That is maybe what it looks like. But, I doubt a 15yo kid knows why he’s batting the nerdy kid around.
At my highschool there were serious cliques. If you didn’t fit the mold you weren’t in.
Most kids were middle class to poor. A few rich kids but they stood so far apart as to not have mattered much.
The mean kids(sorry, but mostly male) were just totally ostracized.
The picking-on and gossipy stuff was fairly mild, looking back, it certainly felt terrible at the time.
I felt out of the loop, entirely. Certain circumstances caused that. I can’t put myself in any common demographic of my highschool.
Still I felt put-upon and distress because of it. Thought it unfair.
If I had been interviewed at my graduation I would have said highschool was awful. Terrible, no-good, very bad. In reality it could have been way worse.
I wish I had made friends I cared about following up on. I don’t go to any reunions or have any contact with classmates.
(This is why jumping a kid up to a higher grade, when they are already the youngest in their grade is not always a great idea)
I mostly loved high school. Much preferable to being at home. There were parts of my life that were really not bad. I was never popular, but I had a lot of acquaintances and friends. There were the band kids, though I got bullied by the guy who sat next to me (we played trombone.) In junior high he told me I was an ugly Beast and he got the entire band to adopt the name Beast for me. I just ran with it. I was Beast from 8th grade to graduation. Even my band friends called me Beast. There were the RPG nerds a couple grades lower, we met regularly in groups to play Magic The Gathering. Then there were the smart kids. I was a part of all those groups but I was never centrally important to any of them. I never really felt like I totally fit in.
My junior year of high school I finally met my people. They were the closeted gay kids. I’m not gay. But we just really clicked. My Aunt’s best friend was gay and I was trying to get my friends to feel comfortable with being themselves around me so I invited them to my Aunt’s house. Then they all became friends with my Aunt and her best friend. And they all came out to us not long after. I never felt so much like I belonged. We had so much fun together, and I fell in platonic love with my best friend.
My best friend from high school I still talk to regularly via text and whenever I’m in Chicago. We have the kind of relationship where you can just pick up where you left off. The others I see very occasionally when we do reunions. They’ve done well for themselves.
My siblings and I grew up in entirely different eras, as we are ten years apart. My sibs were young during the Great Depression and WWII, while I was born after the war. They knew the food shortages and poverty, while I had a comfortable lower middle class childhood. They grew up on swing bands and crooners, and I, while knowing that music, came of age on rock & roll. My father deserted us when I was two, which I’m guessing had some effect on my perception of things. My mother and stepdad both worked, so I fended for myself after school and during the summers. They weren’t the touchy-feely type of people, and as long as I wasn’t getting into trouble, they were hands off.
I tended to let my own kids have a longer leash and tried to teach them to be responsible for their actions. I’m probably a better grandparent than I was a parent, but I still have no interest in babies or brats.
Friendships of the durable sort have not been many. Tons of acquaintances, but I can count the number of really close friends in my life on one hand, and few of them are in contact now. Most of that is because I’ve spent my working life as a nomad, and it’s my default position.
I was anonymous in high school, and at my 40th reunion (the one and only I’ve been to), few people remembered me. All that aside, I’ve had a better, more varied and more adventurous life than most all of them and wouldn’t trade it for their cloistered existences.
I wasn’t popular but I had friends. I would’ve liked to have hung out with the “sluts” but wasn’t popular with the guys and my parents were strict.
I enjoyed going out of the house a lot. We had so much more fun than being hypnotized by our phones, which were connected to the wall.
I had one child. Sadly, he didn’t have many friends, was bullied for being gay so I home schooled him after 5th grade.
My wife and I raised our three kids on a regime that she describes as benign neglect. More emphasis on the benign part actually. We never did their homework* or even nagged them to do it. They did it just as my wife and I did what we were expected to do. And maybe because that way no one would bug them. One of them was kind of wild. To the point that a neighbor (I think I know which one) went to the kindergarten teacher and warned her to beware of him. In fact, as the teacher told us later, she kept her own counsel and then worried that he was so quiet in class that he may have been retarded. I suspect he was quiet because he didn’t at first understand a word she said–this was French immersion. In first grade he became more boisterous, fighting regularly another boy who became–and remains 50 years later–his best friend. At any rate, they all turned out great.
*There was one exception, when my son was in college and got a problem in linear algebra that I was able to help with.
