Last week Julia came home with an invitation to a birthday party. She was so excited that she literally ran down the driveway yelling, ” I got an invitation to “classroom friend’s” birthday party! I went through her bag, found the invitation, opened it and saw the word, “SLEEPOVER” staring back at me. Immediate feelings of anxiety washed over along with a whole list of questions:
Is she too young for a sleepover?
Does she really understand the concept-as in I will be dropping her off, leaving, and not coming back until the next morning?
How will she handle her obsession with/ fear of bathrooms ?
How will she do socially, especially jumping in to an unknown situation in a place she has never been?
Do I contact the parent and explain some of Julia’s special needs? What do I say exactly?
She seems fine with all of this in theory. Ask her if she is ok with me leaving she says yes. Have her explain the step by step process of the bathroom she gets it (She is capable of going on her own but more so in public bathrooms then others sometimes certain accommodations have to made-blocking the door instead of closing it, antibacterial hand gel instead of hand washing etc) . Discuss with her socially appropriate behavior and she says she knows. There isn’t much that Julia doesn’t understand but there is a huge difference between her understanding and doing.
The biggest question I have is how much (if anything) do I share with the parents of this child about Julia’s differences? I don’t by any means want to dissuade the parents/child from including Julia in future plans but I do feel like a little “heads up” is in order. Thoughts?
I also need to broach the subject of whether or not the daughter wanted to invite Julia to begin with after Julia told me this story: ”Well, yesterday when I saw my ”other classroom friend” she told me she was so excited to be invited to “classroom friend’s” birthday party. So I went over to”classroom friend” and asked her for an invitation. She brought me one today.”
Part of Julia’s “yet to be given diagnosis but c’mon she has Asperger’s” is that she is sometimes not aware of what is acceptable socially. She does not understand that it is not ok to ask for an invite to a party. She also thinks everyone is her friend. She has hardly (maybe never?) spoken of this girl all year but because she is in Julia’s class, and maybe this girl was nice to her or talked to her, obviously she is her friend.
I am in a constant battle with my own mind, society in general, and with the day to day choices that have to be made with more caution, care and consideration. When presented with a decision that for a typical kid could be made simply by consulting the calendar and making sure there are no conflicts, I have to think of a full range of possibilities and concerns to could come from making the wrong choice.
And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t hard.
