Helping your aspie kid with social situations

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I posted a similar question on the general board, but didn't get a lot of answers. I would like to hear from fellow parents on this: how do you help your aspie children so that they do not "blow up" in a party?

A few weeks ago, we and my 12-year-old aspie son went his best friend's sister's baptism party. At the party, all the kids were playing together and we were very pround of him being able to join a game of dodge ball. However, as soon as I relaxed my mind a little, a 6-year-old girl tossed a ball at my son, hitting his feet, he went on to throw the ball back at the girl's body as hard as he could, causing her to cry. He escalated the situation by kicking another 9-year-old girl in the shin (viciously as I saw it, bruising her leg) when she scolded him, in front of a room of astonished parents who hardly know him and have no idea about his asperger's ways.

He was angry at the little girls even after the accident. He did not consider anything he did was wrong, crying "she deserves it" as he walked away. He regrets it now because it may jeopardize his relationship with his best friend (one of few friends he has left).

I know my son harbors a lot of aggressions inside him from years of having been bullied in school, which we are working with the school on. He appears peaceful and aloof most of the times, but as soon as he starts actively playing with others, he has a tendency to erupt at some of the most inopportune times. I am saddened for him because it has been so hard for him to make friends, yet throughtout the years, he's lost many friends he made because of his eruptions.

Are there some exercises I could do with my son so that he can play better with other kids?

Thanks!

I answered this in the other forum, but I don't think parties are so important for aspie kids. They don't get any pleasure out of it. Why is it important for them to perform to standards which cause them pain? NT kids enjoy parties because they have fun. Aspie kids have enormous anxiety and pain. The party behavior is really a very simple issue. Would he have endangered his friendship by NOT attending the party?

I think your son needs cognitive behavioral therapy and you need family counseling to better understand his real needs and how to relate to him that doesn't cause him to blow up. The disconnect in perceptions between you and your aspie son is not a simple issue where exercises will help. You also have to meet him halfway. I have 2 aspie children who have grown up into teenagers who impress people with their good manners. That is because we let them decide when they were ready for socializing and didn't push. They are also happy. Isn't that really the most important thing?

We can only help you generally. Your aspie has his own issues and since they are being addressed this late in the game, you need someone to help you figure out your aspie, someone who has experience with AS and is objective. It is going to require a restructuring of the family's thinking and your aspie will be the one with the most work to do. But everyone will have to work at this.

I would suggest the book "Aspergers in the Family" by Liane Holiday Willey.

Last edited by SeriousGirl on 24 Apr 2007, 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks SeriousGirl. I understand parties are stressful to aspie kids, but isn't a party just a microcosm of society in general? My son has to deal with other people in schools and at work later in life. Having a breakdown while playing with his close friends are disconcerning to me.

Last edited by eDad on 24 Apr 2007, 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That is where you are very much mistaken, along with most other NT parents! An aspie has to create a niche where they can function. I learned these things the hard way with many failures. After I discarded these notions, I am now a happy aspie who makes a 6 figure income without having to live in a cube surrounded by anxiety-producting people. There are many well-paid jobs that are solitary or that can be done from home.

Yes, he has had a breakdown while playing with children. That's why he needs the cognitive therapy to learn how to think differently. This is the only type of therapy that is effective with children with AS. Since he is an adolescent, the issues are going to be hard to sort out. That is why I'm advocating a professional perspective in helping him restructure his thinking.

I have a close relationship with my immediate family and no close friends IRL. I'm happy! My life is not stressful and I'm successful now. My 140+ IQ got me nowhere in the conventional world. Just turn the situation around. You seem like an unconventional thinker. I urge you to read Liane Willey's books and get the story from another succesful aspie. She has made many adaptations in her life. She doesn't feel defective. The self-esteem issue is really the biggie. All those social failures are grinding down his self-esteem. Tread carefully, please. Learning social skills is a life-long experience for us.

I agree to a certain extent, but that day is not today, he does not have to function "today" in order to function "oneday". The fall out of these sorts of situations just makes the situation worse, not better. It attacks his self esteem, it makes him nervous about interacting with his environment, I bet on a hundred different levels, he is being torn up about it inside becuase he just can't cope. Today, is not tommorow.

