A Bag of Poop

Kids with High Functioning Autism usually struggle with Social Skills. One of the biggest problems I have discovered, is that Christopher looks “Normal”. He even acts a lot like “Typical Kids”, so when he struggles socially, it’s hard for others to understand why.

People often think that struggling socially means that the kid is shy, and while much of the time that is what social problems with these kids looks like, that is not  the case with Christopher. He is VERY outgoing. Dangerously so. He would talk to, hang on, sit in the lap of, jump on, tell everything to, or leave with anyone. Adults tend to find this very charming. So what’s the problem with other kids? They don’t seem to feel the same way. What’s their problem? (LOL)

Finding friends for Christopher has always been a challenge. I often sit in tears because I don’t know how to help. We use social stories, and that helps some, but what about when things like this happen, “I went over to one of my friends house’s. She has a boy the same age as Christopher, she also has a daughter the same age as Hailey, so I took them with me. I thought this would be a great way to get Christopher a friend. When we got there, there was another boy Christopher’s age there. YAY! I thought, more friend’s for C. Well the whole time we were there Christopher tried very hard to play with them. He followed the social story to the T, but for some reason they didn’t want to play with him. At one point they made up this club called, Only Boys Allowed, Except Little Red Headed Ones. There mother’s picked up very quickly that my child was having difficulty navigating the social scene, and they talked with the other boys. (not usually the case with other parents). Anyway, things seemed to get a bit better, and it seemed that they were all playing together. But when we left I noticed that Christopher was holding a bag. I asked him what was in the bag, and he said that he didn’t know yet. He said that the other boys had told him it was his special prize. Christopher was soooooo excited about getting a prize. I was afraid they may have given him something important, so i took the bag and opened it, much to my surprise the bag had a dirty diaper in it. SIGH! Reality hit again that yet another attempt at friendship had gone wrong.”

I would love to say that this was the only time my child had been rejected as a friend, but it’s not. For the longest time I blamed myself. It must be something I am not teaching him, and there must be something I can to to fix this. But now I know it’s a part of PDD-NOS. That doesn't make it any easier, but it does help me know that it not something I am doing wrong.