Self Esteem

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Hi

I my name is Caz and I'm the mother to Thomas, who's been diagnosed with ADHD and Aspergers. He's 6 years old and a wonderful boy, who I wouldnt change for anything.

The problem is we have struck some serious issues at school. His education is fine, he's intelletucally very bright. Socially, its a bit of a concern. Thomas finds its really really difficult to maintain friendships. Its not that he doesnt want to, hes desperate for friends. Its breaking my heart because the other children in his class and school find him controlling, difficult and sometimes very odd. For me these are strengths of his personality but kids dont understand this is how he is and basically dont want to play with him. He is rejected time and time again in social situations which is denting his self esteem bit by bit. Very worryingly he's said to me the following statements "no-one wants to be my friend", "I don't care what happens to me" when probed further he said "Theres nothing I like about myself".his is very upsetting as although I can control what goes on at home, I have no control over what goes on at school. he's left to fend for himself.

I would like to know if any other people on the ASD spectrum have come up against these social issues, how they dealt with them and any advice you can give me?

Its beaking my heart see him being affected by this and I'm not sure how to help him understand that there is NOTHING wrong with him, but sometimes he is 6 going on 4 emotionally so its very difficult to explain the completities of society, perceptions to being different, people, their feelings thoughts and other factors that contribute to all of this to a very young child.

You need to explain to him that others also want to decide some things related to the games they play, the rules, who goes first etc, because it feels nice, he likes it doesn't he when he gets to decide, well others like that too, and they will want to be around people who make them feel good, not people who want to feel good all the time and don't want them to feel good.
Pretty simple explanation like that. Then practice with him, and never tell him bossiness is a good personality trait

My story:

As a kid I mostly played by myself, but I did have some friends who'd play with me (always them initiating it). When I was 10 years old, they stopped. That was somewhat hurtful - I thought they didn't like me anymore. It did make for some more awkward / stressful / anxious moments, but most of the time I didn't really mind. However, I got a lot of pressure from teachers, parents & society in general that I should have friends. So, from I was 14 to 17 I kept trying & failing to make friends, which hurt. Then one day I had an epiphany - why should I have friends? Why should I follow their values? I realized I'd been doing most things just because I ought to, and to avoid upsetting people, which isn't a good foundation for a happy life. Since then I've been working on being myself more, and figuring out what I want. I still don't have any friends, but I'm fine with that. Maybe someday I'll meet someone who'd like me as I am, but if not, I'll manage.

So... I don't really have any advice for you. I don't think I'd have understood / accepted it if someone told me, I had to figure it out on my own.

Sadly, there may be some truth to this. The best defense is to learn a level of contentment living in your own space, so to speak. This is really a tough thing for a child to learn.



These are things that CAN be dealt with. Each situation is different, but you do have a huge impact on how he views himself and while it can't change how his peers view him, it can help him in how he views himself. You need to reinforce his positives as much as possible. I know that this works best for me when I am compelled to think about it. It doesn't work so well if someone tells me "you are smart","you did good", etc. I need to arrive at that conclusion through some chain of thought. If your son says "There is nothing I like about myself", don't tell him he is likable, but lead his thinking in a way that he himself contradicts that idea with his own thoughts. Don't allow him to indulge in absolutes. Absolutes are devastating to self image. When he says "there is nothing I like about myself", chip away at the absolute - sometimes with something as silly as "Do you like your teeth?". Getting him to back away from the absolute will allow you to bring more substantial things up "Do you like how smart you are?"



Social difficulties are be definition a spectrum thing.



It warms my heart that yours is breaking. This means there is someone in your son's life that deeply cares for him. Bullying makes people angry but they at least react. Indifference crushes the soul. Your concern and love itself is a huge positive in his life.

I wish I had a magic list of tricks and tips. You can't fix it all in one day. You need to focus on building a long sequence of small victories and triumphs. Don't get sucked into "making it all better". Teach him to love himself and love others. Then it won't matter what the world thinks about him.

Thanks for sharing your throughts on this one. I think you've all got a different perspective which is really helpful.

I do think a big part of it is that Thomas has to figure out the world on his own, and sometimes it can be a cruel place. I guess as a mother I want to take that away from him, but in doing so I'm probably doing more harm than good as I am hiding the reality of life.