My son, when he was 8, repeating grade 2 for the second time, was labled a "behavior case". He was in serious trouble acedemically, but was written off by the school. The one thing I was told though, was that until he learned to "behave" they would withhold all acedemic help. I did not know at the time he was an aspie, but I knew he could not perscribe to their system. So, I took him home. We homeschooled for four years. We where able to limit social interactions so that they where 90% positive ones. If he was getting geared up for a meltdown, we took him out of the situation. We watched and monitored and coached him one on one for four years. It was exhausting, unrewarding work for the most part. At the end of the day though, this is what happend: He went back to school, to the very school that refused to help him, and he is much better! They think he is a great kid! Yes, he still has his aspergerish ways, and he is not problem free, but 4 years of one on one did great things for him! Many people told me that removing him from society would make things worse, but this is not true at all! It made things much better.

We still fight with the school, he still has no friends, we still have problems with bullying, that are all being worked on right now. But at the end of the day, I believe he is much closer to "functioning" then if we left him in for the last 4 years.

Not all parents can do this, I respect that. I don't think all parents CAN mentally do this, but the principle is the same. Negative problems today, and forcing socialization, is not going to be the way to insure a successful future.

I agree with Serious Girl though. Your son can only adapt "so much" before he breaks. He is not going to be able to perscribe even 80% to societies model. Trying to force a square peg into a round hole, usually breaks the peg! You don't want to break him, so you need to find some square holes he "fits" into. He will find his way in life, it will not be the common route, or the normal way.

Another thing is, you cannot expect him to understand feelings and "relate" to others. It is just not going to happen. What he needs are firm ground rules. Aspies do better with rules. Teach him, "if you harm a child that is younger then you or weaker then you, you are going to be in trouble, I don't care how much they "deserve it". Also teach him to recognize that feeling of deep rooted anxiety or anger, and that when he feels that way, he is to "step out and cool down" not "react". Are anger management classes available to him? They may help too.

I think I understand exactly what happened with your son. He did not understand that Dodgeball is a game. He probably thought he truly was being attacked by the other children and so when he got hold of the ball he pummeled them. That's the exact reason dodgeball was banned at most schools years ago. In my elementary school days I remember kids being carried off to the hospital to get their foreheads sewn up from dodgeball games in PE class. So my question would be why parents were so irresponsible to allow or suggest a game of dodgeball be played? The game is brutal and for an autistic child it is a terrible game to play as they can easily misunderstand and think its not a game but true physical assault. Remember Aspergers is all about not interpreting social cues. Dodgeball played correctly without injuring demands understanding cues.

If he was the one constantly being hit by the ball the other kids may have been picking on him. So when he got a chance to retaliate he did! Aspies would tend to be the kid every one hits with the ball because they are so uncoordinated and easy to hit.

That's why I also urge parents of autistic boys not to let them get obsessed with video games. When you have an autistic child you already have someone who has trouble distinguishing play from reality so you don't want to add hostility to their environment when they have trouble understanding the world around them.

I think he understood it was a game. Watching others play, he may even have wanted to play it himself. I also know from my beaver / cub days, that most kids supervised, don't actually aim to "hurt" others on the other side, that is a different game, "murder ball", often played by our scouts!

The problem comes in, with a disconnect with Theory of Mind, and SI issues.

Theory of Mind:
To understand what other people are thinking. When the ball hit him, he did not understand that the "hit" was not a personal attack or that the other child did not intend to be mean. All he could understand, was why HE would throw a ball like that at someone else.

Also, I heard a great story about a LFA / boarderline HFA child once. This child joined a beaver group, (not mine) and went to a water park with the coloney, with his mother. He saw all the other boys going down a waterslide, and it looked like fun. What he did not understand, was that what happend to them, their heads going under the water, would happen to him too. So, he pulls mom over, and she happy brings him on the slide happy he wants to do something. (The child was barely verbal). They go down, and when his head goes under, he comes up screaming "NO FAIR". He screams this for hours, and even the next day, still says it over and over. (Interestingly, the child later grew into an adult who graduated a custom tailored program at college for building "waterslides" and actually has a job doing such! YAY!)

