Anonymous wrote:The ADHD meds probably helped the most. But I think we also saw benefits from some of the cognitive behavioral stuff -- books like How to Take the Grrr Out of Anger; Personal Space Camp; etc. We talked through other ways to deal with frustration, ways tp recognize how others are feeling, etc. There's sort of a sweet spot when they can learn this stuff from books, I think -- too early, and they just don't really have the insight, and too late, and they're like "This is obvious and dumb."
One big take-away that I have is that for kids like this, the golden rule may not work. You can't ask them to treat others as they would want to be treated, because the truth is that their own tolerance for physical contact and other things is just different than other kids. You have to teach them that different people like different things (some kids like to wrestle, some don't; just like some kids like cheeseburgers and some don't) and so they need to pay attention to clues to figure out what other kids might like or not like.
It' still a challenge.
What age did you find was ideal for the books? We started books with DS at 3, but now at 4 he seems much more able to understand and implement the messages.