How I make friends everywhere I go

Summer is coming to an end! I'm feeling mixed emotions about that, how about you?   This week's podcast/YouTube episode is the final one about summer camp. We had an amazing 5 weeks and I'm glad I was able to spend that time with our summer campers. I'm also glad I was able to share it with everyone via the podcast!   Here's a clip from the episode: People have developed all kinds of rules for UNO that are not the actual rules of UNO. And the challenge with that is that our kids don't understand that. So they know how to play UNO the way they've learned how to play UNO, which is usually based on whoever they typically play it with, whether it's family, whether it's friends. But very rarely do two people have the same UNO rules.   The biggest conflict I see is, per UNO rules, if you don't have a card to play you draw one card and if you can't play it you lose your turn. But a lot of people play where you draw until you get a card that you can play. So that's the number one conflict I see is people trying to do that each way and then getting upset with each other when really it's just two people with a different understanding of how to play.    And so UNO can just get really complicated because different people have different ideas of how to play without recognizing that the way they're playing is not the actual UNO rules.    Once I explain that, everybody's fine and then they just have to agree on what rules they're going to play by. But again, it just all comes back to helping kids understand that we all process and think about things differently. And we only know based on our experience. So if you have someone else who's got a different experience, that's what they know. 

One of my biggest objectives with my students is helping them understand how other people think and feel. The topic of farting is actually a great way to make this point.    Talking about farting also helps my students understand the concept of 'context'. The concept that there are different rules and expectations in different contexts can be a challenge for neurodivergent kids.   In this week's podcast/YouTube episode, I'm sharing stories from our 5th week of summer camp. A lot of situations in our 5th week revolved around thinking about what someone else may be thinking.   Here's a clip from the episode: Because we're mostly boys, one of the things that happens... this happens all the time at Starfish, especially with new kids who haven't been part of this conversation, is we have to have a conversation about farting in front of other people. During summer camp alone, I think we had it three times this summer. One thing to be mindful of, those of you guys that are parents, is that for kiddos who are autistic or have ADHD, they often have a difficult time understanding that there are different expectations in different environments. And so one of the things that I'll see sometimes is I'll see a kiddo doing or saying something that I can tell they do or say at home, but is not appropriate to do or say at Starfish Social Club, or to me as an adult.    However our kids act and talk at home is probably going to be how they act and talk out in the world. And so just to be aware of this.   So just being aware of the way your kiddos talk, the things that you guys joke about, the things that you tolerate or that you allow or that you have no problem with, but if they were to go to a friend's house, or if they were to say or do that at school, it would be an issue. 

I sometimes get asked how I decide what to focus on with my students at Starfish. How do I decide what to support them with and what to leave alone?   I focus on two things: things that affect each student's ability to function successfully in a group, and things that affect each student's ability to make and maintain friends.   First, this is a group program. Because of that, I am able to quickly and clearly see the things that cause kids to struggle in a group context. Maybe it's always needing to have things go their way. Maybe it's monopolizing conversations.   Second, I notice the things that are interfering with their ability to make and maintain friends. This is different for every kiddo. For some kids, it's that they don't know how to maintain conversations. For others, it may be their difficulty solving problems. In this week's episode, I'm sharing stories from the rest of our 4th week of summer camp related to helping students improve their group behaviors and raising awareness of some things that are getting in the way of building friendships.    I'm sharing stories and strategies about everything from responding to things with, "I don't know", to choosing who to spend our time with.   Here's a clip from the episode: Because at this point it's just an automatic reaction for him, but it doesn't always have to be. We can definitely break those automatic, shutdown, refusal, 'I don't know' kind of things. 'I don't know'... I've met so many kids who that becomes their default: I don't know. And it's when they're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by something. If we just step back and give them some time and space, almost always they will think of something to say. I've seen that with so many different kids in so many different situations. Even… I remember I had a kiddo who used to say that even when I would ask him just a social question like, 'What's your favorite video game?' 'I don't know.' And then I would just wait a little bit. And then he would answer the question. Sometimes kids do this because they don't want to say the 'quote, unquote' wrong thing. Even though there's never a wrong thing at Starfish Social Club.