I think your son, did not understand that if he played the game, he would get hit, or maybe the problem was, he could not deal with being "out" he felt he would win the game, unwilling to consider the fact that he stood just the same chance of getting "tagged" as any other children.

The other problem is SI issues. Does your child have a hard time in stimulating environments to function? React inappropreately to loud noises or smells or touches? Did you struggle with getting him to eat certain things as a kid because of taste and or texture? It is a very common problem, being at a party, puts them into sensory overload. It would be like you walking in 5 minutes from to, to a techno style rave, sound around 50000 decibles, lights flashing, people all over the place. Trust me, it would not take much to "set you off" either. Eventually, you would snap at something relatively "small" if not just plain mentally collapse after looking for the door unsuccessfully for 20 minutes!

He may have been able to "handle" the party, but putting him onto a field of children, running around, balls wizzing past, shouting, game rules he is struggling to understand, social interactions he is not used to, the ball hitting him was just the feather that broke the camels back.

It is important to recognize, no matter how upsetting this is, that this is a neurological condition. With age, coaching and practice, he will get better. However, it is not a behavior problem, he can't be "cured" of his ASD, and will progress on his own timeframe.

It is like someone in need of physical therapy. They have actual limitations that impede their ability to physically function. Therapy will make it better, but it is on their schedual, often directly related to the degree of impairment, and many, will never be completely "cured".

Well, why does it have to be that way except that is the conventional point of view? I haven't been to a party in 20 years and haven't missed anything. My socializing involves my interests. I can be shoulder to shoulder with people on a crowded dive boat and be perfectly comfortable because we are talking about scuba diving, which is my interest. I get a kick out of it. I don't like small talk with dull people so why should I force myself to do it when I don't have to? It doesn't make me happy. I get zero benefit from it. You couldn't drag me kicking and screaming into a karaoke bar. I would certainly have a meltdown, and possibly a violent one.

Yes, it is important that I do not have public meltdowns, but as an adult, no one is making me play with anyone. I have the natural ability to just be oblivious to people so when I go to the grocery store or whatever, I do my task and leave. I choose with whom I play and under what circumstances I play.

So what's wrong with making a goal to be self-employed? Why not be a genealogist and make $35 an hour researching dead people in relative quiet? How about a webmaster? Programmer? There are so many niches for aspies.

The real issue is that NTs feel it is abnormal. There is no logic or reasoning behind this feeling that aspies have to "get along" in conventional society to a degree that everyone else does. Aspies need basic functioning skills, good manners, hard and fast rules, an understanding of public behavior vs. private behavior, but they don't really need to learn how to be an NT except on the most superficial level.

Some of the things I enjoy would probably scare the crap of out most NTs. I like to dive in caves with 100 pounds of cylinders strapped to my back carrying multiple lights while following a line. It takes an immense about of hyperfocus not to do something stupid and kill yourself. But my strength is hyperfocus and my friends are divers.

Your karaoke bars and cruise ships scare the crap out of me. I think it is very simple, really

My aspie son doesn't have this problem with video games. In fact, he writes video game levels and his entire social world is built around programming video games and other video game programmers. He also writes science fiction and has another set of friends in that interest. He is most non-violent male I know and doesn't have a mean bone in his body. I suspect he'll make a good living from his interest some day.

parties ? LOL
son and hubby HATE parties~always have, always will....they are loud, and confusing places with lots of non-routine activities.............
yes, your son needs to learn to get along in society...my greater concern, though, is your alluding to the years of bullying that he went through. i urge you to get him into counseling if he's not in it already. my son, too, was bullied for years. this left him with a twisted version of what friendship was & what other people's intentions are. i am happy to say that after a couple of years of on-going therapy, son is doing much better....minimal angry outbursts, and a better understanding of others. he even said to me the other day, after having heard that some neighborhood boys were gossiping about him, " they can gossip mom. i can't stop them. all i can say is that it's not true."
the world can be a scary place for an aspie. counseling can help them understand the world in more concrete terms.

And parties are BORING. They've taken the place of rituals which were better for aspies because in rituals, you at least have roles. Parties have no structure. People are drinking and yakking nonstop about nothing.

