the children I teach, a boy of 10, has a very strong (obsessional?) one sided relationship with a female peer. He will not consider interacting with any other children and does not accept that the other child wants to play with different children. When she does this, he perceives this as a rejection and gets very distressed. In an attempt to always have her attention he will physically follow her, place himself between her and other children, put his jumper on her chair and monitor how many times she plays with other children and then take her to task about it. I have done a lot of work about friendship; how people generally have more than one friend, how friendship is about how 2 people feel etc but he struggles to understand and/or accept this. We also have a buddy system in place but he refuses to engage with other children. I wondered if anyone else had experienced this situation and could offer me some advice on how to help this little boy. He has a diagnosis of High Functioning Autism but struggles to moderate his emotional responses.
Many thanks
CallySmith

You would probably get more answers to this in the parents section. I'll ask that it be moved there.

As for your situation, I'm not sure what would work. I have AS, but my kids are all NT's. At the age of your student, I didn't have any friends in school, so I wasn't in that situation.

I do wish you luck, and I'm sure that you will get many helpful suggestions on the parents forum.

Thread moved from General Autism Discussion Parents' Discussion.

That's very tough. I'm 26-years-old, and still react this way to friends choosing to spend time with people other than myself on occasion. Now, as an adult, I am fully aware that this is not a 'normal' reaction, so I certainly don't address this with my friends. It's a very difficult thing that I just have to internalize. It's not so easy for kids to internalize, though.

The fact that my friends would probably be put off by my behavior if I acted out my jealousy is the primary reason that I do not. I'm not sure how to do explain this to a child...but perhaps explaining that his friend enjoys hanging out with him very much, but that it hurts her feelings when he doesn't allow her to play with her other friends, too.

As much as I realize that my friends hanging out with other people does not equal a rejection, I can not help but feel that way each and every time. I don't think you'll be able to convince him that it's not a rejection, but you may be able to convince him to not behave poorly as a result.

I found with my son that there were some concepts he just couldn't "get." At which point you rephrase and tell the child that X is a rule that you expect him to follow. You explain very precisely and literally what behavior you expect, and note that while you continue to hope that someday they will understand the logic, for now it is simply what you expect them to do, agree or not.

It works for social situations just as well as for any other, as long as you can provide thorough enough instructions.

I agree with DW; he sounds hard core on this one. I would demand he follow a rule, but at the same time keep trying to reason with him. I do social stories with my kids' stuffed animals. That might help over time.

What if she asked him to play with other children she was playing with so that they could all play together? Would he do it then?

Thank you all for your advice. I have done exactly what has been suggested and even though he doesn't understand why, or want to, have made it a rule that on certain days he cannot play with this particular child - he will not share her and play in a group. It was really reassuring for me to have my instinctive reactions confirmed. I do get very worried that decisions that I make could very easily be the wrong ones and I could end up making things worse when all I want to do is to help this little lad. So thank you once again for your help.
Callysmith

I agree that this is good advice. I would also talk to the parents about the situation or send home a note about it, suggesting that they could you during your planning period if they wish to discuss the matter further. (Hopefully, you have a good relationship with the parents, and the parents are involved.)

There are things that parents can do outside of the classroom--video modeling, social stories, ABA therapy, social skills groups (in some cities), etc. I personally always want to know what is going on at school, because if there is a problem, there is usually something that can be done about it from my end.

Anyway, feel free to check out the "autism links" and "social skills" sections on my free website, www.freevideosforautistickids.com, for additional information.

We've had some issues with this kind of behavior with my son - in 1st grade or so, there was some kissing stuff going on, not initiated by him, but of course he didn't understand the rules, and wound up making a couple of girls uncomfortable. Fortunately, the girls' mother was understanding, and we agreed that they could play together but would be supervised closely every second.

DS finally asked what was going on, and I told him bluntly (I'd mentioned it before, but he didn't believe me) that he was making the girl uncomfortable because he was sneaking kisses, and the consequence of that was that they had to be closely supervised. He was extremely embarrassed, but we've never had a problem since.

DS is reasonably aware of when something is going on, he just can't always interpret it correctly - so evidence is enough for him. Other kids on the spectrum may need a more direct approach. A poster here suggested the book A 5 is Against the Law; I bought it and found that it wasn't really helpful for us at this time - but I can see where it might help a more black-and-white thinker (DS is kind of a dark-charcoal-grey and eggshell thinker, if you catch my drift.)

I once was speaking to my Psych about how badly I felt because I could not seem to keep up with friendships ( I only had three but I also had a husband and five kids, many with problems). One of my friends got angry that I always wanted to bring my husband along if we went somewhere but I didnt get to spend a lot of time with him. My Psych explained to me that because of my autism I could only handle so many relationships at one time because relationships are so difficult for us.
When my son was in Kindergarten he had one friend and would beat up anyone else who tried to play with him. This friend accepted him and was nice to him so he wanted to "protect" that. I understood and was very angry when the Father told the teacher that he didnt want my son playing with his son anymore. My husband had to keep my from going off on the guy....fortunately Im not real confrontational but I did call him a "bad word" in passing once during as school function and my husband went and talked to him and explained why I was upset. Then my husband was upset because this guy said he was worried that my son was mentally unstable and that his son had diabetes and was fragile. Needless to say my husband, being the calm gentleman that he is, got angry but was civil about it.

Anyway, sometimes its hard to be an Aspie....or an Autie. I am now very happy living here in France alone in my house with just my husband and my two babies. I talk to my daughters on skype at least two to three times a week and my son passed away in August so I talk to him whenever I feel like it. People, like my husbands Mom is always worried about me being lonely.....Im not lonely! However, I think some of us need that one person who understands us and who we feel comfortable with. Maybe this is the person this boy feels happy and comfortable with and he doesnt want that taken away from him. Its hard but just like NT's have to learn hard lessons in life so do we and we have to learn that some people just dont ONLY want to be with you.