Help! 7 year old Son struggling socially

amother

OP ↓

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 12:10 am

My DS 7.5 is in camp and having a very difficult time navigating socially. He’s going into second grade. He has adhd and takes medication every morning to help
Him. He also has HF ASD which isn’t apparent to many, but as his mother its times like these where it becomes most apparent.
When boys are wild he doesn’t know how to calm down. He ends up hurting boys and therefore they don’t want to be friends with him. Also he plays this chasing game and it just never ends well for him.
Sadly he lacks the skills, impulse control and understanding to navigate these situations-
Especially at camp when there’s a lot less structure than the school day.

I’m not sure what I’m asking for here, but if anyone has a child in a similar situation what has helped them? We’ve done years of ABA and I’m not sure how effective it is, really depends on the instructor they send out. We’ve done OT for fine motor etc. we’ve done social skills class.
He still gets speech therapy.

Is there something else that can help him regulate himself more? Be more socially aware?? Any advice appreciated!!

amother

Orchid

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 12:44 am

For socially aware have supervised play dates. Guide him. And discuss what goes wrong after. Role play and practice over and over. Impulse control gets better as they get older.

amother

Canary ↓

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 12:46 am

Sounds exactly like my son who is now 61/2.
I need guidance too.
What I do is I send along different things with my son that I know ground him. You have to know your child. I send him fancy pencils and a sharpener. He loves to sharpen pencils. I send him the adult style coloring books- he likes coloring tony things. He has a counter and a timer that relaxes him. I tel him to take it out at specific times. He struggled a lot on the bus and I got him an activity book for the bus too. It definitely helps him.

Btw, I also notice my son doesn’t understand where to draw the line when the kids get silly. He takes it up a few notches until inevitably someone is crying (I see that at home). He doesn’t even know why and what he did wrong….

amother

Mimosa

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 1:42 am

You need better therapy. Are you sending to people who specialize in high functioning ASD? There's very few people in our community IMHO, we send to nonjewish providers and they are amazing!

amother

Mocha ↓

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 5:13 am

If you're interested in trying something alternative, you might want to look into homeopathy. There are also other body-based treatments that can help with the causes or adhd and asd, which helps calm down the nervous system and inprove symptoms overall.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 9:36 am

Yah I would love to get better therapy for him. Would floortime be a good place to look?
Our ABA has sent some great people over the years but the instructor we have now kind of just watches him and plays with him. I’m not sure he’s focused on teaching any skills.

What homeopathy would I look into? I have no clue where to even start.

amother

↑ Canary

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 10:22 am

amother OP wrote:

btw, if this is of interest, I do alot of massage therapy and reflexology on my son and he loves it. Loves it. I use it to help him sleep, or when he comes home stressed, or any time I'm with him and he looks like he needs it and I happen to be available...

amother

↑ Mocha

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 10:37 am

amother OP wrote:

Look up Alan Freestone or grant Bentley. The are homeopaths who specialize in asd.

Craniosacral therapy can be very calming for the nervous system.

Most people aren't ready for this, but gut healing diets can make a huge difference to impulse control, social functioning and emotional regulation in kids.

mha3484

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 10:41 am

My 13 turning 14 year old had a hard time at this age socially. Two things that really helped were

1) he saw a great talk therapist who really understood the social expectations of the boys and would go to school during recess time. He was able to pinpoint my sons weaknesses socially so we could teach him the social skills he was missing.

2) Superflex by Michelle Garcia Winner he did it with the thearapist and me at home. I have a whole packet of sheets I can send you if you want to see if it was for you. I found it easy to do a sheet at a time with him and we would go over it during his sessions. But its not complicated.

My son wanted to have friends but the skills just were not intuitive to him like other kids. He had to learn them more systematically. Once he learned he didnt become the life of the party but he does a million times better in social situations.

amother

Zinnia

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 10:45 am

Is your son good at sports? If not, getting his skills up in the most popular ones, like baseball and basketball, would probably help socially.

It wouldn't address his underlying issues, which is definitely more important. But as a short-term low-hanging fruit thing, I think being good at sports can help a boy's social standing a lot, even if he is otherwise strange or lacks social skills.

amother

↑ OP

Thu, Aug 08 2024, 3:44 pm

He’s actually not good at sports, he knows that and avoids playing. We’ve hired many sports coach’s for him but he’s not interested and would make up excuses to not participate..

I’d be interested to hear how this homeopathy works. And other helpful interventions