Friendship is Magic

Objective:

Have TsukiMoon get and keep friends.

Theory:

The idea is there are universal rules of interaction between people that everyone can learn and then practice.

On the ground:

This is TsukiMoon's biggest issue: friends; having/keeping.  This is the area where the ASD shows up strongest.  He has difficulty with understanding the rules of play.  He is happy to be called the "bad guy" to everyones play because he gets to be part of the play, then doesn't recognize with the group play has switched and he then becomes everyones true bad guy.  Which opens him up other kids feeling justified to be abusive, both with words and fists.

This is the one of the two reasons that we pulled TsukiMoon out of private and put him in public.  Boo is part of a "protected class" of people.  The burden on the public school to protect him from such behavior is higher because it takes money from the federal government.  With private schools it is more difficult to figure out if they receive grants or help from third parties who have received federal money.  When we told the private school that we had to move Boo to give him the protection of the law they understood.  They then said something surprising; "Here at _________ we don't talk about bullying."

Ok, good to know.

In first grade I noticed many times when TsukiMoon was getting punched and kicked by other classmates.  To protect him from these abuses one of the things I did was put him in social class because it was clear that he didn't understand his part to cause the maltreatment.  I have since kept him in social groups.

Social groups have helped TsukiMoon learn self regulation and rules for engagement.  He has learned the turtle technique, how to retreat when emotions start to get too much and use calming breaths to self regulate.  You can't make a friends if you get frustrated and lash out. 

TsukiMoon doesn't always think it is fair that it is up to him to always walk away and not react to bad behavior of others and it's not.  I too get frustrated with the all the hoops TsukiMoon has to jump through where other parents brush aside the bad behavior of their children as ordinary part of life.  One of our saying that we have in our house to help us through and have taught Boo, " Life isn't fair.  No one said it was going to be fair."  This helps all of us, TsukiMoon  Mr. TsukiMoon and me to pull ourselves up by the preverbal boot straps and move on.

In the public school things have gone much better.  He is the new kid with no bad history with these kids.  The classes are larger and there are four classes to grade instead of two.  Plus I have to say it but there is another kid with autism and ADHD that collects the ire of his class, providing some cover for these early months while TsukiMoon gets his feet in the new school.

Two weeks ago we put TsukiMoon into an occupational therapy (OT)/social group, so that he can work on fine and gross motor with a child with similar issues and learn self regulation/making friend techniques.  They have to; work together, compromise, learn to talk, and enjoy each other.  It happens that that class is followed the next day with an individual session with the same OT therapist, Mrs. E.  

Mrs. E is the first therapist that we brought TsukiMoon to when things started going poorly in 1st grade.  The private school that we had been sending Boo too, told us that had to send TsukiMoon to OT or else they would need to hold him back at the end of 2nd, grade. Which made me three kinds of ticked because it was February of 1st grade.  How could they make such a statement about something that was a year and half away?  At this point we didn't have a diagnosis of ASD.

What we did was find an OT, Mrs. E, and had Boo evaluated.  Mrs. E from her evaluation and starting OT with TsukiMoon   She recommended that we had Boo further evaluated.  I was so mad at the school that I wanted to get every single evaluation that could be done so that the school could not blame TsukiMoon for the issues at school and in defacto blame us for his behavior.  They kept asking if there were problems at home.

Mrs. E very nicely told us whatever the outcomes from the evaluations the thing to remember was that it was about finding the best help for TsukiMoon   When the diagnosis of ASD came in this point help us focus pass the grief and find all needed therapies to  maximize and target the important needs/disabilities.

So that is the background to Mrs. E, who we have now had a 20 month relationship with.  Over that 20 months with lots of intervention by us, therapists, and work by TsukiMoon   Mrs. E has complemented us on what a different kid Boo has become; better eye contact, communication with her about; stories, school, life at home.  So much change that she encourages us not to tell anyone that TsukiMoon has a diagnosis of ASD because most folks wouldn't notice the slight inconsistencies in behavior.  That's great.

That's until two weeks ago when she started up this social group with another boy.  After our individual session the day following the group class, she said that having TsukiMoon in social groups was important because that's when she really notice the ASD.  

Ahhhh yes :-(.  We know that this is a case but it still is disappointing to hear because there is still much work to do.  We have knocked back many of the educational issues with the help of the speech and language pathologist (we have been going to for a little over a year).  TsukiMoon sees twice a week during the school year and this summer 3, 4 and sometimes 5 times a week this past summer.  He now tests in the middle of his class.  Great we will take average any day of the week.

So what to do?  ASD at the heart of it is a social issue.  I understand the people who say that these children should be accepted for who there are and and not asked to change.  For TsukiMoon he really wants friends.  That was the main problem at the private school; he wanted friends but was doing a shit-poor job of getting them.  As parents we have to help him be happy in the world.  He was not happy without people to play with.

 Our main focus this year in third grade is to help him find his strengths and learn how to be a good friend.  We are looking for strategies that teach; empathy, kindness, respectful touch (not too hard), setting and keeping reasonable boundries, communication with peers?  We have a number of things we do that target this.  Compaired to the educational issues TsukiMoon had it is hard to teach the desire to put others before yourself and create cooperative play?  Will we get "all the way there," on this issue, I don't know we have a long way to go.