I also think therapy in this case, as I stated, is the most logical course of action because I see damage that needs to be undone. I think a 12 year old aspie boys knows that it is wrong to hit a 6 year old girl. Many aspies would walk away instead of reacting that way. I have debated mentioning my son's single instance of hitting his sister, who is 2 years younger, because all aspies are different and it may not be the best way to deal with it for your aspie.

My husband told my then 8 year old aspie that hitting girls was unacceptable under any circumstances. He pointed out that boys who hit girls were dishonorable and cowardly. And he made my son look up "dishonorable" and "cowardly" in the dictionary and discuss their meanings. My literal minded aspie never hit his sister again.

I think the point to what the Aspies are starting to digress from. . . is that autistics have problems with "open ended" activities. A party is an example of an open-ended activity. Recess, free time and some forms of waiting are also examples. You need to tell the autistic what the activity is, what you do during it and possibly provide structured activities/games to fill in the time. I write little schedules on index cards for my 7 year old when we go to a new event. He is directed at recess and is starting to initiate socializing on his own.
You describe what is expected at a party, potential activities before you go. Assess if this is an important event. Perhaps staying a shorter amount of time that you decide on earlier and stay with your child the entire time, if there are no scheduled games.

yes, we told my son the rule too, *after* the accident. It is amazing that with so many rules in the society, how many rules that an Aspie kid just does not know! With NT kids, they can learn social rules from watching others getting into trouble in addition to being told directly. I don't think that applies to Aspie kids.

Talking about learning rules, a joke pops to mind (pardon me if you don't find it funny):

A 6-year-old and his 4-year-old brother are upstairs in their bedroom.

"You know what?" says the 6-year-old. "I think it's about time we started cussing."

The 4-year-old nods his head in approval. The 6-year-old continues, "When we go downstairs for breakfast, I'm gonna say something with 'hell' and you say something with 'ass'." The 4-year-old agrees with enthusiasm.

When their mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 6-year-old what he wants for breakfast, he replies, "Aw, hell, Mom, I guess I'll have some Cheerios."

WHACK! He flies out of his chair, tumbles across the kitchen floor, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out, with his mother in hot pursuit, slapping his rear with every step. His mom locks him in his room and shouts, "You can just stay there until I let you out!"

She then comes back downstairs, looks ominously at the 4-year-old and asks with a stern voice, "And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?"

"I don't know," he blubbers, "but you can bet your fat ass it won't be Cheerios!"

Parties and small talk are boring to this adult aspie. The open ended thing doesn't really bother me at this stage. Even though I can tolerate parties, open ended situations of any kind, I just don't like parties, never have, and never will. I think NT parents really have a problem with the fact that some of us just don't like to socialize outside of interesting situations and get nothing out of it.

You're going to have establish explicit rules of behavior. Parents used to teach their kids proper manners and it was strictly enforced by everyone in society, at least where I grew up in the conservative South. Aspies had a much easier time with social events when they had rules to follow. Everyone knew what would get them into trouble because the rules were explicitly taught to all children. Why have we stopped doing this?

I would also advise not using physical punishment as it will not be well received nor it will have the effect you intended.

Well, SeriousGirl, my husband and I love parties when there is a clear point to them. I love being around people, loud music and good food. What I don't like is the milling around, the forced standard questions that people think are mandatory at parties and with NTs, the fear of controversy or offensiveness. My son can have great fun and behave well in an atmosphere where he knows what to expect.
One thing that bothers me about your, " Parents used to teach their kids proper manners and it was strictly enforced by everyone in society, at least where I grew up in the conservative South." is your assumption that those of us with kids that have impulse control problems aren't teaching manners. I can teach until I'm blue in the face, punish, reward, everything but it just takes longer for my son to understand why he needs to behave.

I agree there has been a breakdown in teaching social skills in the past 30 years, I saw the change in curriculum firsthand. But I don't think parents can be blamed for everything. I'm certainly not going to subject my son to what my parents did to me to enforce rules.

Social Skills Activities for Special Children is a great book (meant for classrooms but I use at home) to teach social rules in a straightforward manner. It has cartoons and lessons and worksheets for the student/child to answer. I use it so my son can hear about everyday occurences without being blaming or specific.