Will James ever have friends?

I really wish we'd held him back in Kindergarten before Texas dropped James from the IEP. It's a long road back into getting him some help. I am glad at least his current teacher sees that something is not right and he does indeed need help. Only, thanks to NCLB, it is getting harder and harder to get it.

Academically, James is doing alright. However, if the subject doesn't interest him, it's hard to get him to practice it: reading and math. He breaks down and cries if he doesn't do it perfectly, and he can't do it fast which is required by testing. (Fortunately, he does not have to be on an IEP to take the paper-tests while the rest of the kids do it on the computer which caused him to break down and cry. And if she doesn't let him know she's timing him, then he doesn't get stressed and cry.) But if he's interested in the subject, he retains everything about it (science, which there isn't much of at school at his age, but he drinks it all up at home). What he does read, he remembers word-for-word, just like when he watches a show or hears a song he's able to recite it.

Socially, however, he cannot survive. Kids tease him at school but James usually can't tell anyone what happened because of his lack of communication skills. He only knows it's teasing because of the years we've tried teaching him why he feels the way he does, whether it be angry, sad, frustrated, confused, or hurt.

It took him months to learn the names of the kids in his class and he doesn't play with anyone on the playground. Recently, thank goodness, his teacher paired him up with another playground-wanderer named Mikey who she told me is a well-behaved kid. (What a relief since James tends to attach himself to loud/hyper kids like himself who are usually trouble-makers or mean-spirited children.) Mikey is in another class so James only sees him on the playground. I gave him a note with his phone number on it to give to the boy, and I was so proud of James for being able to follow through with what we rehearsed. Because I doubt the boy's mom will call (if she even gets the note), I hope James will be able to get Mikey's phone number so I can call his mom for a play date.

When James has a friend over, I must be in the same room or all hell breaks loose. I mean emotionally. My stress level goes up exponentially because I must walk on eggshells and referee their playing because it will quickly become a fight of some kind. James does not grasp the give-and-take of playing. (This involves playing games which we painfully practice like it's homework. Who ever heard of chutes-and-ladders, and the like, being stressful or emotional for a kid?) James may misinterpret something the friend said, or he will disagree about who or what comes next in their play, or he will get frustrated with himself or the other kid, or the kid will tell him in one way or another that he doesn't make sense, or worst of all: the kid will tease him. And now James knows that the reason he feels hurt is because the person is deliberately verbally hurting him. As late as last year, James still hadn't grasped this kind of cruelty and was constantly frustrated that he couldn't identify what happened to make him feel hurt which would intensify his pain and make him incredibly angry.
Most of the time, James cannot let go of the offense, no matter what I try to do to draw his attention to something else. And if I succeed in having him focus on something else, he drudges it back up if something triggers the memory or if he sees the person again who hurt him. Other times James forgives them quite easily. Like the kid who spit on James in the hallway at school and got sent to the principal. So the next day, much to my chagrin, James reported to me that the kid said he was sorry and they were friends now and he played with the kid on the playground (only to be teased the following day). It is such a hard lesson for James to learn about choosing good friends. I really don't know if he'll get it before some damage has been done. I think he is aware now that he's a little different than everyone else. (What does that do to a person's self-image?) Every parent wants their kid to fit in and it hurts SO badly to see my son being the oddball that keeps getting kicked emotionally.

I was happy about our new neighbors at first because there are two boys, a 4th grader (Spencer) and a kindergardener (Martin). And I really like the mom (Amy) who is a stay-at-home mom that's not into frilly things and shopping like all other moms I meet. James plays better with kids younger than himself, so of course things are much better if it's just Martin. Unfortunately, Martin doesn't want to be without Spencer, and Dane (the other neighbor) wants to play with them all the time too.

James had an ace in his sleeve which is his ability to ride a bike. These two new boys love sports and constantly ride their bikes up and down the street. When James learned to ride his bike, suddenly the neighbor kids wanted to try to learn and got their bikes with training wheels out. But that didn't last long and James would beg me to go out front with him so he could ride his bike solo up and down the street. When Spencer and Martin moved in, everyone was back on their bikes. Dane was jealous because he couldn't ride his bike and must have felt left out. I saw his mom struggling to run behind him down the street with him one day; then Alexa's dad finally took her training wheels off and after one afternoon, she'd figured it out. But Dane still couldn't get it, so Dane's dad would load the bike in his truck, pick him up from school (he's retired), and take him somewhere else to teach him to ride. Now Dane's training wheels are gone and he can ride too but gets left in the dust. I'd have sympathy for him being left out, only he's too mean a kid to feel sorry for.

