Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Social Skills Group for kids - any experiences?

We are going to sign ds8 up for a social skills group fairly soon (we hope). We just chatted with a recommended boys group counselor yesterday, Ds liked her, as did we. As much as one can feel comfortable at a first meeting like that, I think we were comfortable.
Only a couple of things were a little off, instead of talking about 6-8 weeks, once a week work with ds in a group of boys (as had first been described to us), the counselor made it sound like that time would likely be just a good start, and that dh and I are also going to be in a parents group while ds does his work. I don't mind being in the group, but we are over-programmed as it is so fitting this is will be less than convenient. Fitting it in for the next 9 months seems really really really hard to fathom right now.
I am going to look into other programs, if I can find any other good sounding ones. Does anyone have any experience sending a child to a group like this? What did you find to be the biggest benefits? The counselor did state that ds might be in relatively good shape to go for several weeks, take a break and see how things go, which would be my inclination/hope.

I am trying not to sound too lame, trying to fit our life around the dr's advice...one of the things we were hoping to do is sign ds up at the tae kwon do school where one of his new/few friends takes class. He's taken a couple intro classes and would be signing up on Tuesday...his friend has seen him there and was so excited he was going to be starting. I guess we can figure out something else to drop.

One very good bit of news is that the school might be able to do the tiny bit of recommended speech therapy with ds, and start pretty soon - we have been told 6 mos to a YEAR wait list at the places I've called in my insurance network!!

Yes! DS6 is doing one right now. He did one session for five weeks and really, really enjoyed it. I saw results. There was no obligation to continue with a subsequent session and I didn't intend to continue with it, but the results convinced me to take him in for the second session.

I saw an increase in DS's self-confidence as well as some actual hard skills. I would watch him while we were, say, in the store and he would be deep breathing and bringing his body into control. It was really cool. Tae Kwon Do will be excellent, too, for social skils, balance and stuff, but I would try the social skills group. Even just one session really paid off for him and we didn't attend a parent group. Instead, we parents were assigned organized, quickly instructed parental homework tasks to augment our kids' training. I'd find a way to work it in.

If it makes you feel less alone, our summer schedule features brain gym twice a week, social skills group once a week, riding lessons (for balance) once a week and we plan on adding swimming. You get the idea. It's a PITA and expensive. And, when DS is practicing medicine or building rockets in twenty years, you can bet I'll be reminding him. LOL!

My son did the school's social skills group, and it seemed pretty useless. No change seen, etc. So I'm curious - where do you find an external social skills group?? I've never heard of one. I want my son to learn what to do when someone talks to him. The other day, 3 brothers dropped by and my son kind of froze and didn't say a single word, til the very end, when prompted, he said an utterly inaudible goodbye. He's not an unfriendly kid, but he's so slow to warm up, I guess, that he comes across that way b/c by the time he's comfortable, the other person is gone. It's probably exacerbated by him having done a mid-year skip. He'd been subject accelerated since Dec, but his home classroom was just a dreadful environment for him. Hostile teacher. He's in a better place now, and much happier, but I imagine that could make him feel a little off-balance in talking to other kids. I hadn't realized there were groups in other places that might teach him how to do this! it's hard, as a mom, to tell him what other young boys will think and do.

Gtc - thanks so much for posting back, that certainly helps me feel better about doing it. I've found some books and a few articles and so far 2 groups who are doing this in our area (there are probably a few more since we live in a major major metro area). After reading a bit more, I found an article which chunked social delays into 3 cause categories: child does not have skill learned, child is unable to perform skill and child can not distinguish when to use skill. I am going to call back the office to find out, after having interviewed ds, which category(ies) they think ds fits into and how their program will focus on that. From the description of a play group with counseling intervention, it sounds like some emphasis on learning skills and some on practicing them. Our initial psych eval. concluded that ds does not know the skills - has not been able to learn them intuitively so direct instruction should help. Sometimes it feels like he can't distinguish, too, but that is just my gut feeling...

I really don't know what normal play behaviors for 8/9 year old boys are!