I think its important for him to be supported in his journey, so if he needs advice I'll be there to give it. Its just really hard as I just want him to be happy, and kids can be very cruel to those who are different. But the world is full of trials and I guess thats what makes you stronger, getting knocked back and getting back up again.

Thanks for you're comments, they've been extremely helpful

It might help if you could somehow educate him away from being controlling/difficult with the other kids, if he's really doing that to any serious degree. How does that manifest itself?

Another important but hard lesson is that different is not wrong or bad. It is just different. You can't teach others to believe this about your son, but when he learns to believe it about himself then he has a very solid foundation to help withstand the garbage life will throw at him.

Yes, of course I felt that way growing up, but not at such a young age as your son. That is quite sad to hear

I am a girl and I used to be the controlling one in games too. I have 2 brothers and I could get away with doing what I wanted with them, forcing them to enact whatever idea I'd come up with or play a game with the rules I wanted. But my mother told me I couldn't do these things early on. I think I learned quickly no one but my family would take it!

I don't know what good advice I can give you other than to continually build your son's self-esteem. Tell him he looks handsome and that he's smart or funny or creative or whatever you know he would be happy to hear. He will probably get bullied in school and no one will be around to let him know he doesn't suck. So you'll have to step up and do it double.

My mom has always supported me and I really value it today. I had many dark moments as a teen where I felt pretty worthless, but she was always there for me to tell me I wasn't.

It also will really benefit your son to meet other "weirdos" like him. I was very very lucky growing up to somehow befriend some strange NTs who made me feel not so alone If your son is creatively-inclined there are lots of interesting folks in those arenas. When he gets older he might enjoy taking an art class of some kind.

One of the things that has to be taught to children (and adults too IMHO) is self awarness and advocacy. I am mentoring a 13-year-old ASD kid who sounded similar to your boy in attitude until I started to teach these skills.

I stumbled accross an amazing cirriculum on this topic recently. I have ordered the teacher manual and intend to work through it with my kid. Might be something to check into...


http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=b ... 1934575402

You can find large excerpts on google books if you want to actually read it before you buy it.

I think there are people here who have much better advice on helping him make friends and learning to socialize better, I had to pick up pretty much everything on my own where I could when I could. I like to think I did a decent enough job but man, it would have been nice to have someone to just explain all this social stuff the same way they explained math or spelling.

But as to self esteem, if he has anything in his life that he is really good at that he enjoys, make sure he has the opportunity to excel in it if he wants to. I don't mean that you shouldn't take steps to work on his social skills and just leave him to his special hobbies. But if he has a strength then cultivate that, you can't build anything worth having by building only on your weakest points and neglecting your strengths - take it from personal experience. My school wouldn't let me be as good as I could be at what I was strong in because that would make the other kids 'feel bad', meanwhile they never had a problem with making me feel bad about how I lagged behind the others on things I wasn't good at. That kind of environment, it may not be designed to, but it breaks people nonetheless little by little over time. Feeling good at something and being allowed to be is so important to feeling you have some worth. Even if it's something that seems silly or trivial to other people like knowing every Spongebob episode by heart or being able to name more dinosaurs than anyone else you know, it's important to have something you can hold on to as yours.

And little victories, big major things you can do seem like they'd matter more, but we get told so much by our environment that we're wrong somehow. Usually not in big major life changing ways, but just so many little things that build up, glances and comments that don't mean much on their own but there's just so many of them. If you can give your son many little victories it might help balance that out. I'm a fan of little victories, the big ones are too far between and it's so easy to lose hope. Sometimes it's just nice when people appreciate that you've made an effort.

Show him how he grows, how he changes. It's so easy to compare yourself to NT kids, they're supposed to be the norm. But when you can never quite live up to all that they are in many ways it's easy to lose sight of the things you can do they can't. Especially when they don't value what you can do so well. To all of us (even you NTs I suspect) it often seems like we're standing still, unchanging while time moves around us. It's not true of course, I'm very different now from how I was 10 years ago though I often think I'm not that different from how I used to be. Being able to point to something specific and say "See, you didn't used to be able to do that back then and now you can" is encouraging. He's fortunate that you care so much. And you both are that he has the diagnosis so young, you will if nothing else be more aware of what to expect for him and what to anticipate and plan for than the parents of us older folks.