Help on developing social communication skills

[Roz]

My dd is 9 and has struggled with social communication since I can remember. She has been assessed and we've been told that she is not on the spectrum but uses some aspergery strategies particularly when she doesn't understand the rules or feels unsafe.
We were also told after an Ed Psych assessment at school that she was in the wrong school environment - too unstructured ( a bit of a shock since we moved 4 years ago to enable our dd to go to a Steiner School which we felt would give her the best all round education and help support her slightly different ways).
When our eyes were opened as to what had been going on for her at school, not only did we feel guilty that we had not realised the extent of teasing/provocation/baiting that she had been subjected to for three years but we also felt immense anger that the teacher (who in a Steiner system takes the children from year 1 to year 8)had not supported our dd and allowed the "bullying" to go on unchecked. She kept telling us that things were improving and that all the children were really supportive of dd.
Now it is time to move on and I want to support dd in developing the social skills she seems to lack. I do belive the dx since she seems to struggle with only part of Asperger's - the social - and only certain aspects of that (picking up on other children's queues, seeing things from other children's perspective, empathy). She does not struggle on a one to one basis, only in groups. She can talk very clearly about the aspects she struggles with in social communication but doesn't seem able to stop herself being a bit over-powering or not recognising when other children are backing away.
She has got three more days in school then we are going to home school her for a term before she hopefully goes to a local independent school in September which I think will provide her with a more structured approach (God knows how we are going to pay for it!). We feel that this will help reduce the amount of time she feels unsure about the social rules and provide a "safer" environment.
During the coming term at home I would like to help her develop some of the skills she lacks but am at a bit of a loss as to how. She will and does have opportunities to socialise but I struggle with getting her to move from the intellectual understanding of what she needs to do to the actual doing of it.
Any ideas or useful texts. Most of what I have read seems to talk about the theory but very little practical advice. (I'm all theoried out!!!)

Oh for g-ds sake. Sune/the bee has followed us.

Roz/Johnny this isn't Steiner thread, and I'm really sorry the bee has come on it. The best policy is to ignore him.

We aren't interested in talking about the pros and cons of Steiner on this thread.
We have made upour minds about it being bad for any type of child .The discussion isn't about this. Please leave it alone Sune/thebee.

We took our youngest kids out of Steiner in may last year,( the oldest left the previous summer, ) they had all been there around three years. I think he meant he'd been following the group; what group I don't know, because I linked to plans, chase andd ease, all helpful support , and all with stories similar to ours. Sune/the bee, chase and ease have only been going a very short while, so I don't know what you're talking about. No one is interested in a deceiptful anthroposophist's view here.

thebee, you said Eva was your anima or something when someone asked why you were pretending to be a Mum.
And what you're asking johnny sounds like a veiled shifting of responsibility question. There is no excuse for adults ignoring children being cruel to one another ; no excuse for class teahers to say the children being taunted bring it upon themselves.

One of my daughters was kicked, pounced on by two older boys, while getting her bike ( she was 10, they were 12) and had her hair pulled out in a chunk; they were alone, coming back a mile from lunch, her on her bike.They took her bike every day. She was in tears, this happened regularly. The teacher told us she exaggerated, it wasn't as she told it, until an anthroposophists daughter told her dad it was true because she had witnessed it; and I asked him to tell the class teacher.He believed the story from the anthroposophist's daughter. He then changed tack, and said she has encouraged it; it was boys being hormonal, a sort of game. She had a bald patch where they had pulled out her hair.

This is one of many, ,many incidents, some much worse, which I havn't yet brought muyself to tell in public.

Sune/thebee, you haven't once said to Janni, Barking, or any of the other women who have had tales to tell, how sorry you are about their experiences, as you have here. Are you trying to ingratiate yourself with someone new? Come accross as the gentle caring anthroposophist? While in the same breath you slag us off? You call us names and imply we're lying? You try to negate any experience we relate as hysteria? Call us a hate campaign?
If you knew half of the things our family had been through at the hands of Steiner anthroposophists, you should hang your head in shame.
They lie and deceive, they are cruel and self dellusional followers of a cult.
And you are trying to propogate their myths.

Roz/Johnny
Hi again. Actually, I don't have much to add as Northernrefugee has covered most of it. Steiner teachers are incredibly variable and it sounds like your DD had one who just did not protect her. I have seen this with quite a few 'quirky' children, whose parents think Steiner will be a gentler environment than mainstream schools. If they end up with a teacher who believes heavily in 'karma', then that teacher will allow all sorts of situations to play themselves out, believing that the children need to sort it out between themselves. It can be truly heartbreaking to see children who really need adult help being left to fend for themselves in situations that are beyond them.

I thing the home-ed will definitely build up her confidence. Good luck with the next school - I would put everything in writing for them so they are aware of your daughter's
background at Steiner.

Gosh what a lot has gone on whilst I've been away. Thanks to all for your input - including those re: "the imposter"!
Thank you also to whoever recommended a book on developing social skills - one came throught the post whilst we were away and it looks really helpful - something on the unwritten rules of friendship - so thank you for that tip.

There's a lot I want to say about our children's experiences and my dd is now looking over my shoulder so I'll clarify things in my mind and log on later.

Hi Roz- hhow are things for you?
Hope you dd is more relaxed now she's left.
Interestingly- there is a desperate thread on another chat board froma woman with a daughter of 13 with aspergers who had a horrendous time at- you guessed it - a Steiner school.
She sounded totally at the end of her tether. I didn't write too much about Steiner, but just hoped now she'd removed her daughter things would gradually look up.
nd also that it couldn't really be a worse plae for kids on a spectrum.

her daughter was totally ostracised by the clas- tried to talk and they completely ignored her- the staff did nothing, said it came from her daughter.
One of my daughter's had this technique of being sent to coventry at their dsteiner school.
I AM SO ANGRY

It wasn't until she finally sought outside educational advice, rather than curative eurythmy and anthroposophical doctors I suppose, that she realised it was the wrong place.

Sorry, sorry, I was meant to be asking how you all were....
Anmtway- I said she certainly wasn't alone.

Hope you're all ok.