Deb Lewis

***We don't know whether we should try harder or intervene,***

Intervention seems a weird word. What you should be doing is making his
world bigger than just your house or his bedroom.

What is available to him other than "home"? Are you offering to take him
places? Do you make plans for picnics, shopping, walks and outings? What
does your family do for fun?

He should have opportunity everyday of getting out of the house. Go to book
stores, video stores, music stores, go for walks, go feed ducks at the
park, take a drive, go to a new restaurant, go to movies.

At home there should be games to play, people coming for dinner, lively
talk, family movie watching.

You do not have to force him to see friends or have friends over for him to
have some social life. Getting out to shops and movies is a social
activity. Watching TV with mom and dad is a social activity. Having adult
friends for dinner is a social activity. Playing board games with mom is a
social activity.

Forget about the weight and forget about whether he has or wants to see
friends. Do things with him, take him places, get out of the house together
or be at home "together," engaged, talking, sharing. His life should be
interesting and you should be making opportunities for it to be so.

Deb Lewis

Melissa

I agree with this completely. Joshua, is what some would call
antisocial, he doesn't like to be part of groups or classes or
whatever, he enjoyed tae kwon do for a while, school for a while,
clubs at the library, etc. But all in all, he likes who he is, and he
likes to do what he likes to do. He doesn't need the approval or
interaction of peers to prove himself. To that end, he's very social
when he wants to be. Take him to GameStop and he tries quite a bit to
interact with the people there. He talks with one of the librarians.
He has two friends that he'll seek out, but the rest of the time,
it's not important. Just yesterday I noticed some boys from his old
school in the park next to our house. I mentioned it to him, and he
just said thanks, but no thanks.
He loves to spend time with his siblings, but his favorite person to
go shopping with is me. He loves to go to the movies with Bre's old
therapist. He likes to go camping with his dad. All normal for him.
I'd say he's social like adults are, real social, not a contrived
type that's created by schools.

Melissa
Mom to Josh (11), Breanna (9), Emily (7), Rachel (6), Sam (5), Dan
(3), and Avari Rose

share our lives at
http://360.yahoo.com/multimomma



On Oct 24, 2006, at 11:35 AM, Deb Lewis wrote:

> He should have opportunity everyday of getting out of the house. Go
> to book
> stores, video stores, music stores, go for walks, go feed ducks at the
> park, take a drive, go to a new restaurant, go to movies.



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