Goldilocks befriended two children who just moved to the neighborhood!

That may not sound like much, but for a boy with autism, it's a big deal! He is thirteen, and wants to have friends, but doesn't know how to make friends or understand how friendship works. We've had trouble with neighborhood bullies taking advantage of him, and he would just accept it because he was so desperate for friendship. (Click the Label "the kids down the street" if you haven't read all that story before.)

He doesn't usually understand enough of what older kids are doing to participate, but younger kids sometimes find him intimidating because he's bigger than they are, and don't know what to make of him because he's different.

A family with a girl and a boy, about ten and eight, I'd guess, moved in next door a few weeks ago. They haven't been home much, and until recently, kept their distance. GL saw them playing in the yard, went out and introduced himself, and asked if he could play! They accepted, and BB joined them a bit later. The four of them had an enjoyable game of tag.

Taking the initiative, approaching a potential playmate, following social conventions, joining in, and playing a game without adult supervision or assistance--for him any one of these would be an accomplishment, but doing all of them in one afternoon integrated into one activity is huge!

Arrested

Yesterday afternoon, I looked out the window and saw a patrol car from the sheriff's department pull up in front of our house with lights flashing. My first thought was, "Oh, no! GL must have called 911 again!" But he insisted he hadn't used the phone. I watched, and the deputy got out of the car and walked down to the house where TKDTS live. That's when I saw another patrol car already at that address. A few minutes later, a deputy brought the oldest of TKDTS out in handcuffs and put him in the car. They stayed at the house a long time. Then they drove away with him.

TKDTS teenage cousin, who lives next door to them, was out in the yard watching. He was arrested a few months ago for possession. We started locking our car doors at night when we started noticing a suspicious smell in our car every morning. This isn't (or wasn't) a high-crime neighborhood. Most of our neighbors are retirees. This is a small town. Underage drinking, drunk driving, and drug use are usually the most serious crimes that happen around here. Sigh.

Three Days

That's how long it took TKDTS to figure out that GL wasn't playing with them. Yesterday afternoon, Mama Bear and GL were out in the yard when the youngest of TKDTS came by and asked if he could come play. MB said no. He was shocked and asked why. When she said, "Because you threw him in the water," he said he didn't do it, it was his older brothers. MB said that didn't matter, GL was not coming over to play. A few minutes later, his mother came up the walk to debate the matter. I took GL inside, because he was yelling, "I have to play with my friends!"

Mama Bear talked to TKDTS' mother. She insisted that it wasn't her kids that threw him in the water, it was some other kids who were visiting. She also denied the penis threat. Funny, there was no penis-cutting talk until they moved into the neighborhood, and we've met other relatives of this family who say that's pretty typical of how the boys talk when their mother's not around. When she's around, they pretend to be little angels. They don't have to keep it up for long, because she rarely comes outside, and then only to the driveway to watch the toddlers she babysits. Her kids, meanwhile, even the six year old, are running all over town long after dark.

The mother wouldn't quit arguing, so MB finally said, "It doesn't matter. We're taking a break." She didn't mention that the break is permanent. I've been told that he needs to learn how to deal with these situations by experience. Excuse me, one of the main traits of autism is an inability to pick up on social cues. That's like throwing a quadraplegic into shark-infested waters and hoping he'll learn to swim. GL keeps insisting he needs to go play with TKDTS "because they're my friends." He obviously isn't learning from this experience. We need to think of his safety.

The Kids down the Street

The kids down the street have been an ongoing problem. GL doesn't recognize when people are mistreating him, taking advantage of him, telling him to do wrong, or letting him take the fall. If they tell him they are his friends, he believes them without question, despite all evidence to the contrary, and defends them when others, even those closest to him, question their loyalty. BB recognizes when they are taking advantage of GL, and warns and protects him as best an 11 year old can, but GL insists on playing with TKDTS all the time, and BB can't always be there, and would rather not play with them at all because they are unpleasant people.

