How Can I Help My Neurodivergent Child Connect with Neurotypical Peers?
(Listener Question)

Debbie:

Today I have Margaret Webb joining me. If she’s not on your radar, she is the author of the amazing book, A Hero’s Journey in Parenting, Parenting the Child You Didn’t Expect When You Were Expecting. She was also my parenting coach back in the day, she still shows up for me when I need it, which I’m very grateful for. And she’s also the lead parent coach in my Differently Wired Club, and she just beautifully supports the parents in that community. So thank you so much for being here, Margaret.

Margaret:

I’m excited to be here.

Debbie:

Well, let’s get right into it. Let’s get to today’s question. So this listener asked, what is the best way to support my seven year old autistic son in connecting with neurotypical peers when his social skills aren’t quite aligned? He’s sweet, social and verbal, though not as fluent or nuanced as his classmates. While he gets invited to parties and seems liked, I can tell he doesn’t quite know how to engage in a reciprocal way. He wants friends to come over, but I worry about rejection if kids say no or things getting awkward if he loses interest mid play date, which has happened before. I wanna support his desire to connect, but I’m not sure what my role should be, especially since I’m not super socially confident myself. So great question. And one that I think a lot of parents are going to relate to, social stuff comes up all the time in our community. And it’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about personally. And yeah, I just wanna just say you are in good company if this is something that you’re concerned about. 

Okay, so we’re going to be talking about helping this parent support her seven year old autistic son and connecting with neurotypical peers when social skills aren’t aligned. And the good news is this is a kid who is socially motivated and kind of wants that connection. And as a parent, we can be really worried about, you know, what is going to happen if my child’s rejected or my child has made fun of or excluded because the way they show up to those relationships might look very different. So this is, I guess, before I even start sharing some thoughts for how to kind of scaffold for your kiddo, I would just invite you to get really clear on your own anxieties around social stuff. This is a button, a hot button for a lot of parents because we read the articles and we hear about the importance of belonging and social connection and all of those things. And when we have kids whose social lives look very different than maybe ours did, or what we think they should look like, or what they look like on TV, or what we see our friends’ kids’ social lives looking like, that can really strike a lot of fear and worry and concern and anxiety in our hearts and minds. So yeah, even before you start thinking about how to support your, your son, your child, I would get really clear on, okay, what’s my worry here and where is my stuff interfering or influencing my thinking or decisions that I’m making and Margaret’s nodding her head. So I know that she’s in agreement with me.

Margaret:

I am like that was a bunch of notes that I had right off the bat of just you know play dates like there’s there you know it’s kind of one of those things where it’s like I have kids you know and and when they get to a certain age then we have play dates and play dates with with our kiddos are you know there’s a lot of other stuff involved and so, yes, take care of your stuff first and really think about the what and the why. Like, what am I making this playdate mean or having playdates mean and why is it so important? And what am I thinking that it should look like? What am I thinking? What is the frequency and what weight am I giving that to the future of my child’s socialization? Because it’s, you know, we can put a lot of weight on it. And it’s like, well, like, he might, you know, need time off, like his socialization might be done at school and like, okay, now I’m gonna have to like, it might be another ask or a task, which keeps coming up for me.

Debbie:

Yeah. I think that is such a good point too, that even if our kids are highly motivated and they want the thing, it may be something that also dysregulates them. And especially with a younger child too who isn’t going to be necessarily tuned in with, this is actually something that dysregulates me, right? Like if we’re, you know, at our wise age that we are now middle age, you know, we know, like I was telling Margaret before we hit record, I’m going to a concert tonight and I’m like, I know what my nervous system can take. I’m bringing supplies to support myself in that process that I know that I can leave it if and when I need to, even if the concert’s not over, but our kids are not, especially if they’re socially motivated, they’re going to want to do the thing even if we know from watching them that it’s too much, you know, stimulation for them or there’s a threshold and they get to a point and things can go off the rails. So yeah, it is. Yeah.

