Teens

It's Halloween time. The teens in the homeschool group had a dance last night, and it was difficult to look at the pictures people were posting of their kids. We've recently stopped going to the homeschool park day due to social issues David had been having with the kids. The teen years are difficult enough; for teens with autism/aspergers, they can be truly horrifying.

David is now in David is now in a Social Skills group where I'm hoping he can learn some social skills & defenses before we go back to park day. He mentioned missing park day the other day: I asked him what he missed. He said he missed seeing his "true" friends. I asked him to name those friends, and he named off most of the park day teens - a good 10 or 15 people. Then I asked him to name those kids who were still in contact with him; those that called or e-mailed him. He came up with 3 names: one who doesn't even attend park day anymore (except for holidays) due to returning to public school, and one who comes to park day sporadically but attends another class with him. The last one attends park fairly regularly, and also e-mails him, but doesn't really hang out with him at park anymore. These are the nice ones.

As for the other 'true' friends, one girl, who he really enjoys talking with, intentionally gave him the wrong e-mail address, twice. One lied & said she didn't e-mail or Facebook, yet I see her on Facebook with others. One boy intentionally eggs him on to get a reaction, whether it's outrageous statements that freak him out, or telling him to draw pornographic comics. These are his 'true' friends. Before we stopped going to park day, the best I could hope for was that they would ignore him.

What really gets me is that for the most part, these are the kids that, if they were in public school, would be the ones ostracized & picked on for their weirdness & behaviors, but because they have banded together in a different environment, they are the ones doing the picking.

I tried talking to some of the moms previously. Unfortunately, most of them are oblivious to their kids behaviors when out of sight. One mom swears that her child has actively tried to include David in things, because her child told her that, yet I have a photograph of that child sitting next to my son, leaning away from him & ignoring him as David tries to engage him in conversation. One time we went to the mall with a group of teens, and maybe it was a coincidence, but at the same moment that David sat down with the teens, they got up as a whole (about 10 - 15 of them) and left to go do various things, leaving David alone at the table.

I was sitting with the moms at the opposite table, who also observed this, and the moms rationalized this with, "Oh, they just didn't notice him" (my son is 6 feet tall and 190 lbs and one of the least 'unnoticeable' person around), and "They were just busy with their own stuff; they didn't mean anything by it," (really? Not one person in a group of 10-15 kids noticed they were leaving a solitary kid alone at the table?) and they finished with "Why doesn't David go over to that other table of boys & join them?" (There was a separate table with 3 boys at it). I got up and said, "Why? So he can be rejected again?" and retrieved my dejected son & left.

Now I know my son is not the easiest person to hang around with. He has autism. He fixates on certain favored topics of conversation long past it's expiration date. He doesn't know how to join in a topic he's unfamiliar or uninterested in. But he is kind. He is a sweet kid who would never intentionally hurt anyone; wouldn't know how to provoke a reaction from someone for his pleasure or to impress someone else, and doesn't have the social skills to lie to fit in. He just doesn't have the social skills to deal with the precarious nature of relationships in the teen years.

As mothers, it is our job to raise our children and guide them into becoming reasonable human beings. Some of the moms seem to have a theory that they should let their kids work out their conflicts on their own. In theory, I see their reasoning behind this, but in reality, situations where children who parent themselves without guidance from adults turn into scenes from "Lord of the Flies". As parents, we need to guide our children in how to treat other people. Everyone who's had a toddler knows that you have to teach them to share - they are not giving by nature. Without guidance, our kids will continue to be selfish toddlers, only caring about their inner circle and how the world reacts to them. We can hope they model our good behavior, but that is not always the case.

One of the best things we can do is not be ignorant of our children's behaviors toward others. Yes, we all want to believe the best of our children, but we do them no favors by ignoring their faults. My son has social skills issues - I recognize his faults, and I have him enrolled in a special class so he can learn how to interact with others. When he overreacts, he can scare people, because he's loud & big & when frustrated, can scream like a 2 year old, which is completely socially inappropriate. I try not to rationalize his behaviors by using autism as an excuse - he needs to learn to interact with people if he's going to live in this world, and I am going to do my best to help him learn how.

What makes this difficult is when other parents try to excuse or rationalize their children's behaviors. Are they just so happy that their kids aren't in the picked on group that they don't mind if their kids are now the bullies & mean kids? Are they really that oblivious to their kids behaviors? Or is it that if they recognize those behaviors in their kids, then they would have to realize they're failing at some aspect of parenting? I don't know. All I know is that it is heartbreaking to watch when your child is the one who's never included and thinks of everyone as his friend when in reality, they are not.