My kids were moderately popular. Except one(I won’t say which) who was absolutely the “it” in school.
It was extremely hard to keep up with all her obligations.
(Oops, guess I told anyway)
They’ve all kept in touch with highschool friends. Mid-dau’s ex was a highschool boyfriend. They renewed their relationship in college. Married and had the two boys.
My Son’s wife was an acquaintance but attended a different school.
The younger girls know everyone and keep in touch.
Because of my religion, I know a lot of people with large families. Many with 3 or 4, and then there are some with 5, 6, 7, 8… When you have that many, you can’t keep them in cotton wool. They get bashed around, they don’t get that much attention all the time, they have to do chores to keep the house going. And these kids are by and large turning out great!
It was really useful when I was a young parent to see all these kids who were growing up to be amazing human beings without having all their parents attention and sometimes falling down and eating things off the floor and so on. I was still overprotective of my kids, I imagine, but not as much as others I knew who didn’t have experience with seeing large families on a regular basis.
My ASD daughter has been through a lot of therapy and social skills training and such. I don’t know how much good it’s done? Probably some; probably not worth all the money and time we’ve spent on it. Actually the most useful thing her therapist did, which was worth every penny, was to tell me that she should not be avoiding social things that she was anxious about but rather embrace them, so that she could have small successes with them and see that they weren’t so bad after all. Not things that she literally couldn’t do (there were and are a lot of these), but little things that were really hard for her a year or two ago, with practice and a bit of pushing and yes, a low dose of medication, have become easier for her.
I remind my kids irregularly to do their homework, but I don’t sit there with them or anything – but both my kids are the kind of model with high executive function where they don’t need that and they barely need reminding. The ADHD kids I know… need substantially more supports of that kind in place.
Haha, quoted for truth.
I remember posts you made right after he was diagnosed, and I remember thinking, you are amazing for having noticed, worked with him, and got him help when he had the rest of his life to benefit from it. I still think you are amazing.
QTF, I did a anxiety class for 10 sessions at the Seattle Children’s Hospital for my elder twin, and then used the same learnings for my younger twin coming out of covid. The trick is to very carefully, mindfully, and step by step “innoculate” against the anxiety in baby steps to start.
The experience grieves me at how easy it is to at least make anxiety less bad. I overshare my experience in real life and half the time the other parent has concerns and I walk them through the steps.
@raspberry_hunter You probably share my experience with generally well meaning but misguided quacks that know just the answer to “cure” your kidlet from autism spectrum disorder. 95% of the time, money and effort we devoted to those dipwits was a complete waste. There is no on size fits all for ASD. That said, you keep trying for the 5% that are really helpful.
Carly the speech therapist taught me at least 5 new ways to help communicate with my practically non-verbal 5 year old daughter just by observing 1 45 minute speech therapy class. I glad Carly joined a school district and I am sure has helped a tremendous amount of kids since then.
I feel like when we were growing up, having trouble with something like anxiety would just lead to harsher and harsher punishments to do the thing, in large giant steps that the kid was incapable of doing. Well, that clearly didn’t work, so now that this generation has kids, we’re tending to go the other way and shield our kid from ever having to do the thing at all. Well, that doesn’t work so well either… making them do things in baby steps and inoculating them thereby, as you put it, is the way.
YEP. And also well-meaning and possibly reasonable-non-quacks whose skills may have worked for others but just did not work for my particular child. And the therapist whom I love who suggested this worth-its-weight-in-gold procedure for anxiety has also had some strikeouts – the reason I love her is that she acknowledges the strikeouts and tries to figure out what to do about it next. No one size fits all, indeed.
This is called graduated exposure and is the gold standard evidence-based treatment for anxiety.
So many parents do not understand this. I can understand the desire to keep children always comfortable but it does not help them cope with life. There’s a middle ground between overwhelming and protecting. My husband deals with this a lot in his work as his specialization is anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. A lot of the work he does is trying to get through to parents that kids aren’t going to change their behavior until they are pushed to do so by the parent. (Within an evidence based framework with the guidance of a professional, of course.)
I appreciate, greatly, the issues with ASD children. It must amp up parenting to the nth degree.
In neuro-typical children the debate is more, how much we should protect, push or rein in.
