Making Peace

No one was ever the villain.

I want to make this blog post brief and to the point.

Not too long ago this month, I decided to go say hello to a schoolmate I used to go to high school with. Knew him since elementary.

I took a good gander at what I did say to him much MUCH much earlier; eight years ago to be specific, and I was not proud of myself for what I have said to him. I can't tell you the details but I will say that the main reason why I said those wrong things was because of the absence of inclusion. Abandoned, alone, and left out. Still was not right to say rude things. I still had to say something to him to say hi, and I couldn't just ignore my mistake, so I went on and said that I was a big jerk back then and that I was sorry for so many things.

The guy said no hard feelings and said that HE was a bit of a jerk too. I didn't believe him, and wanted to take all of the blame saying he and the friends were innocent and I was the villain.

Then he responded by...

How do you help your child with autism make friends? Friendships and relationships in general are hard for someone that has autism. Many times those with autism have a difficult time “putting themselves in another person’s shoes”.

That analogy alone is difficult for someone with autism to even understand.

Friendships can be formed with a understanding peer group. Those groups can be found in your general community, as part of your church, at school, a formal social skills group, or a wide variety of other places. It does take effort and some trial and error to find a workable solution.

Once you have an understanding peer group you can then start modeling behavior. A person with autism must create thousands of desperate social files, that can eventually be weaved together to form a framework of friendships and relationships.

It takes a lot of time, but it’s well worth it in the end, as your child develops the potential to have lifelong relationships.