Please want to talk to someone

Hello. I live in the hove area too. I'm autistic, single mum with two beautiful children, 7 and 10, both autistic too.   What I've learnt since my kids have started school is that friendships at school are like the wind; forever changing and impossible to keep up with.  Most kids friendships are via their parents arranging play dates thinking that their kids are forming forever friendship bonds, where infact the next week, friendships at school change again (albeit parents still arrange playdates.)   I used to be worried about my kids making friends (I am not a great example to follow in this vein from my childhood :) ) I was so determined that I would try and make their experience different and positive but it always ended up with me feeling like a failure or worrying.  

My daughter is now 10 and I would say that she and all the children in her year at school are starting to form real friendships, their interests have developed and differences too.   I changed my approach after I realised I was beating myself up about what I thought friendships at a young age should be.   Instead I started to focus my energy to teach conversational starters and role play social skills to my children instead; I started that when my oldest was 6. That it wasn't important to have 'just' one friend, but instead to learn to engage with other children on their own terms (armed with helpful tactics to try.)   It was a daily game with my son when he first started school.  I used to challenge him in the morning with 'ask someone to play with xx today and tell me what happens tonight.'   We would then talk about it at bedtime; how did it go, did it work, what happened next etc.   no matter what happened, we talked about it as if it was a positive experiment, a game where there is no wrong, only right.   

We still spend our evenings talking about their experiences of what they tried and what could they try next time.  They also talk about what they have noticed in how other children have been interacting with each other and we imagine together what might be going on.   This approach has changed our whole conversational focus to my children focusing on themselves and their growth and not focused on comparing themselves to what others perceive as normal social interactions.   We frame it as living 'our vibe' and we approach it positively.   

It isn't easy and it is a long / slow process to reach a good place, consistency and repeating very small challenges daily has really worked; there will always be times where meltdowns and anxiety around social friendships come out; however both my kids are definitely resilient to the ever changing landscape of friendships in school.   Returning to school after the school holidays is the one to watch out for as all the other children in the same school year develop more social complexity and noticeably so over the summer; both my kids find it tricky as their reference of interacting with other kids remains at their last contact 'reference' which is the last day of term at the start of the Summer.   The first few weeks need higher level 'coaching' as they catch up with the change in other children.   

I also found allowing my children to watch kid appropriate, but slightly higher age, sitcom type programmes (with real children and adults in) also helped, it seems to have helped with their social imagining of scenarios and how they might engage in something similar.    

NAS65966 said:

This approach has changed our whole conversational focus to my children focusing on themselves and their growth and not focused on comparing themselves to what others perceive as normal social interactions.   We frame it as living 'our vibe' and we approach it positively.   

This is a fantastic point. The main thing is that our children feel they are growing and comparing themselves with themselves.

NAS65966 said:

This approach has changed our whole conversational focus to my children focusing on themselves and their growth and not focused on comparing themselves to what others perceive as normal social interactions.   We frame it as living 'our vibe' and we approach it positively.   

This is a fantastic point. The main thing is that our children feel they are growing and comparing themselves with themselves.