One of the biggest challenges everyone in this world encounters is learning to recognize and appreciate that we all have different perspectives.    About everything.   All the time!   For our autistic and ADHD kids, this one thing is the cause of SO MANY of their struggles. It is very difficult for a lot of our kids to realize that different people think differently, and beyond that is the ability to understand exactly what/how those different people are thinking!   In this week's episode, I'm sharing stories from the first 2 days of our 4th week of summer camp.    Week four was characterized by understanding how different people think, and some of the conflicts that occurred when the kids struggled with this.   There was lying. There was cheating. There was anxiety that showed itself as not being very friendly. There were kids talking to themselves and kids talking to people without actually talking to anyone.    And there was growth and awareness and understanding, as there always is when we share space and play and learn together!   Here's a clip from the episode:   It reminds me of one time, many years ago, when I was at a marketing event for Starfish Social Club and a parent came up to me and asked about what I do. And she said, “Oh, my daughter doesn't need this. She's really social.” And she pointed her out to me and I noticed her… she's probably about 16,15, talking to some other people her age, and I can tell just by watching that they did not want to be talking to her. And at no point was she recognizing that, she was monopolizing the conversation,… it wasn't actually a conversation, it was just her talking at them. So I think our kids who are more chatty, sometimes we mistake chattiness for social skills, when actually sometimes these students have poorer social skills than our kids who are more quiet and reserved.

Our brains are wired to focus on the things going wrong. The things we don't like, the things that aren't 'normal', all the ways in which things just aren't going well.   I prefer to look for the little things that weren't there the day/week/month before. The things that show my students are learning and growing. The little things that pave the way for big things.    In this week's episode, I'm sharing stories from the rest of our 3rd week of summer camp.    (If you missed last week's episode, it just covered one day! This week's episode is about the rest of the week.)   I'm sharing stories and strategies about everything from picking toes to giving each other social feedback.    Here's a clip from the episode:   Two of the kids had chosen a different color while I was gone. And these are two kids who are new this year, and they've both been there every day. They are some of the kids that I've talked about that have had rough days. And so the fact that both of them, on their own, had chosen to be 'not blue' was really impressive to me. I was very impressed by that.   And I think for a lot of people, this doesn't seem like a big deal. Like, why is that a big deal? It's actually a huge deal. I think a kiddo who's always stuck on going first, or who's always stuck on being a certain color, the day that they can be unstuck about that I think is a huge deal. And so this was a really amazing day for me for these two guys who both were willing to be a different color. That's just... it's just a bigger deal than we give it credit for usually. 

Have you ever wondered what just one day at Starfish Social Club looks like? You know, the whole 'behind the curtains' thing?   This week's podcast/YouTube episode was supposed to be about week 3 of summer camp, but I talked for OVER 45 MINUTES just about Monday!   Y'all, that's a lot of talking about a 3-hour day! So I decided that was enough for one episode. :)    In this week's episode, I'm sharing everything that went on during ONE DAY of summer camp.   The big thing that occurred was complaining. SO MUCH COMPLAINING!    In this episode I share who was complaining (almost everyone), what they were complaining about (almost everything), how I handled it, and how the rest of our day went from there. If your kiddo (or maybe an adult you live with?) is prone to complaining, this is a great episode to listen to!   Here's a clip from the episode:   Complaining is really common for, not just kids, but people who are neurodivergent. And it is because part of, especially autism, also ADHD, is a reduced ability to understand other people's thoughts and feelings. And so people who have neurotypical brains tend to understand much more efficiently, that complaining makes other people not want to be around them. But people who don't always see that connection between their choices and other people's thoughts and feelings really miss that point. And so they're more prone to complain about things because they miss that connection.   And also, people who are neurodivergent are much more likely to not have as much of a social filter, which we usually associate as being a negative aspect. We usually think about somebody not having a filter as meaning they say things that hurt people's feelings, they say things that other people couldn't imagine saying. But it also just means they say things without understanding how it affects other people. So complaining is all of these things together.