Margaret:

Or even pressure like of, know, from us, like during the playdate of seeing like, they’re parallel playing, but they should be interacting or the parallel play is no longer happening and one of them is drifted off and then no, should, you know, you should play next to your friend or you should be playing with your friend. And it’s like, okay, that’s added pressure when. And that’s where it’s like, okay, like what do I need the playdate to look like? What could it look like? Which is getting us into more of the scaffolding stuff, but like really to kind of, think as a parent to check in with what are my expectations going in?

Debbie:

Yeah. And you mentioned the word should. So if we’re thinking like this, my child should want to be playing or this should look a certain way or my child should be included. I, you know, I definitely, it’s been a while, but I do remember those days of being almost hyper concerned about the experience of the other child. Right. I wanted so badly for things to go really well. And you know, I definitely, if there was like more intense energy with my kiddo that I wanted to just make sure the other child was, you know, like I found myself very kind of enmeshed in everybody’s experience, which was really stressful. So I would definitely do things a little differently now and kind of know that there’s a learning that can happen for everybody when things happen and you know, I don’t know what that play date should have looked like or what the best way for two six-year-olds to play is, you know. So it is really interesting how these things can really trigger us. But let’s talk a little bit then about scaffolding and you started. So the first thing I was going to share, and then maybe we can go, we can play off of each other here. So I was thinking how important it is, and we did this a lot, is to just really prep ahead of time, you know, make sure that you’re communicating with your kiddo about what’s what the plan is, you know, how long you know, set expectations, how long will it be? What are some activities you want to do? What’s our plan if this is hard? Or maybe your child has ideas about things that he wants to do with the other child that you’re like, that could go bad. Like, they’re going to play this game. That doesn’t ever end well. So, you know, maybe staring in a different direction, but really prepping ahead of time and discuss how to handle things. And what will we do if you need a break? What if you just start getting upset? What should our plan be? Can we have a code word? Right. So coming up with a plan with our kiddo ahead of time, I’m going to hand the baton to you.

Margaret:

Yeah, you know, there’s like keeping the play date short at first. Like really thinking about, know my child and like we want it to go well. But like knowing that, yeah, you know, your neighbors might have like three hour play dates and it’s like, okay, we’re gonna do a one hour play date. And I think the thing that came up for me was that like a lot of it is almost like dating again. Like you’re kind of dating other parents, know, kind of figuring out like, okay, who are parents that I think they’re, you my child might have people who are on their radar list of who they want to invite over for a play date. And then having a conversation with those parents and really seeing like, okay, is this like, we would like to have your child over and, you know, we’re looking at like an hour. And can you just ask your child if this is something that they’d be into? 

And I would do that before, you know, I would kind of make the list and then have these conversations before you even tell the child, hey, I’m going to call, you know, like Ben’s mom. And I’m going to see if Ben’s mom thinks that, you know, if Ben wants to come over, because then you’re setting an expectation. And if Ben doesn’t want to come over, then there is going to be disappointment. And so kind of doing some of the research and some of the like kind of the behind the scenes stuff doing that to see like, okay, who are the good fits, maybe asking the teacher, are there people that he is drawn to? Are there people that share similar interests so that you can reach out? You could even say, hey, like, you know, they might not be able to give you their information, but like you might say, can you put this in their like a written letter or some, you know, just a note into their kids folder and say, please reach out, like we’d love to have a playdate and kind of going back to things like that. But it does require vulnerability and going back to the parent, like knowing, okay, if it’s not gonna be a good fit, yeah, it might sting and it might hurt. But also, like I always tell my son, like I want people who are kind and loving to be around you. I want people who are a good fit. 