They order GL around, give his autographed football to their dog to chew on, dare him to do things he can't or shouldn't do, teach him to swear and call people "idiot" "moron" and "retard", trip him and laugh when he falls, mock him and call him names, and he keeps coming back like an abused puppy, hoping that maybe, this time, his "friends" will give him some hint of belonging. In response, they refuse to play with him, run away when they see him coming, insist on playing beyond the boundaries of where he is allowed to go on his own, make him the butt of their jokes, find new ways to torment him for their own amusement, and threaten to cut off his penis.

Almost the entire winter's snowfall melted this week. (We've had only a few partial thaws all winter. It's been up to nearly 50 degrees every day.) Then it rained several days in a row. TKDTS now have a lake in their back yard. It's one of those low-lying areas I mentioned. We don't live on a hill, we actually live in a valley, but it's a valley with someplace to drain to. Almost no puddles in our yard, and not a hint of water in our basement. GL insisted on going to play with them this afternoon. He came back soaked to the neck. His winter coat, shirt, pants, and socks were saturated with mud. His shoes squished out water when he walked. First he said TKDTS pushed him in. Then, sensing that I might be displeased with them, insisted that they hadn't because "they're my friends." But he had no other explanation of how he got wet.

He wanted to go right back out and play with them. I insisted on a dry change of clothes. Maybe he had fallen in accidentally. Maybe, but I doubted it. As soon as he was changed he insisted on going back. His shoes were too wet to wear, and he only has one pair, so I compromised, and let him wear his boots. He ran back to their yard, and they pushed him in again. He came back and told me, but insisted on going back. I wouldn't let him. I closed the door. He began pounding on the glass, trying to get out. I managed to distract him with a new DVD, a present I'd been keeping in reserve. I told him he had to take a bath before he could watch it. He reluctantly got in the tub. After his bath and DVD, I distracted him with a computer game until evening. Then he decided it was time to go back and play with them. I said no. He started screaming and pounding on the walls, then hit a window and said he was going to break it to get out. I gave him his meds and put him to bed early.

I have no intention of letting him go to their house to play again. I haven't decided whether I'll let them play over here if they want to--they haven't been to interested in that lately, anyway.

The Kids down the Street are Back

Actually, they never left. Just when I was getting used to the idea of them being gone, Mama Bear ran into their grandma (who they live with) at the grocery store. She said Goldilocks hadn't done anything to offend them; they had just got new computers for Christmas, and had been spending most of their free time indoors playing with them. I also noticed that their mother is a southerner, and although she doesn't mind her kids running the streets at all hours of the night, she seems to think it's dangerous to play outside if there is snow on the ground. She actually came looking for them when they were playing inside our house or in the snow in our yard because she was worried about the cold. Yesterday they were playing outside with no coats. The weather hasn't changed at all, but they don't need coats any more because it's March, don'cha know.

(Okay, I'll admit it, I was relieved. I suspected they had been taking advantage of GL, and I know they taught him swear words. They're already bullying him again, but he insists they're not bullies, they're his friends. Why? Because they told him so. Just the kind of kids I don't want him playing with, but if he has to learn the hard way, I'd rather he did it when I can still rescue him if he needs it.)

The Kids down the Street are gone

Shortly after Christmas, TKDTS abruptly stopped hanging around here. They stopped playing with GL and BB. GL kept saying, "I need to go play with my friends." He came back once and said they told him to go away. I never found out why. He kept going back to ask them to play, so I went over to ask if he was bothering them. When I knocked on the door, I heard loud arguing inside, but no one would come to the door. I brought GL home. A couple weeks later, I stopped seeing them around the neighborhood. They had been living with relatives. I think they moved out.

Today I saw a blog post about neighborhood kids that made me smile.

Sledding and Cake

Since MB took a cake decorating class, she has been making cakes to practice her skills. Cake is good, but we've been eating more cake than is good for us. TKDS (the kids down the street) plus some of their friends from around the neighborhood spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons sliding down the hill beside our house. GL and BB joined them. It's not much of a hill, and with the warmer temperature, the snow was turning to slush that packed down to a lumpy layer of ice. Some sleds could slide on it, but others had to be pushed all the way down the hill. They seemed to enjoy it anyway.

