Debating the headlock is not really the point. It is the lack of strategic skills and that most young people have the political sense of a cow. They focus on their own path without any regard to the environment.
Problem defined, what are potential solutions? How would you help your child have better soft skills?
By actively coaching them in a metacognitive sense.
At least that is my theory. I'm conducting an experiment with an N of one, but so far things look excellent on that front.
My DD has always been pretty
interested and tuned in to other people and what makes them tick, though... so I probably can take very little credit for her skills here.
I imagine that it involves a lot of the same kind of 'social stories' training that parents of children on the spectrum are quite familiar with, however. I just contrast how I see parents behave (even really good ones) now with how they spoke to children when I
was one, though...
It's a really striking difference. Parents now generally avoid comparisons with other children. They seem to use me-centered language with kids, rather than more prosocial, outwardly directed language.
It's an entirely different way of looking at the world, basically. Does the world exist AROUND one? Or is a person just a small part OF that world? Basically, I like to think it boils down to convincing my child that
not everything is about HER.In her case, that was pretty essential since she had to learn that pretty early. Even family members who love her to pieces are totally capable of hurting or even killing her accidentally because of their ignorance. Some of them are quite difficult to educate on that point, even, which is far worse. That is a lot for anyone to process, but in order to maintain a healthy relationship, you have to be able to compartmentalize it properly and not
take it personally. Adolescents tend to naturally regress and think that everything IS about them. So I find myself issuing gentle reminders that her friends aren't 'ignoring' her because they hate her or because she did something awful... but probably because they have other things going on in their lives sometimes. I have to poke at her to get her to think of
innocuous reasons why Joe/Jane hasn't been on Skype, or why Sam/Sandy has been grumpy lately.
I just have a feeling that this is a lot, lot harder with a kid that has been taught from toddlerhood that the world exists solely FOR him/her.