And sometimes there are people who aren’t a good fit and it’s good to know and it’s good to learn. But like for the most part, as much as possible, trying to find those people who are a good fit for you. And like if there are similar interests, to be okay with parallel play, to be okay with it. You know, and I guess the teacher in me is more, comfortable being a facilitator and like not getting tangled up in the other kids stuff like you were expressing like, you yeah, I want them to be happy, but it’s almost like I’ve dealt with 35, five and six year olds. And so I know that they’re not all going to mesh together. And so it’s okay. And can I be okay with them playing different things together or near each other? And if things go south or if things stop going well, then being willing to say, okay, you know, we’re gonna, we’re calling it. And having that one hour time period or having a short time period is awesome. We did a lot of play dates at a playground at first. Not, I wouldn’t say a lot. We did play dates with one family who had a daughter around our kid’s age. And so it was, they would go off, but like we could kind of, and it was okay. It was fine. Like our intention was as parents to connect and they got close and they’re still close. They’re now 19 and 21 and they still message each other on Instagram. So also playing the long game of knowing socialization might not look the way that you think it should look at this age, that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to happen.

Debbie:

Yeah, such good stuff. Yeah. And I love that idea of asking the teacher. I mean, I think about my kiddos like BFF from age four was an introduction from a preschool teacher with a kid in a different class a different year, but who recognized, I think they’re going to hit it off. And they really did. So teachers can, can help to guide that. I love the recommendation of keeping it short and sweet, to think about ourselves in that role, because this parent is asking, I’m not sure what my role should be here, since I’m not socially confident myself. I think just being, as you said, like a guide, like being there as a support. And if you’re having a playdate, like I always found that like, hey, it’s time for some tea and cookies. you can kind of, you can be the one to pivot if with, and who doesn’t love tea and cookies or kind of some sort of a snack I always found was a really good way to kind of shake things up and get kids involved in a different way. So I think of yourself as a coach and just being there as a support is great. And then the last thing, just to reiterate what you were saying, just lowering the stakes where this play date. It doesn’t have to be that we’re looking for the ride or die BFF. There’s going to be lots of different personalities and experiences that our kids are going to have and that they might have one play date and never again, but they got something out of that play date, whatever it is, there was learning there, there was an opportunity to connect, to experience being in relationship with another person. So just being open about like, no expectations about what this could look like and just keep showing up for those things, keeping them short and sweet and yeah, checking in with yourself always, I think is such a good before, during and after is a good thing to do.

Margaret:

Well, and one of the things that has come up a couple of times, and I’ll keep this short, is that the neurotypical kids who are into sports or organized activities, they have it easier because there’s a built-in, you’re sitting there in the stands with other moms and you’re like, hey, yeah, we should get the boys together. We should get the girls together. We should get them together for a play date. And like, I also want to honor that, that it’s a little bit more challenging and more dating-like for us when there aren’t, you know, our opportunities, we’re sitting in a OT or speech waiting room, and it wasn’t always the most friendly and warm and welcoming. It wasn’t like sitting on the soccer stands or, you know.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah. And those, yeah, no, I, you know, as you’re saying that those play dates could be few and far between. So it’s also understandable that there’d be a lot of pressure or expectations that, you know, fingers crossed, this is going to turn into something, right? Like we can be wanting that so badly. I, yeah, I think that’s a good thing to just acknowledge. We understand that this feels really important to us and quite probably for our kids as well. 

Margaret:

But there’s also like there are many times when I’m like, thank God for autism, because we don’t have our weekends, you know, as somebody who does like to be a homebody, we don’t have weekends filled with sitting in the soccer stands and the baseball fields. And so I like to throw out a little humor with that where it’s like, okay, all right, we get to pick and choose and yeah, so.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, thank you to the listener who submitted that question. If you’re listening to this and you have a question that you would like to hear from us on, you can submit it via a simple form and write it out, or you can actually even just call and leave a voicemail. I have a URL where you just call and leave your message. So thank you for sharing your wisdom and for joining me on this episode, Margaret.

Margaret:

Thank you and thank you to the caller.