Happened to me last night while I was looking at my Facebook updates. A fb friend posted an update about how she had 4 boys going to Chuck E. Cheese's for pizza and then back to her house for a sleepover. Pretty routine - unless you know what I know. That her son is a boy that my son considers a friend. He's wanted to have play dates with "Bob" for months, but I never got around to scheduling them.
"So he wasn't invited, what's the big deal?", you may ask. It's not this incident, it's the situation as a whole. Harry (who has Autism for those of you who don't know), longs to be included. He thinks the kids in his class are all his friends and he wants to hang out with them. The truth is, after a full school year, not one of the other 9 kids in his class has ever asked him to come over and play. He's only been invited to one party and that's because we were friends with that family before they started at the school.
Harry is just aware enough of social connections to long to be included and to feel the sting of not having all of these friendships. It just gets worse as he gets older. He doesn't think of himself as different, unique, {insert whatever word you want there to indicate he has Autism}. Harry just wants to be accepted, loved, and sought out by other kids.
I'm left feeling guilty now. If I had encouraged a friendship with Bob, would this Facebook status had turned out differently? I don't know. It's hard for me to have his typical peers over, because I am afraid of their rejection of him. I know that I could work it out here in my home and try to foster love and acceptance, but just like it hurt me to be rejected by kids growing up, the pain in this case is multiplied by a factor of 10 because they are rejecting my special son who wants to much to be accepted.
I think now that I will need to suck it up. Plan those play dates when we go back to school. Try to foster these friendships and see what happens from there.
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