I keep trying to invite the boys to our house or have James invite them over. (When they teased him about his phrasing, I had to coach James before he tried again. His first attempt was "Can you guys be invited to my backyard?") The boys apparently never want to come over. The first time I went over and the dad answered the door, I asked him, with all my kids in tow, if his boys would like to come over. He said yes and would send them over. I told him we'd be in the backyard. We waited and waited until we heard balls bouncing and laughter. As soon as the boys had come out of the house, Dane had pounced on them and now they were playing soccer in their driveway. I tried to get James to join them but he is aware of his struggle with sportsmanship and I'm sure he felt like Dane stole the boys from him. He broke down in tears and we went back in the house. The dad came out and told them to go over to James' house but they said they would rather play out front. The dad later apologized to me, but that didn't help James.

If James gets to play with Martin and Spencer, it is either in our front yards or at their house (as I no longer allow him to go to Danes' house). Since the boys love sports so much, if they aren't riding bikes, they are playing soccer or baseball. Now James is really coordinated and can do that. But as I explained, he is not capable of playing a game or even playing with other kids without vigilant supervision. He always comes home in tears, frustrated or sad.

But he won't quit. While it is one thing not to be a quitter and keep doing something till you succeed, it is quite another to hit your head against a brick wall till it bleeds.

The other day, he begged and begged to go play with the boys out front. (The cul-de-sac is really safe and I keep telling myself to stop being so overprotective. But then there is also the problem of Megan and Isaac wanting to go out with him, and I feel justified in being protective of my 3 and 4 year olds. They don't understand why I won't let them go out unsupervised.) I can't be out front all the time, and at the time, I was needing to start cooking dinner. I consented to let him go out. When I went into the garage to get a can from our food storage, I heard him crying in the driveway. I opened the front door to behold him in tears with his head against the car and the two new boys riding their bikes in circles at the edge of our driveway. (I had this image of vultures.) I told him to come home and he said he did. I said I meant to come home and come inside. He needed to remove himself from the situation for me to get anything out of him. The boys left and James came inside, saying they were teasing him but he didn't know what they said. I just held him until he stopped. After a while, he told me that Spencer said that "hurt-ed" was not a word and that Martin laughed at him. My guess was that that was not the beginning of the teasing. I think they were teasing James and then James told them to stop, that they were hurting his feelings, and even though they knew what he meant by "hurt-ed," they continued to make fun of him, picking on his speech. James knows that the first thing to do when someone does something mean is to tell them to stop. We teach them not to tattle, that they need to try to solve the problem themselves first, but if the person persists, leave, and if that doesn't work, it is time to tell an adult. He's got the first part down. But he won't walk away! He just stands there and takes it!

So now when he sees the boys, James doesn't wait for them to approach him before he asks "are you going to be nice to me now?" or "you are a mean person and Jesus doesn't like your decisions." I understand he's apprehensive about trying again, afraid he'll get hurt again. But this is certainly not going to patch things up between them and definitely not the way to ask if he can play with them! I thought a few days without letting him go out front (as they are always out front) and he may be able to calm down and let it go and try again. So I've taken the kids places or sat with them on the couch (since they follow me around instead of sitting in front of the tube) and watched some new movies (loud enough to drown out the kids playing out front). All kids say or do mean things to each other but not everyone is mean all the time (although we had to learn the hard way the Dane is one that is); I can't just label the boys as bullies and tell James to stay away. Yes, I will talk to the mom, but when I have forewarned her about James' emotions and struggle in social situations, she politely dismissed it like the teachers all did before they actually got to know my son. Maybe I should just forewarn everyone by telling them he has high-functioning autism, whether it's true or not. (Really, we think it's PDD-NOS. Maybe just ADHD and immaturity. Who knows. But it's something. Something apparently undetectable.)

We came back from somewhere today and Spencer, Martin, and Dane were playing out front so James bolted out of the car to watch and started blurting out something about bullying. We tried to corral him into the house before he started a fight with the boys, but on the way up the driveway, Dane came running over and said "I can go to their house!" in a neener-neener kind of way. In other words, "they are my friends, not yours." I'm not sure James understood the connotation, but he knew it was mean.

After telling him not to go starting fights by saying mean things; I explained that if he still wanted to be their friends, he shouldn't be accusing them of being bullies; on the other hand, if he thinks they are just going to hurt him again and again, he should stay away from them. Then, I was giving the kids a bath and when I came out to close the windows and get their p.j.s when I noticed the boys were all gathered in our front yard. I found James at his window, the boys shooting him with play guns. Were they playing or fighting? I don't think James knew. He answered they were shooting him so they were being mean. I hadn't been there to witness any words exchanged so I couldn't tell. So we had the same conversation all over again. I was so exasperated, I didn't know what to do.

Oh how does a parent protect their kids from the social aggression so prevalent at such a young age that they can't even grasp what's happening even if they were told?