Here's one of my big issues, which no one in my immediate circle really knows about. My daughter is PDD-NOS. My absolute least favorite thing to do is take her to the park. She loves to go there, of course. But she hasn't had a serious run-in with a "normal" but insensitive child yet.

My daughter is 7 years old. While she has no social defenses whatsoever, let alone skills, she is acutely aware of her own differences. She has terrible performance anxiety, she can't bear to make a mistake, and she becomes embarrassed (mortified might be a better term) if she finds herself performing socially unacceptable behavior. Let's just say, emotionally, she "bruises" easily.

On the other hand, she wants nothing more than to make friends and be among other children. She just doesn't have the tools, much like other autistic or PDD children. So she really ends up setting herself up for disappointment, approaching other kids and not knowing what to do or how to act next. Meanwhile, even the nicest kids don't know what to do with her when approached. Her body moves in an irregular way when she's excited, she can't answer their questions or requests, she's an enigma to the average kid. And that's not even the mean kids!

So parks are my least favorite place to be. They're completely unpredictable and uncontrolled environments. I don't know how to fill her desires for social interaction when she's incapable of carrying on a conversation. Is it healthy for her to be placed in the potentially explosive environment of a public playground? Is it healthy to keep her among other PDD kids who also don't communicate "normally," or will that impair her even more?

What do I do?

HI

this reminds me of a past situation i have been in as a special needs teacher. 2 years ago i worked in a summer camp setting. my job was to be one on one with a 13 year old boy "joe" with autism. he was the only kid in his age group who had special needs so i wasn't sure what to do with him. you know how boys that age can be. so the first week or so was rough. the kid withdrew into his notebooks and gameboys. but i could tell he wanted to make friends, because everytime the other kids brought in video games joe would go sit with them and watch. he didn't know how to ask to play and would only attempt to play it when the boys were doing something else. the boys never offered him a turn but one day they wanted to play joe's pocket game boy but joe wouldn't share and got very tantrumy and possessive. i wrote joe a note (he could read and write real well) and stated that if he wanted to use their video games he should let them try his game boy. then i privately explained to the boys the situation "he doesn't know how to ask, but would like to play your games, " or something like that. they were like "sure" it took a few days, since joe was not willing to share, but then eventually he said ok. they traded games and it was a bonding moment. the boys loved the pocket gameboys so they had something in common. joe was always looking out of the corner of his eye to see how his games were doing but the shared video game thing was a friendship that was comfortable to all parties involved. also the boys began bring ing in movies, joe also was into movies, so they would all watch movies together. of course, i was bored at this job, since i did nothing but watch video games and movies all day, but i was there to be a voice for joe and i also noticed by writing things down for him, he understood and accepted what i had to say better. joe enjoyed archery also, so i took him over to the classes twice a week and he would say these off the wall things whenever someone made a good shot. he would yell"pocohantas!!" or something. the kids laughed, but they really did get a kick out of him, they thought he was a funny. one kid was like" i remember him from last year, can he still recite all the names of movies by the year they came out?" i was like " i don't know" so they tried to get him to say it. i could tell they were impressed that he was able to do this. so that probably made joe feel good even though he would not recite anything on demand. again, i stood by to be a voice to the kids who were like 'whats his deal?" i tried to educate the "typical" kids. if i didn't act uncomfortable around him, they seemed to loosen up too.

on another note, by 4 year old nephew(pdd) also loves the park. he often plays alone running from thing to thing. but he will play chasing games with other kids who start to play with him. the only thing is he gets angry and upset when the kid runs off to play somewhere else. he takes it personally and runs after the kid saying'come back here now!" i started up a game by chasing my nephew around the park saying"i'm gonna get you!" so of course soon i had 5 other preschooolers saying "get me get me!" so we all interacted together and the other parents were thrilled they could sit on the bench while i played with their kids. so my nephew made friends that day but without the struggle of conversation.

i am not very experienced with autism, so i thought i would just share those stories what i learned from it is that children with autism need friends but will have to go about it in a different way. but it is possible. the focus should be on shared interests and how are we the same? the main thing is all kids like fun things, so if you make it fun for everyone, they interact naturally on their own.

the other kids may just need to hear reassurance from you that your kid is cool and fun too, just needs help expressing herself.

good luck and i hope you get some helpful advice in this area.

