Words of advice - help with a 7 year old boy maintaining friends and moving from different activities, etc .

[TeganB]

Hi All .

I joined this group in order to get some real life advice for my nephew who is 7 and recently diagnosed with ASD level 2 & ADHD He is currently in different therapies but I thought it may be helpful to get some advice on how to support , teach , guide him to maintaining healthy friendships. He currently has a best friend who is also Adhd and plays in groups at school . Recently I have noticed he is starting to struggle with play transitions , from one game to the next etc.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions/ tips that may of been useful for yourself .

 

[Rodafina]

Hello and welcome. I hope that we can be supportive to you as you try to be supportive to your nephew. It's good for young ones on the spectrum to have loving adults who understand them.

I thought it may be helpful to get some advice on how to support , teach , guide him to maintaining healthy friendships

This is a great inquiry, but also a very complicated one. It has been difficult for many of us to establish and maintain healthy friendships, and yet it is such an important and useful thing to learn in life. Something that could help with this is to help your nephew build his self esteem and self-awareness. The more your nephew is confident in who he is, the better he will be prepared to form and keep friendships.

The self-esteem part can help prevent getting into friendships that are not so healthy (being taken advantage or manipulated by others). The self-awareness part can help us understand social interactions which can be quite confusing and overwhelming. Self awareness (of how we are interacting with others) can help with things like taking turns in conversations, working together and sharing ideas, and figuring out a way to reciprocate feelings.

Recently I have noticed he is starting to struggle with play transitions , from one game to the next etc.

I would recommend allowing extra time for all transitions. Most kids benefit from advance notice that there is a transition coming up and then some time to allow it to happen. As an autistic adult, I am still like this and any transition that can occur slowly with some kind of warning goes better for me.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Teach how to read the hands on a clock.

Make sure the children are gently told ahead of time when each activity will happen.

Perhaps make a chart?

And say "we have fifteen minutes left", "we have ten minutes left",

And then at five minutes perhaps sing

"Clean up
Clean up
Everybody everywhere
Clean up
Clean up
Everybody do your share"

As you're all cleaning up your stations and before moving on to the next task, allow the children to share what their favorite thing about the last task was. What would they have done differently too. Maybe they could share their work with the class?

And then allow the children to regroup, naturally, in their new station.

No one loses their tempers. No one left behind.

Nothing forced. Nothing rushed. Just all done gently and slowly. Like the turning of the seasons.

 

[TeganB]

Hello and welcome. I hope that we can be supportive to you as you try to be supportive to your nephew. It's good for young ones on the spectrum to have loving adults who understand them.


This is a great inquiry, but also a very complicated one. It has been difficult for many of us to establish and maintain healthy friendships, and yet it is such an important and useful thing to learn in life. Something that could help with this is to help your nephew build his self esteem and self-awareness. The more your nephew is confident in who he is, the better he will be prepared to form and keep friendships.

The self-esteem part can help prevent getting into friendships that are not so healthy (being taken advantage or manipulated by others). The self-awareness part can help us understand social interactions which can be quite confusing and overwhelming. Self awareness (of how we are interacting with others) can help with things like taking turns in conversations, working together and sharing ideas, and figuring out a way to reciprocate feelings.


I would recommend allowing extra time for all transitions. Most kids benefit from advance notice that there is a transition coming up and then some time to allow it to happen. As an autistic adult, I am still like this and any transition that can occur slowly with some kind of warning goes better for me.

Thank you for all of this . How can we help with transitioning into different play activities . For example - his friends are happy to play his chosen activity for a time but then when they want to go do something else he is still set on playing his activity. I'm worried this will end up in playing solo and bickering at school because he is so set on playing his activity and struggle to be able to go from play to the next etc.

 

[TeganB]

Teach how to read the hands on a clock.

Make sure the children are gently told ahead of time when each activity will happen.

Perhaps make a chart?

And say "we have fifteen minutes left", "we have ten minutes left",

And then at five minutes perhaps sing

"Clean up
Clean up
Everybody everywhere
Clean up
Clean up
Everybody do your share"

As you're all cleaning up your stations and before moving on to the next task, allow the children to share what their favorite thing about the last task was. What would they have done differently too. Maybe they could share their work with the class?

And then allow the children to regroup, naturally, in their new station.

No one loses their tempers. No one left behind.

Nothing forced. Nothing rushed. Just all done gently and slowly. Like the turning of the seasons.

Thank you for this advice .

 

[Rodafina]

Thank you for all of this . How can we help with transitioning into different play activities . For example - his friends are happy to play his chosen activity for a time but then when they want to go do something else he is still set on playing his activity. I'm worried this will end up in playing solo and bickering at school because he is so set on playing his activity and struggle to be able to go from play to the next etc.

That’s a tricky one, for sure. Sometimes in social situations, natural consequences are what become the best teachers. Perhaps your nephew will learn that if he sticks with the original activity, he will end up playing alone and if he wants to be with his friends, he will have to adapt.

I wonder if it’s okay to have a lot of time playing alone. For my part, and I know for many others here (from the stories they shared), playing alone was an essential way to learn about things, indulge fascinations, and have the alone time that we require to process things. Although, I do certainly understand what you’re saying, and I do think it’s valuable to try to support your nephew’s ability to socialize with others.

It can be difficult to control children’s interactions, so maybe one way to tackle this is to have conversations about this sort of thing with your nephew when he is not engaged in playing. In regular, quiet times, talk to him about how sometimes kids will get tired of playing certain things. Remind him that there are lots of different fun things to play and that he can always come back to his preferred activities when his friends are not available to play.

 

[Fino]

Have you tried talking to him about it?