If you have a rough spirited child (Sen) how do they do socially

[Motherofmonsters]

DS is 3 and has sensory seeking behaviours which means he's a bit rough and not great with personal space. It's very newly been noted so we're still working out the best strategies.

He loves other children and wants to play with everyone however he doesn't always get social cues i.e. when to stop.

If your child was similar at his age how do they do with friends. I'm really worried he's not going to have any.

My 7 year old is a bit like this and I will be honest it can be hard. He has been assessed a couple of times With adhd in mind but always comes back normal. He is extroverted and popular in some ways but he does get into trouble a lot and take things too far. He gets in people’s personal space and is impulsive and excitable. I find if he plays with quieter kids he modifies his behaviour a bit. When he is with other alpha males types is when I have the most trouble. In reception I felt he was getting a bit of a reputation. Some kids were scared to play with him. But in year 2 he has calmed down a lot. It helps that he is extremely bright and polite and charming.

We regularly had interventions and strategies put in place at school. Fiddle toys at his desk. Someone intervening on the playground and helping him with his play occasionally. So get the school he goes to on board early. He needs lots of excercise ( like a bloody dog) so we always took him for runs or to the playground after school if we could and do lots of sports activities.

Essentially though we just had/have to wait for him to grow up.

Unfortunately, if he's rough and invasive, children are unlikely to warm to him. BUT you've got started on strategies and he's little enough to learn, so it absolutely doesn't mean that he's not going to have friends. Lots of love and reassurance from you, and work with nursery/school to teach him ways to manage.

Thank you @carycry he sounds a bit like DS. He is polite for 3year old and he can be very fun.
He just gets very overexcited. I am hoping he'll calm down as he gets bigger to.

His preschool is at the school he should be going to and they seem to be very helpful so hopefully we'll be able to work together

DS really benefitted from having some proprioceptive/pushing and resistance type movement breaks built in - it meant he could seek out that kind of sensory stimulation but not from people.

Bouncing, resistance bands, pushing a weighted trolley or cart, laying down under a weighted blanket or squishing play doh or thera-putty all helped. It also helps to get some of this stuff out of their systems before you try and do any learning about personal space, gentle hands, kind contact...

@Giblet did you find doing these activities would calm him in the moment or did he get excited while doing it and then calm down after? I've tried a few things and he gets over excited doing it

You mention that he has SEN, what is his diagnosis as this will shape the strategies you might use.

At the moment it's just Sensory Processing Difficulties, were right at the beginning so only the school SENCO has seen him in person so far.

Very little calmed DS down when he was smaller What it did was satisfy the immediate need he had for touch/resistance.

From memory what we learned to do was distract or offer an alternative activity if he was getting too boisterous, and try to do the work around understanding gentle, careful, kind etc when he was calmer. In his case being able to watch wheels turning, listen to music like Enya or Wardruna, or have a bath were calm down activities. Anything involving playing with others almost had to be treated like a controlled substance.

For context, DS has ASD and ADHD diagnoses.

One of my DSs friends could be described as rough and spirited due to SEN - he is OK socially overall although there are some difficulties. The child is actually the leader of the group and usually gets to choose the game etc, so that is reassuring, but also it can be quite a turbulent group because he doesn't really have all the skills to mediate/compromise/include and so there is quite a bit of trying to hold onto power through threats or steamrollering the others' ideas, which sometimes backfires. The other boys in the group like being in the gang and playing the games (though sometimes they get tired of it always being his choice) but they describe each other as being their best friend and not him, because the power dynamic is a bit uneven.

My son with ASD was like that at 3. And 4. And a bit 5 too. It took him years longer than most children to learn about appropriate touch and giving people space but he did get there.

Partly he needed other outlets (fiddle toys, chewy toys, sensory circuits), partly endless reinforcement of acceptable behaviour, partly he just needed to grow up and mainly we needed to control the situations he was in better. Much of his sensory seeking was driven by anxiety, over excitement, being overwhelmed or other people being in his space and touching him. He also just didn’t quite know what to do with himself in eg a playgroup room full of toys and choices and so resorted to rather wild behaviour - he could not be told to “just go and play”. Being in a large group of children in undirected free play was extremely hard for him, he needed a small group and much more adult led activity/play. Lots of modelling how to ask someone to play and concrete ideas what they could play.

Now he is older (mid primary age) he can play really nicely in a group of 2-3 doing Lego or a bigger group playing football or something. He has a small group of best friends and is popular with most of the boys in his class. He still has sensory seeking issues but they’re not really directed at other people any more and for the most part can be addressed by looking at what’s causing him to be disregulated in the first place (emotional upset, hunger or being overwhelmed usually) or just allowing him to spin in circles for a few minutes.

Thank you for your reply, he sounds very similar so it does give me hope that he'll be able to make some friends. It looks like it's going to be hard to start with but hopefully he'll calm down as he gets older.

I was worried he'ld have no friends when he starts and then he would miss the boat when he's calmer but maybe they change friends enough for him to refit in

I have an ASD child like this too. It wasnt easy in early primary but he manage the odd friend here and there. This improved greatly as he got older and found his 'tribe', he's now in secondary with a good group of friends and a love of rugby! He did see an OT at about age 3 to work on his gross motor skills which I think helped him, also had stims that calmed him down (still does) like silk blankets, weighted blankets and usual asd stuff like watching wheels going around etc.