GOING DEEP

The previous post was a light-hearted look at our life with the boys.  Lots of fun, lots of laughter.

However, now it's time to go deep. Because being the parent of a child with special needs often opens you up to things that are difficult and painful to watch and experience with your child.

Our child's social interactions are one of those areas that can cause us to feel pain in our hearts for our kiddo.  

Kiddos with special needs can have a difficult time making and maintaining friends especially with typically-developing kids.  This difficulty can manifest itself in feelings of loneliness, rejection, and even hurt if other kids are mean to them.

No parent wants to see their child hurting.  The reality though for a child with special needs is that the likelihood of him being hurt is probably higher because of his difficulties with social skills as a result of his special need.

Fortunately, I was able to attend a great seminar at the Medical College this past weekend.  It was about helping special needs kiddos with social skills.

The speaker was Richard Lavoie.  I would highly recommended his book!

Click HERE to read about book It's So Much Work to be Your Friend

Click HERE for Rick Lavoie website

The information I learned at this seminar will be useful to me because of instead of just saying the blanket statement "My child has problems with social skills.", Mr. Lavoie gave a breakdown of specific social skills so I can narrow down the exact area (or areas) where our boys might be struggling.  

Here is brief summary of the information he provided:

1. Timing/Staging issues: unable to realize that getting to know someone takes time and work.  Problem with coming on too strong or considering someone your best friend because he said "Hi" to you.
2. Social Memory issues: forgetting consequences of prior good/bad behavior and not applying that to present or future situations.
3. Social Prediction issues: unable to anticipate effect of behavior, not able to choose behavior based on what may or may not happen as a result.
4. Recuperating Strategy issues: unable to fix a social mistake that was made.
5. Feedback Cue issues: unable to assess how others are reacting to behavior and then using those cues to correct or improve behavior.
6. Poor Language skills: physically hard to say the words or to be understood, difficulty making good conversation (Question, comment process) etc.
7. Social Contract issues: unable to understand unwritten expectations of interaction with others, ie. waiting in line versus budding in line.
8. Transfer of Information issues: unable to take good behavior in one situation and apply that same good behavior in a different or unfamiliar place.
9. Reputation issues: Adults (hopefully) have learned to be more flexible with their opinions of people and make those opinions more situational.  For example, just because someone was rude at work doesn't mean he is a rude person all the time.  However, for children, their opinions are more permanent and pervasive- if child is mean during recess one time in 5th grade, then that child might be off the list as a friend for a very long time.

This breakdown will be very useful to me.  Now when the boys come up against some difficulty getting along with peers, I can try to assess the situation and see which area we might be dealing with and be more focused in how to help the boys learn a better way to interact.

Finally, Mr. Lavoie shared an essay he wrote called "Someday".  I think this is a beautiful but heart-wrenching piece that really gets at the core of what it means to walk along our special need child and love and support him through everything he faces.  He has a lot of physical, academic, and EMOTIONAL challenges in front of him.  It isn't all unicorns and rainbows.  Of course, a good attitude always helps to try and focus on the positive.  But the reality is, sometimes it's just sad to see him struggle in life, and this essay gives parents the safe place to say that.

Click HERE for "Someday" essay by Richard Lavoie
note: no intention on featuring this essay as a political viewpoint one way or the other.  Just thought it had amazing insight into what special needs parents face and feel.