I was always there offering a soft landing spot. Like I said, maybe I was too quick and never let mine get a hard-knock or two. They may have learned not to be foolish and rush right in and think of the consequences first.
It looks like they’ve gotten it. Not because of my soft, hands-on parenting style. But because they did grow up and leave to college and Military. On to other adult pursuits.
I do kinda feel like there is often a lot of leeway in parenting. If parents are non-abusive, love their kids, and don’t veer too far in any weird direction, I think most NT kids will turn out reasonably OK in the end. I think ND kids can be somewhat less robust and that’s part of the challenge – though I have definitely made my share of mistakes and ASD kiddo seems to be doing reasonably well right now.
That being said, it’s been interesting parenting my 9-year-old who is NT. He is very hesitant to try new things (not to the point where I think it’s a symptom of neurodiversity, but definitely more hesitant than the average kid). Sometimes I just need to tell him “yeah, you’re doing the thing” and then he does it and likes it. But sometimes he just needs to grow up a little and then something he would absolutely no way not do the year before is just fine this year! (Just this last Sunday, he gave a (short, 1-2 minute) talk at the kids’ Sunday School at church, which he absolutely refused to do last year. I’m so proud of him!)
But… I’ve also seen parents push their kids way too much, to the extent that it really messes them up. So yeah, it’s always a balance.
I think that’s true whether you have a NT or neurodiverse child. I am always asking that question with Wee Weasel. The main difference I think is just what you can reasonably expect from the child according to where they are developmentally as opposed to age. This is especially challenging because my son is my only experience with children. I don’t know what the average four year old is like, how much they can do and say and understand. I only know what my kid is like. So sometimes I have to kind of guess… is he ready for this yet? And should we push him in this way? That’s a tricky balance to strike. With a neurodiverse kid I think it just comes with more skills. I found parenting exhausting (but stlll fun) when he was two and three years old because I had to teach him everything, and I didn’t even realize until he was diagnosed that a lot of what I had to painstakingly teach him is stuff kids usually just pick up on their own. I was like, no wonder this felt like so much work! It is.
I wonder does the list of what a typical ?? age kid does, is cromulent for any parent of any child?
I know pediatrics depend on reaching milestones by a certain age.
Both my youngest walked late because they had too many bigger persons willing to tote them around. I worried of course when the Lil’wrekker was 14 mos old and still scooting around on her butt(she never crawled). Her pediatrician said put her on the floor and leave her, she’ll scoot til she realizes she can’t reach and will pull up and start taking steps. It worked.
An early or late milestone just means someone figured an average.
The twin grandsons are late talkers. 3yo and not chattering at all like their preschool mates. They have words. Just not many. They have a twin language between themselves. So we get they understand a language of sorts. And follow some instruction.
Mom is a bit worried. I keep telling her not to worry yet. It’s way too early.
She too, says “no one told me it would be this hard!”
@Beckdawrek Some kids never crawl. Wierd but true. My youngest didn’t owing to poor trunk strength as part of the difficult birth and being pretty heavy on the autism spectrum.
Twins can be their own thing. Twin language is good. It means they are verbally communicating amongst themselves. And that could be why they don’t chatter like many kids.
You write they don’t have many words. Is it something like 20 words total with a core of 15 that is constant, and the other 5 words are variable? For example, do they learn a new word, forget an old word, and total vocabulary remains constant at 20 words?
I would start looking into other indicators for the twins’ though. IANAD, but three is pretty far along. Are other milestones like walking, listening comprehension, etc on track? Go down the autism checklist and do they check a lot of the indicators? Do folks at the pre-school have concerns (they are around a lot of kids and probably ok at recognizing those that are far out of the regular range)? Views of the pediatrician?
Yes. The twins have been checked are meeting all the other milestones. The reason they are in a small pre-school is the pediatrician thought they might start chattering with other kids. They’ve just started to play with others not just themselves.
Son and DIL are discussing whether they need speech therapy next school year. Being so close to kindergarten age by then.
I’d say they know all our names, their names, and pet names, body parts. Recently learned color names.
They count but it’s their words. They use fingers while counting.
They know some ASL, I’ve taught them. Simple signs like drink and eat and a few more.
They made up a sign for me. I’m Nana. To them I’m the sign for banana. So peel.
I have to say it’s fascinating to watch.
I know Mom is worried. So I don’t grieve her about it. They will decide what to do without my input to much degree