Montana - what I have been doing is googling on the phrase 'social skills training' + our state, it has turned up the 1 group I already knew about and one other. 'SST' seems to be a used acronym for this too. I will post the links I have so you can see what sort of practices are doing this work, might help you get a lead in your area. Also, I am reading 'the unwritten rules of friendship' - while it has tons of description and scenarios which I think relate to how ds doesn't do stuff just exactly right, it is not so easy to get him to converse on the subject, so I think outside help is in order. If you can't find any groups, a book on the subject might be a good start. Good luck!

Montana -
Here is one office, with a large variety of groups.
http://www.parentingplaygroups.com/
here's the actual social skils group:
http://www.parentingplaygroups.com/socialskills.htm

A quick google on CT brought this up, don't know if any of the locations they list would be anywhere near you -
http://www.superkids-socialskills.com/index.php?page=programs
http://www.superkids-socialskills.com/index.php?page=programs#schoolage

Chris, thanks so much! that's exactly where I've been stymied...I have that book and have really liked it, but I cannot get my son to sit down with me and do any of it, and I haven't been creative enough to think of a way to sneak it in. He's been seeing a counselor and that's been much more effective - he wants to do well for her. So I think outside groups would work much better here, too. Not least b/c it's just so much less loaded hearing something from someone not your parent! but I definitely don't know the social nuances of young boys. Something I wonder about all the time...my instinct is to tamp down the wrestling/shoving, and in fact my oldest son is not very keen on it unless with his brother. But it seems like some primal way they communicate acceptance, which leaves me wondering if I ought to encourage my 7 year old to act like his 3 year old brother, and gain admiration by picking people up and throwing them to the floor. (3 did that to one of 7's friends, and the 7s were so impressed - and my 7 so proud - that I didn't reprimand 3).

oh. just for what it's worth, the 9 months doesn't sound that implausible to me. My son's been seeing this woman once every week or two for a few months, and while things are improved, I don't think they're so much what you'd call a firm part of his way of thinking now. For both schedule and $$ I'm looking forward to getting out of this stage, but I really REALLY want his negative, rigid thinking to be broken up. I think it'll make a serious difference to his lifelong happiness.

We have thirteen million activities, too, all undertaken, honestly, with the social thing in mind. We were so desperate to find our son a place in the school community where he felt happy and belonged. There's another friendship book - I think it's called Good Friends are Hard to Find - that calls for active parental involvement in the friendship finding, and says lots of parents do the activities but don't follow up into one on one playdates that firm up friendships, and that if you don't have good solid playdates/friendships coming from an activity, you need to drop the activity (assuming you don't have time for the playdates, only). I'm hoping/thinking that as ds7 gets happier and more settled, we'll all scale back and do fewer things. B/c I'm tired, tired, of this running around to baseball, soccer, scouts, and gymnastics. It's beyond nuts. Oh. And then add in shrink. So I feel your pain! It's ridiculous. And not sustainable.

Oh. Here's the book. I think Unwritten Rules was perhaps more intellectually interesting, and this one more a reassuring 'this is the road-map to making things better', and more explicitly what the parent can do to help, which helps, when you've got a kid who is NOT clamoring to be taught the Unwritten Rules.

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Friends-...mp;s=books&qid=1243252480&sr=8-1

Yes, good, I'm glad you're thinking about it. DS6 had visited with a counselor before and didn't really get results with what's called "talk therapy". The SST group included other kids with assorted problems (one is HG, one is aggressive). Then, the psych explained the rules of well, friendship and then, got them hyped up. While they're excited, she reinforced good behavior with praise and treats. It was helpful because they learned skills in a safe environment where other children are being closely monitored. I think that the safety component could be replicated with cousins or the children of very very close friends who are being properly disciplined throughout the playtime.

Thank you both for the resources. As usual, I can't wait until our next library visit!

I was in one, but by the time my parents decided to do that I was burned out. I was sick of treatments, doctors, shrinks, tests, assesments, groups, reaserchers, scores, and therapists of all kinds. Maybe it will help kids who aren't as hostile towards it as I was.

Hi Arminius, thanks for posting - I really am hoping that we are catching things early, at least for the depression and social anxiety. This would be ds' first round of any sort of therapy so again, keeping fingers crossed that the doctor's thorough, thoughtful review of the results of the assessment are pointing us in the right direction. Part of why I went with a more costly initial assessment is that I didn't want to dither around and go in several wrong directions as I've read is so common.
That a play group would hit home better than one on one counseling for an 8 year old makes sense to me, and ds is open to it, for now.
I hope you are doing ok now, do you think social skills/anxiety were a major issue for you ? If you did find help, I would be curious what finally worked for you.

