Published on 12, July, 2020
I am reaching out for some help and advice for my 10yr old son. My son has really good verbal and communication skills, but it’s clear he struggles to discuss his emotions with myself and his mum. We have noticed that the other kids at school see him as different and as such end up either excluding him or bullying him. He sometimes gets upset by this, other times shrugs it off as all he wants to do is feel included and part of the peer group (we’ve seen some of this on text between others and sometimes at parties or football where we obviously have a keen eye on what’s going on).
We haven’t discussed his ASD with him yet and nor do his peers understand this, but it hurts to see that he won’t discuss what goes on and we are stuck with what to do worrying that the lother it goes on the harder it will be to get him to talk about those feelings.
Any advice is welcomed.
thanks
I would suggest speaking to the Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator (SENCO) at the school and discuss this - it may be a symptom of neurodivergence and they should have a team who can help identify if this is the case.
If he is autistic then there are probably other areas he can benefit from understanding and getting advice on how to make better for himself.
It may not be in which case I would say getting a child therapist who specialises in this area should bring results.
It may be worth getting him familiar with the emotions wheel to get him used to using the core area to identify emotions if he can. There is a good article on this here:
https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/wheel-of-emotions-children
Good luck.