Need some ideas please

[insanityscratching]

For dd's next IEP meeting/AR I want a target that addresses "friendship issues" only they aren't in the strictest sense of the word. It's more that dd finds friendships quite stressful because they aren't uniform and predictable and routine.

She is brilliant at sharing, taking turns, joining in even when it may not be what she'd choose to do because she has been taught how to do that.

What she finds difficult is the more spontaneous stuff where there's a spat between friends and she is asked to take sides. Where she doesn't always pick up on what is good natured teasing and what has gone too far and is upsetting someone. It's more the sophisticated bits of friendships that are becoming more important as she gets older that she struggles with.

So any ideas either for targets or strategies please

Bumping up.

Bumping again to see if anyone has an IEP that has some good social skill targets - anyone?

That's a difficult one. You can't really dictate or measure friendship, and it's so reliant on the other child as well. I'm struggling to see how this could be done.

Sorry, no ideas but am watching to see if anyone has any good ideas.

Dd3 really struggles with the complexity of friendships. She cant follow the unspoken rules and despite excellent social skills groups at her school, i dont know if the skills required can be taught.

Hope i am wrong though.

That's it isn't it, it's the things that can't be taught that she struggles with. She isn't good with heightened emotions so that I think is the root of the problem. So she feels overwhelmed when people are angry or upset and a lot of the time when she struggles is when others have heightened emotions and of course with her friends being 9 year old girls there are plenty of drama queens and divas among them.

Boys as friends (cubs?) are much less complex so mightbe less hard work than 9y old girls, I expect. The big girls are good with ds1 because being male puts him in another species anyway, so maybe the reverse wd also happen? And/or making the friendship activities a bit more stereotyped can help.

Maybe signing up for structured stuff, or perhaps picking up a suitable child once a week for park then library then tea, or whatever. Dc can be better with younger or older dc than own age group, as a social skill imbalance is then expected and allowed for. And finding other quirky kids.

Making friends with parents who have large families and/or twin or multiple birth dc worked very well for us as their dc aren't easily fazed. Ds1 is 8 and the 'circle of friends' approach at school was also good.

And having some mildly sympathetic yet suitably detatched scripts for use on drama queens etc could be very handy later in life.... She could end up being everyone's sensible friend in a crisis.

Ds has the same problems, he is fine at taking turns etc, etc. I asked for a TA with training in ASD and the facilitation of peer interaction, who could be there at playtime and seize any opportunity for interaction that peers or ds presents.

So that ds could experience positive spontaneous peer interaction. I didnt it though!

I didnt get it though!

Do you think that roleplays to cover some of the scenarios could help? If she could do a break out group with a TA and a couple of her peers to a couple of times a week to explore friendship, conflict, resolution etc by letting them discuss situations and the feelings involved and develop a roleplay to illustrate how it might look?

Eg Ok girls, what if A asked B to come for a sleepover and not C? How would everyone feel? What might be the reasons for this? How should it be handled? (A might feel bad but only be allowed to ask one friend/C would feel left out/B would be excited and want to talk about it alot...)

X time per week 1:1 or small group working on Elsa and role play?