Hi PPD and the Park,

I can relate to what you're going to exactly. My daughter is 9 and I really dread taking her to the playground. Unlike your daughter however, my daughter is oblivious to other children's reactions to her. She's very low on the speech and language scale and has no social skills whatsoever, so even if the other kids where talking about her or laughing at her, she wouldn't know that they were laughing at her or doesn't understand what embarassment is or anything like that. I guess this is a good thing in a sense. She doesn't know how to interact with other kids and can not talk in a normal conversation either as she has a very limited vocabulary and can only utter 2-3 word sentences.

Luckily, the kids at the park haven't been teasing her or anything. They look at her with curiousity but that's about it. She runs past them on the playground set, avoids them when they're on the slide and occasionally gets upset when a small child gets on a child swing that she normally likes to swing (she can't fit in it so she just pushes the empty swing). She tries to get the child out of the swing and I have to run over there and tell her "no" and to let the child swing (and then apologize to the surprised parent standing there).

Parents also look at her with curiosity and wondering what's wrong with this kid but they seem to usually dismiss it as a normal behavior for an immature child. The only person she plays with is me. She will say "get me, get me" and I have to chase her all of the playground. She sees the other children playing IT so she wants to play to, but not with them.

She sees a behaviorist once a month and he encourages us to encourage her to interact with other children as much as possible. Now granted that is sound advice however the behaviorist we take her to is not trained in autism. He's a general behaviorist that seem to apply "nomal" behavior tactics used for normal kids I think. Saying that however, in school, they encourage this interaction by bringing in mainstream kids into the class (her class has all autistic kids) for social interaction. She seems to handle this OK - no temper tandrums or withdrawals to a corner of the room.

Now recently (just yesterday), she just started a really bad habit which I hope we can train her not to do. She's now starting to pull open her pants and panties where you can see her privates. Apparently, she starting to notice the changes to her body. Well for the 1st time, she did this in the park where kids were present! Now I REALLY hate going to the park. She really likes going to the park and if I don't take her, it's extreme melt-down time.

So, I say all of that to give you this advice and to answer your question (finally:-) Although our behaviorist is not really trained in autism, I think he has a good point about keeping autistic kids around normal kids and encourage interaction as much as possible. If your daughter is like mines, she mimics everything she sees, so if she sees how normal kids behave on a playground and watches what they do and how they play together, she will eventually pick up on this and want to do the same thing. Initialy, it'll be just with you so you'll have to play the other kid for a while (kinda like what hopeToHeal mentined in her experience). Once she starts doing this, maybe you can try to get her to interact with close friends and relatives her age first before graduating her to kids in the playground that she's never met before. I'm thinking of doing this myself.

Now the alternative is to keep her with other autistic or special needs children. While this may make YOU feel confortable, it may not be the best solution for her. Here's why in my opinion. In my daughter's case she will try to mimic their behavior. If their behavior is like hers, she won't grow or learn now to behave appropriately. An example of this is when our child was in a special school when she was in kindergarden. This school was for a wide range of disorders. The kids in her class had behavior problems that she didn't exhibit (like cursing, hitting, fighting, etc.). She was put in this school due to a mis-diagnostics by the school district. (they thought she was abehavior problem and at the time, we din't know she was autistic). After a while, she started mimicing some of these behaviors as well. These kids sometime had to be physically restrained by several assitants on the ground. Our daughter would kindof freak out when this happens with all of the yelling, screaming and crying. She starting acting out these behaviors herself when she didn't get what she wanted and this was something new for her. So I believe that as much as possible, allow her to see what normal kids do and behave and I think she'll eventually get it.

RD

Thank you both, you've been extremely helpful. Not only is it good advice, but it's nice to feel like I'm not the only one with this problem. I totally agree that putting her in with other special needs children (especially those whose needs are different or more severe than hers) is a bad idea, since she'll just end up mimicking their symptoms as well. Nobody absorbs others' behaviors like a PDD child. My daughter has never been in a school setting, 'normal' or otherwise, because it wasn't until recently that she was able to behave at all, and we still have occasional potty accidents. We live near a very small elementary school that has an entire resource room with almost no one using it, so she may begin a couple of hours a day there, then work her way into a few hours with the regular class (attended by an aid, of course.)