Oh, re: school social groups - I forgot to mention, the school counselors had talked about a school social skills group, but that never came together.

The day after I read the dr's final report I called ds main teacher and told her about the depression and anxiety, how he seems to be beating himself up in his head about stuff, imagining he's forgotten homework that isn't even due the next day and so on. She chatted with the counselor who called me last week to discuss the social skills group, explain why it never took off and discuss just meeting with ds and a smaller group. That lead to my telling her about a couple of boys who seem to want to be ds friends, are in his class, etc., but one of whom might either be getting frustrated with ds talking too long, or perhaps even subconsciously jealous of ds being #3 in what used to be a twosome (the 2 other boys). The 1st boy is in ds gifted class too, and they've played at each others houses, attended birthday parties, so on the surface things are going well. But ds told me that #2 used to dislike him, but now they've warmed to each other . To complicate things #1 is now occasionally shoving ds.
The counselor got right on that, suggesting a lunch with the 3 boys and her, of course I thought I didn't want to drag the other kids into something they weren't interested in...and ds wasn't hurt other than his feelings, but she said she does this fairly often. She asks the kids if they are willing to participate in a lunch or other activity.
Well I figured this would take forever to even happen, but I asked ds if the counselor has asked him, and he said, yes, she asked and then we all had lunch yesterday! I was really curious what transpired, but I gave ds a break for once and let him watch some tv and go to bed without a big stimulating conversation. Anyway, he said it went well.

hi all
my son is PDD-NOS also gifted, possibly misdiagnosed but definitely has some social issues. We've found that concentrating on one friendship works better than doing lots of activities and groups. The teacher identified a "typically developing" child that had interest in my son based on some similar interests. Then they got paired together a lot at school (like computer time, walking to the office, etc.). Then the school kept them together for both K and 1st grade. This has worked very well and my son now sees this child as his best friend and they've worked up to play dates, etc. A sleepover is scheduled for next week.. During this time we've also done a social skills group and dance, baseball, etc. and havent' made any good connections there. At the social skills group the kids was fun for him but didn't lead to any lasting connections- many were possibley not an appropriate fit for the group and just weren't ready for it- And the other activities, the kids were there for the activities not necessarily to meet new friends. And the challenging nature of the activity was tough enough for my son so adding making friends was a bit much.
irene

Our school does some informal social skills groups but I have declined to allow our GS9 from attending. GS would have been grouped with kids who had pretty severe behavior issues and I did not want him grouped with them at school. There is a stigma about kids going to different groups, I did not want other kids pegging him as one of 'those' kids who fight, stick carrots up their noses & then eats it(true!), etc. I also have concerns about the qualification of the leader. I would be OK with a group outside of school.

OHG, I had a similar reaction when a slip came home asking for kids to sign up for a short term school group on dealing with death. I thought it would be nice in a way for kids to help other kids with this issue, but right now with things pretty on the edge anyway for ds as far as thinking about death to begin with, much better to decline.
Do you think your gs9 would benefit from social skills groups, or is he doing ok in that regard? Part of me thinks all this social skills training is something people used to do by sending kids to etiquette classes, and other things like that, so maybe it's not so modern a concept.
The school counselor seems ok, but I wouldn't say 'phenomenal'.
Actually I attended a 'child study' meeting today to find out which of the dr's recommendations they could help with and in what ways.
I had held some hope for a formal assessment of speech, but after listening to ds chat with some other kids she said she couldn't detect any errors in articulation. I explained he doesn't say 'sh' but rather 's' and that it does bother him. For now they are going to give us some exercises. I am torn between the fact that the speech issue is pretty minor in fact, and the fact that it seems to really bother him. I guess I will give the exercises a try for now.

Nothing much else will be coming from the school for a while, there won't be any social skills groups pulled together this year ' they are testing and then it's the end of the year', good thing we can *barely* afford to go off on our own on the skills group. In the fall they might do one, however, so that might be good for the second round, if need be, or the counselor even thought going to both an outside and school based group might be good.

