Reply to I think my dc's friend is autistic

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Reply to "I think my dc's friend is autistic - how do I act?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Talk to the parents calmly and factually: "Today your son charged and hit my son. This is not the first time. Could you get him to stop doing that please? My son is becoming afraid of playing with your son, and I would hate to curtail future playdates."

How do you and your son react when this happens?

FYI, autistic children are not particularly violent, and if this is the only symptom you have observed, you're going to be thrashed by all the parents on this forum for jumping to discriminatory conclusions!
Some forms of ADHD can have a violent component. It could also be Oppositional Defiant Disorder. This child could have a host of issues you don't know about and that his parents are coming to grips with and working through. Or he could be going through a phase that needs to be checked.

I strongly recommend that you do not tell the other parents that their child may be autistic!!! If they have no clue, they might be extremely offended.

What you can do, after doing your research on several childhood disorders, is to describe casually to his parents typical behaviors in this child that match major criteria of the syndrome you think he has. Stop short at mentioning the disorder.
This is the way teachers and therapists use to try to hint to parents that their children might have a specific disorder, since they are prohibited from coming out and saying it.
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Yes, I realize I might have used the wrong terms here.  I'm not using the term lightly.  The parents have mentioned it before when the child was much younger, and the brother used it recently.  I don't mention a diagnosis when I talk about it to my children or the other family. I will say, this is not the only symptom - but really, the other symptoms don't matter here, and perhaps this violent tendency is something else unrelated to the possible autism.  So I wish I could delete the term from my original post.  I really didn't mean to offend -- I'm trying to get educated here.

Anyways, you asked : how do you react when it happens?  Usually, first I will go make sure my child is alright.  Then I tell my child calmly, you will be okay, why don't you come sit with mama for a little bit.  Before dc's friend comes to play now, I try to prep my child a little bit because my child is starting to get anxious.  So I say, if you don't want your friend to hit you, don't play fighting games.  Why don't you play this activity instead?   But with two boys, you can only do so much.  Usually, when something does happen, I will let the other family know:  "hey, I just wanted to let you know that my child got hurt.  Friend hit him with block."  Then they go to their child and talk to him.  After a time of apology, the boys just go on and play.

My dc usually is very quick to forgive and want to play again, but now that dc is starting to say things randomly, like "oh i have to have lots of muscles because I know Friend is going to want to fight, but I don't want to fight" or "i don't want to play with friend because he always hits me." -- I'm feeling sad.[/quote]

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