How to help dd1 with social situations (Aspergers).

[Marne]

We had another bad evening with dd1 being upset about school , i really want to help her but everything i try seems to make things worse.

Dh thinks i should let her sort her own problems out and he thinks i'm blaming the Aspergers for the problems she is having, dh thinks it has nothing to do with her Aspergers.

So here's dd1's problems (that she wants me to solve):

1)Dd1 goes to a very small school, she plays with a group of children in her year (around 10 children), at break time they get together and decide what game they are going to play, dd1 doesn't always like the game chosen and feels that no one will listen to her ideas (she thinks her ideas are better than anyone elses), she always gets the rubbish part in the game (if they play hospitals she is always told to be the injured person), dd1 gets upset by this and she leaves the group and hides behind the pavilion rusulting in her being lonley and sad. Dd1 wants to know how she can get her ideas (for her games) across to the group and how she can get to play 'nurse' whilst playing hospitals?

2. Her friends keep telling her she's doing things wrong (in class and in the playground), dd1 is finding it hard to remember instructions and follow examples from other people, she hates being told 'she's doing something wrong' and gets very upset. How can she handle these situations? and how can she improve her short term memory when following instructions?

Dd1 desperatly wants to be friends with every one in the group but i think they are getting fed up with her not joining in, running off and hiding and getting upset easily.

I have tried doing roll play with her (which woks well with some things) but she just gets angry with me and starts shouting 'I dont know what i should do mummy' , she doesn't want to back down or compromise with anyone, she wants to play by her rules and wants her friends to play her games. The more i try and explain things to her the more upset she gets, dh says she just trying to get more attention from me by disagreeing with everything i say.

How can i help her?

This sounds like an ideal job for the school to help solve.
The best results come from schools who can explain ASC to the children in age-appropriate ways and show them as a group how to explain rules, how to include someone, what to watch out for.
Our local primary here has 'playground buddies' who are chosen for being quiet and sensible and kind, and who will play with any children who can't cope with the rules or need some time out. They also report things to a teacher/playground superviser if they can see a child upset or angry.

Once the children understand the 'rules' for us, they can be great supporters.

I find group games completely baffling, even now, and the noise in playground is so high that I can't hear instructions and process them fast enough. It helps me now to be given 'permission' to go to a quiet zone if I want to, and do something individual if it gets too much. As I do autism audits for primary schools, I really do have to face these very challenges .

Is there a good and sensible friend who can help advocate for her a bit with the others, I wonder?

I identify with a lot of what your DD is going through. I remember vividly having the crap roles allocated to me (cruel dolphin keeper in particular stands out).

Does DD1 take after you or her dad? Do you identify with these problems or was it very different for you?

Amber- the school is aware of whats going on, i seem to be going into school once a week to talk to her teacher (who is also the senco), the main children in the group (what i call the leaders) have been spoken to about including dd1 in their games but dd1 is still spending a lot of time on her own or upset.

She has a couple closer friends, they also get the crap roles to play but they don't really moan like dd does (they just get on with it).

lingle - I was very shy at school, kept my head down and did as i was told. Dh has a lot of AS traits but being a man, having friends to him is not that important (to dd1 its very important).

Oh b*m. School isn't really doing its job then. Apologies - I'm so rubbish at putting together info from different posts when writing things: brain won't properly link people on one thread to the same people on other threads .

I wish I knew how to explain social rules for groups to her - but I can't. It all happens with lightning speed and eye contact, face expressions, tone of voice, gestures etc and it's all totally invisible to me.

No need to Apologise Amber. The school has been great with her up until now, its just hard for them to see the problem (as they don't understand how the AS brain works), most of the children shrug these things off and get on with it but with dd1 it seems to eat away at her. She's so anxious by the time she gets home (worrying about how to handle situations if they happen again) that she's getting chest pains and tummy ache , i hate seeing her like this. I have tried writing social stories with her but she just won't look at them (refuses to listen to what im telling her).

Maybe she needs to know that it's totally OK not to join in with the games at all. I think girls in particular on the autism spectrum can get really focused on 'we have to be sociable, we have to have friends' and it can become a rule we're terrified of breaking. But one quiet friend and a relaxing hobby in breaktimes can be better for us, if there's a quiet friend who would sit with her.

When do you go through the social stories with her? I'm guessing you pick a quiet time of day not on a school day when she's fairly relaxed so she can look and ask questions. I know that I can either look, or listen, but panic if I do both at the same time - so finding a way to get the info into her head without it being overwhelming could be harder than it looks.

And I know that if I have a rule that says "Say hello to person X and ask them to play Y game with you", I'm then totally expecting that they will say yes. If they say no, or 'maybe', where's the rules for that? Or if they say they want to play Z game or play game Y in a different way? Or include person C? All the rules I have don't work and it is horribly stressful. Blimey, I might just hide under 'me desk just thinking about it

Thanks Amber- the way you explain it (how you feel) is the same as dd1 explains it to me .

Last night she was quite stressed, asked me to 'solve her problems' so we went through a couple roll play situations and a social story, this seemed to make her more anxious as she could not see why she should join in with a game if it wasn't played by her rules. She went to bed very upset, calmed down after reading a book and then woke up this morning with a big smile on her face.

My neighbour has just been over, she was helping at the school today and said dd1 was having a great time running around with another child (playing with a watering can). Do you think she could be looking for problems that are not there? and just worrying about things that could happen?

Maybe playing with just one child and a watering can is hugely easier than following multiple rules and social stuff with a bigger crowd? I know we can be horribly "One thing's gone wrong so it's all wrong" rather than the neurotypical "One thing's gone wrong but it went ok yesterday and the rest of today was ok, so it's only a hundredth wrong really".

But that is also what makes us superb specialist engineers or musicians or etc etc - because if you need people to design things or do things to perfection when it really matters if something goes wrong, we're your man (er, or woman). Very stressful for us in any situation where "Oh it doesn't matter/it'll be mostly OK" is the rule. There's no such rule for us

I have just read your post marne and i can't really help in any way, how old is your daughter, she sounds exactly like mine except that mine is able at the moment to control the group of girls and therefore the game. Don't know how long this will last though and have been warning school for sometime. I couldn't believe it when I read that your daughter won't look at social stories, I have exactly that issue with Dd3. social stories sound wonderful but how do you make someone look at something. My Dd3 puts her fingers in her ears if she thinks I am going to have a "discussion" with her. I hope you find a solution to your daughters playground problems. Maybe your nieghbour shouldn't really be telling what goes on in the playground anyway! My Dd3 often stews on things from lunchtime all afternoon and they have got massive by the time she comes out of school. I have read that girls are particularly good at masking social difficulties at school but this can be exhausting and can mean bringing problems home.

Marne,

If she's anything like me, then I suspect these games are always going to be hard for her. I was thinking about my strategies as a girl but I wouldn't recommend many of them frankly. Finding a group who were playing french elastic instead worked well though. Do girls still play that?

I like what Amber says when she suggests that DD1 should learn that "it's totally OK not to join in with the games at all." It must be a lot of pressure for her at the moment - like we would feel if we were trying to learn tennis by playing in the Wimbledon finals. Doesn't matter how much you like tennis, you don't learn to play better by watching balls whizz by and wishing you could do those mysterious things the great players can!