The psychologist was really nice and impressed with the write up (she knows the doctor) and very impressed with both ds' aptitude and even scoring, as well as suitably impressed with the lows for achievement and academic fluency. She was totally on board that this achievement gap is coming from depression and anxiety and thought the multi-prong approach is a good one.

The v.principal and teacher were there also, all in all a good information exchange although not a big move forward for anything in particular. I did get to find out that ds is reading at a 6(N?) according to some kind of QRI assessment...guess I need to find out what that is

Sorry for the long post!

Ack! Make that even longer, just to comment on the kids lunch that the counselor hosted, she said today in the meeting that it seemed to go well. The threesome was really getting along, especially during the eating phase of lunch. After eating she said ds took out a pokemon book, she suggested he just keep chatting so they did that instead. I asked if she thought he was nervous and she said no, just interested in the book. (go figure!)
I said in the past it sometimes seemed like ds wants friends he can turn on and off like a faucet and someone suggested this might be linked towards some interesting thing they are doing (or not doing). As soon as the interesting thing is done, ds goes off on his own 'games in his head', as he put it to the counselor.
I asked ds just now what he was intending to do with the book, if he was nervous or just interested in the book. He said he was trying to show it to them, so that sounded pretty good, something got lost in translation, however, at least from the counselor's perspective....so off we go to the social skills group
I asked the counselor to please check on ds from time to time to make sure he continues to do well with them, so she will do that at least.

Hey folks, bringing up this old thread to see how everyone is doing with any / all forms of social skills training...hope things are going better for everyone's ds's (mostly ds's, right?)

Our ds9 is doing better, the school did have him in a 6 week session of their social skills group and by the end of it they were calling me about what group he went to during the summer because he seemed in pretty good shape, and frankly were wondering why he needed to be in the group at all! This was great news, although I know there are still other issues with his mood (much improved but something we need to monitor/help with) and with some anxiety, although that also is much improved.
I still see him hitting bumps in the road here and there, but he really does appreciate more why he should reciprocate in a conversation, respect and ask about other people's interests, etc. Cub scouting has been a great practice ground, as well as just a fun time for him.
All in all a solid success story, I hope anyone who is considering one of these sst groups can find one that will work for a ds or dd who is struggling with making friends and/or fitting in.

GS10 seems to have matured to a point where he fits in socially, or maybe the other kids have matured to a point where they appreciate GS10's wit. Either way, he's doing great this year.

I see this in DS as well. He invites a friend over and then if that friend doesn't want to do DS's first suggestion he is stumped or not interested or something - and goes off to do his own thing. Then little sister takes over as the "hostest with the mostest" and now we have severe jealousy and all sorts of issues. I now make sure to talk to DS about what he and his friend might do and make sure he has several alternatives - including letting his friend choose something. Somehow I get the sneaky suspicion however that if the friend chooses something DS is not interested in DS would rather be alone than do something un-interesting (to him) with a friend, whereas DD would rather do the give and take and have company. Although, of course she would still rather have her own way.

DS is in a social skills "group" but as his school only has 85 students and only 18 in his grade they let him pick one friend for the group time. Not sure this is helpful. Nice to hear others are having some successes with social skills groups.

Breakaway

GiftedMom, have you tried group activities where the parents are encouraged to stay? Cub Scouts has been good because parents stay during the meetings and you can help regulate his behavior, then talk about his interactions later. Play dates with one or two kids are also good at that age. Role playing, one on one, with him can also teach valuable skills.

Just wondering if you would mind sharing what SST group you used? I am looking to get my DD8 some therapy for anxiety and one place suggested she take part in a group session they have. I think we're in the same metro area.

BethG - no problem, happy to send it to you. I pm'd the info over to you. If anyone else wanders across this thread and wants the info, please let me know. We had also had ds with one of the counselors one-on-one a few times specifically for anxiety, and will continue with that on a sort of check-in/check up basis for a while.

Breakaway and GiftedMom, I kind of agree about the school based group - they congratulated us on finding help for ds, but I am pretty sure just the school group alone would not have been as effective. For one thing, getting the parents to talk to each other and counselors about dealing with issues really really helped a lot.