Then MB got the idea to bring out the extra cake. TKDS & Co. seemed puzzled at first, but everyone accepted a slice. Not everyone finished a slice. I think maybe the pieces with black and gray frosting were less appetizing. Black and gray frosting? It was a Ford 9N tractor cake. I'll let MB tell you that story.

P.S. I just realized that technically, I could call them New Kids on the Block. Nah.

The Kids down the Street Come Back

The kids down the street came over for games again last night. I brought out several, and they chose Mind Your Manners. We have several game of that general type to GL learn the rules of appropriate behavior, but we have a wide variety of other games, so I was a little surprised that they chose that one. BB was home, so he was able to explain the rules and read the cards whenever someone had difficulty. I opted out of the game this time. First there weren't enough pieces. Later they found another piece, but I was busy on the computer, so I just casually observed from the next room.

They seemed to enjoy the game, but lost interest about halfway through and asked for Candyland,which they didn't finish either.

When they first arrived, the 4th grader asked his younger brother if he'd asked their mom's permission to come over. He said he'd asked their dad, and it was okay. Later their mom showed up looking for them. She said their dad didn't know where they were. They sorted that out, and got permission to stay until 6:00.

Their older brother came by later, and stayed to play for a while. By that time, they were done with board games. I had to remind them once or twice not to yell in the house, and only one person at a time on the mini-trampoline. It was almost painless.

Sidewalks, School, Boots, and the Kids Down the Street

I shoveled the walks today or as they say in the South, scraped the sidewalks. Actually, I did scrape them today. Yesterday I shoveled slush several inches deep, then scraped the walks as clean as I could and spread salt because I knew if the slush were left overnight, it would freeze solid. It snowed most of the day yesterday, but the temperature hovered around 35. If it had stayed below freezing, we might have got the 9-12 inches they were predicting, but about half of it melted on the ground and mixed with the rest to form 4-5 inches of slush.

Last night the temp dropped to minus 5, and we got a dusting of real snow, which I scraped today. The temperature slowly crept into the teens, peaked at 20 or 21, and fell rapidly. Now it's 3 above with a windchill of minus 17.

GL fought tooth and nail against every instruction in every subject today. Then he whined for a video, but he was not as whiny as yesterday. After everyone got done what they needed to do on the computer, and he calmed down a bit, I put one on, so BB could do his work without interference. BB was working on symmetry, which we started yesterday. He thought he already knew all about it, but it took him much longer than either of us expected, and he got hung up on several points he thought he already understood. Today's lesson gave half of each figure on a grid, and a line of symmetry, leaving the other half for him to draw. He seemed to have the concept of symmetry mostly down, but had no idea how to locate points on a grid. He tried to just eyeball the lines, without checking the locations of the angles. I had him mark the points where the lines would meet, but he still didn't get the part about counting squares. Finally, I just walked him through a couple of examples. He made a few mistakes after that, but he finally seemed to get it.

MB went to the store to look for winter boots because her old ones had started leaking. They didn't have any warm women's boots in her size, so she ended up with men's boots. They fit well, they are warm and waterproof, and I think they'll hold up better than women's boots. I encouraged her to look at men's work boots, but the insulated ones cost more than the winter boots she ended up with.

BB has not been finished with his school work when the PS lets out, so he can't go out to play when the kids down the street get home. We don't let our kids play outside after dark. I don't mind them playing outside with other kids, I just like to be able to check up on them when necessary. Since it gets dark early this time of year, by the time BB is done, it's too late to go out. So from about 3:00 on, the kids down the street keep coming to the door to see if BB can come out yet.

Now I'm not about to let them dictate our schedule, but constantly telling them one or both boys can't play because BB is still doing his school work does begin to sound like an excuse. I'll admit I'd been wishing they would just go away, but that obviously wasn't happening, and it wouldn't be right to tell them to. GL wants to play with them at every opportunity. My main objection is that they are annoying. They have no idea of good manners or appropriate behavior, and GL will copy anyone he's with and do anything they tell him. But I'd seen enough to know they'd had no instruction, and almost no example. How are they supposed to learn?

