...the child can often feel that they are not capable of making friends by being themselves but have to act like someone else. That's a painful experience for a child, and can do a lot of damage in the long run. Be careful at behavioral solutions that make a child feel that their personality isn't acceptable.

I just don't know if there's a good answer to this conundrum, for an Aspie or HFA child.

Almost nothing about getting along with other people comes naturally to them. A lot of teaching a young HFA child what they need to know about dealing with the world involves telling them not to do A in public, because A looks strange to other people.

-- CarolynJohnston - 29 Jul 2005

from a commenter: Xtreme behaviorism, teaching, and feeling like oneself

I just found a wonderful comment after the post on bullying:

smart constructivism

I haven't looked at the book, but I find the concept interesting. I believe that it takes a special skill to remember your own child accurately, through the lens of childhood, and if you can remember it, then you can teach children anything.

You can teach them math or history or art or how to be polite or how to handle a bully.

Teaching is a puzzle. It's a puzzle where you must navigate backwards in a maze. A child is at point K, but they are supposed to be at point Z. If you just show them again how to go from A to Z, you are missing the point of how they got to K.

And usually, kids made a rational mistake: they misunderstood something, or misheard something, and this thing is embedded in their minds. It leads them (Rationally) to this bad position K.

Teaching is about figuring out how someone got into that position, so you can FIX that misunderstanding. It's not enough to tell them that K is the wrong place; you have to help them never follow that wrong path in the first place.

The best way to help kids learn is to remember the typical misconceptions YOU had as a child, and ones similar to it, to try and understand why they would think what they think. Then, you can see how they are really very smart--just misguided.

a child must feel like himself

re: the aspergers/high functioning autism stuff: this kind of description is very similar to what behavioral psychologists teach to help children with anxiety and attachment disorders. I personally believe that there is a high correlation between attachment disorders and what's called asperger's, but I caution people to refrain from just teaching these techniques to children.

The problem with just teaching this techniques is that you need your children to feel like themselves. That may sound silly, but it isn't helpful to teach your child how to act. You may want them to learn how to behave, but they need an emotional makeup capable of backing up the behavior.

For a short term case like a bully, maybe it doesn't matter so much, but in terms of making friends, you need your child to have an emotional makeup that feels these behaviors are natural. If not, the other children will recognize that the behavior is still off, and worse, the child can often feel that they are not capable of making friends by being themselves but have to act like someone else. That's a painful experience for a child, and can do a lot of damage in the long run. Be careful at behavioral solutions that make a child feel that their personality isn't acceptable.

joannejacobs comment thread on bullying