My daughter relates better with boys, also. They don't expect any complex conversation, they just want to bump around and be goofy, which works for her. She's an attractive little girl, so little boys typically want to draw her attention by entertaining her. The few good friends she's had have been boys, and when they learned their way around her difficulties, they became protective of her. I'm hoping that continues, but she's going to need more opportunities in controlled environments where she can see the same kids consistently-- and we can have some control over who it is she's with.

The hard thing about the playground is that I'd like to take her in the off hours when other kids aren't around, but she gets bored quickly and says "we need other kids." Maybe group play dates at the park are an idea. At least some of the kids would already know her. That stuff's hard to coordinate around my other two smaller children, but I definitely have to try something.

Teaching a child appropriate skills will ease the child's anxiety of "what to do".
You need to teach what does not come naturally to them. Show her how to hold her body still when excited, and practice. Teach short phrases to help her intereact if she chooses. Use movies, social stories, notes, play acting-
whatever works. Do not allow behaviors that you would not allow in a child who does not have autism.

Children pick up on parents' hesitation and embarassment, and learn self expectations from what their parents expect. If you feel that the child is "disabled" or not "normal"- a child will certainly act in ways to confirm that- just as high expectations will produce a positive, confident, successful child with high expectations for themself. 99% of even the most low functioning children with autism can learn the meaning of "no".

C-GA

Hi,
I am new. Just read this thread and had to respond. My 7 year old son has recently been diagnosed with high fuctioning autism. Infact it was a trip to a play area that prompted me to seek advice in the first place after he bolted from the play area.

Anyway, I had come to dread going but have begun to take him at a quieter time of day which seems to work well. Last week we went at 10am and had a great time. He cannot cope with a busy play area. I am not sure if I am doing the right thing or not but it seems to work for us at the moment.

Jazzel

Hi,
Actually I'm doing the same thing you're doing right now. For example, yesterday, we went to the usual playground that we go to but we left left in the day - around 5:30 pm. By that time, there's a lot of other kids there. That, in of itself is not a big problem with my daughter. All she does is play in the wood particles that all playground now have and pretty much stays to herself. One little girl was trying to talk to my daughter and say hi but my daughter didn't even acknowledge her. It did pain me a little to see that but it wasn't much I could do. The little girl (about 6 years old) looked liked she really wanted to make friends with her and play with her. I didn't try to explain to the little girl that my daughter doesn't talk much so don't take it personally because I doubt at that age they would understand anyway.

So anyway, my daughter like to play basketball on a normal size court and the basketball court also had a lot of boys there playing. The problem is that she would just want me to take her there regardless of whether they were playing a game or not and will have a crying fit if I don't let her play. Since I forgot to bring the B-ball anyway, I told her that we need to go home and get it. Luckily she agreed. That was my queue to get out of the park ayway but we have another playground a block away from my house which belongs to the grade school that is there. Barely anyone goes there. So we walked there instead of driving to the other park. She initially barked at the idea and wanted to go to the other park but I firmly told her that we either go here or we go home. She chose the park - which has everything the other has - just no kids are there. So she played in the playground and we played a little b-ball as well and we both were happy campers.

So I think it's ok to go to the park when you think others are not there every once in a while - especially if your child is not yet ready to interact with other kids. Take it slow. As I was saying in a previous post, start off slow by maybe trying to get your child to play with close freinds or relatives before you graduate the child to a public park full of screaming, running kids who don't understand your child's special needs.

RD
P.S. I still dread taking her to the park however ;-)

It was great to read your reply. thanks.

I find my son's difficulty interacting with other children the most difficult thing to deal with. Even a extended family meet up is extremely stressful. Last time it ended up with me and my son in tears with my other son just loking extremely bewildered at all the fuss as well as disappointed that he didn't get to see his cousins for long.
There is also a big clash between my 7 year old A.S.D son and his 11 year old cousin who loves to wind him up and in the past get him into trouble!

The paeditrician has recommeneded we have a 'bolt hole' that he can go to if it get's too much. I haven't tried that yet.

Jazzel