BB didn't finish school until time to leave forAWANA* last night. It wasn't too late to play then, just too dark. I saw the kid who'd been waiting for BB just hanging around on the sidewalk, doing nothing. I cleared the table and put the school stuff away, and asked him if he'd like to play a game inside. He said he'd have to ask his mother, which surprised me. She hadn't seemed that concerned with what he was doing before, and even if she were, I hadn't expected him to remember. He came back a few minutes later and asked if his younger brother could come, too. I said yes.

So the two boys and GL and I played games. We played Chutes and Ladders, which they hadn't played before, and Sorry! which they had. They had the basic idea of board games, rolling the die (young children seem to have trouble with spinners, even when they do work right) or drawing a card and counting the spaces, but needed the rules explained again and again. They weren't trying to cheat; they just kept stopping to ask about this rule or that. Either they had a hard time understanding, or they just couldn't remember. Every turn, I had to remind every player that it was his turn. By the end of the game, I had a sore throat. Again, they either had a hard time following or paying attention. They consistently called me Mr. Bear, which I prefer but don't insist on, since so many kids are encouraged to call adults by their first names these days.

About halfway through Sorry! they asked if we could do a puzzle after the game. Everyone gradually lost interest in Sorry! not because they didn't enjoy it, but because we had been playing board games for an hour and a half. I pulled out Melissa & Doug Dinosaurs 48-Piece Floor Puzzle. It fits nicely on our kitchen table. We cleared off the table and got to work. By this time GL was asking for a video, not as a form of social interaction, but as a way of escaping it, as he'd had enough. I told him later, so he wandered off to play by himself. The younger boy seemed to have more aptitude for puzzles, but once he'd completed most of two edges lost interest and wandered off. His brother seemed to have considerably more difficulty figuring out which pieces went together, but was more persistent. I gave him clues, but let him figure it out. He had just finished connecting all four sides when their mother stopped by. She seemed surprised that I hadn't sent them home already. She had to take something to her sister-in-law two miles up the road. The older boy asked if he could finish the puzzle first. She said only if it were okay with me. He was working so hard at the puzzle, I suggested she could collect them on the way back. She seemed surprised and relieved. She returned about 20 minutes later, just as he was finishing the puzzle.

Now I don't subscribe to the theory that there's no such thing as a bad boy, but I've rarely seen boys so eager to please. They just didn't know how, and were eager to learn. Well, that's a hodgepodge of what's been happening here the last couple of days. No amusing narrative thread running through it like that in We Are Having Hamburgers For Dinner, but that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.


*Yes, they would probably benefit from the program, but there are logistical problems with inviting them. I have to take GL to PT and OT Wednesday evenings, so BB depends on someone else for a ride, and the van is already full. I was only home this week because GL's therapy appointment had been cancelled.

Jiminy Cricket

Some new kids moved in down the street. They like our kids, and want to play with them constantly. When our kids have other obligations, or just other things they'd rather do, these kids seem very much put out. They act as if they owned our kids, and can't understand how we can require them to do anything. They are mostly unsupervised, and it shows.

BB has had trouble finishing his schoolwork lately, not because there is so much of it, nor because it's too difficult, but because he spends a lot of time staring off into space when he thinks he's working. As soon as the PS is out, these kids are banging on the door, asking if he's out of school yet. Actually, banging on the door would be more polite. It would imply someone had taught them to knock. Instead, they peer in the windows until someone comes to the door. Their mother supposedly babysits some other kids. At least she pays more attention to what they're doing than she does to her own kids, which isn't saying much. Now those kids are picking up the same habits.

I'd like to think my boys are a positive example, an influence for the good, salt and light, but I want to be careful of who is influencing whom. Especially because, with his social deficits, GL has a hard time distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate behavior, and will usually do anything another kid tells him. Once he acquires a habit, it becomes a rule in his mind, and is very difficult to change. So we let him play with them, as long as they stay in our yard, their yard or on the sidewalk, (they live three doors down) or even at the park across the street. But I check on him frequently.

Yesterday, as soon as BB finished his schoolwork, I told him, "Go be Jiminy Cricket." He had seen Pinocchio* recently, so he thought for a moment, and said, "Oh, you mean be his conscience!" Yes, and keep him from following the example of bad companions.

*The Disney Empire's genius consists of equal parts finding great books and mutilating them.