Any time someone is learning something new, they go through certain phases.   The first phase is 'unconscious incompetence'. This is where we don't know what we don't know. In this phase, we may not even realize how much the things we don't know are holding us back.   The second phase is 'conscious incompetence'. This is where we become aware of what we don't know. In this phase, we start to realize how what we don't know is keeping us from what we want.   This phase is HARD. It requires us to acknowledge what we don't know, and in order to move forward we have to seek help. This is where a lot of kids have a hard time when it comes to social skills. They have become aware of what they don't know (they don't know how to make friends, they don't know how to talk to other kids, they don't know how to regulate their emotions, etc) but they don't know what to do differently.   Accepting help means changing and growing. It means letting go of some things and being willing to try new things. It means not always getting it right and being willing to try again.    In this week's podcast/YouTube episode, I'm sharing everything that went on during our second week of summer camp. There were challenges, there were frustrations, there were big emotions and frustrations and disappointments. And there were huge wins! And the wins only come as a result of all the challenges. Here's a clip from the episode: There are definitely times, especially for new students, where when they first come to Starfish, it is a lot because this is the kind of stuff we do. As I say, this is why we're here. So some kids go home having had a rough day or a rough week when they first start, because this is what we're doing. We're working on being more flexible, being more adaptable, being with a group, hanging out with other people, we've got personality conflicts. It's a group of almost exclusively autistic and ADHD kids. So if you think about your kiddo times 10, right, that's what it is. So sometimes when kids first come, it's hard. It is hard for them. Sometimes they're getting a lot of feedback from other kids and that's hard for them. Sometimes they're missing out on things and that's hard for them. Sometimes they're bothering people and the other kids don't want to play with them. But as long as we keep coming and keep working, it always, always, always gets better. Always gets better. 

While I absolutely love hanging out with students one on one, it is definitely not the most effective way to help them develop social skills. I am not their peer, our interactions will be different than those between them and kids/teens their own age, and I can't help them with challenges that I don't witness.  When kids and teens are in a social group I can see exactly how they interact, what they excel at socially, and how/why they are struggling when it comes to making and keeping friends. I can (and do!) create situations where: * I challenge my students' cognitive flexibility * I showcase their strengths *I honestly have no idea how things will turn out!   In this week's podcast/YouTube episode, I'm sharing everything that went on during our first week of summer camp.   Even if you live across the world and don't care about camp, I encourage you to check out this episode. I talk about all the activities we did, situations that came up, how we all handled them, and share strategies and suggestions for how anyone can help their kids/students be more socially successful.   Here's a clip from the episode:   One of the things, for any of us that are teachers, parents, counselors, anything, is for every one of our kids, we have to know their line. We have to know where the line is between how much we can push them without pushing them over the edge. And that line is in a different place for every kid. So that's something that's really important to me, for all of us that are with anybody really, even in friendships and romantic relationships, we all have that line. And so it's really important to me to find that line and to respect it. With this student I knew that I could push him pretty far and we would be okay. And so I was pretty firm with him and I let him know that if he chose to isolate himself for the rest of the afternoon, totally fine. That's his decision. But it was going to be a really boring day because he wasn't going to be able to just hang out on his phone. If he chose to isolate himself he wouldn't be part of anything else that we were doing, and it was going to be a really long, boring day if that's what he chose to do. And then I walked away. Because my goal is to plant a seed in his brain. It's not to start an argument with him.

If you think about some of the most common advice our kids get when they are trying to make friends, it's usually things like: *Just go up and introduce yourself *Ask them what they are talking about *Don't talk to strangers   None of these strategies help people make friends. They actually make things more awkward and cause people who try them to be LESS likely to make connections with others.   In the last 8 months, I've been to 2 countries, 11 states, and Puerto Rico. And I've made amazing connections with other humans in EVERY one of those places!    How??   In this week's episode, I'm sharing how I make friends everywhere I go.    It sure as heck isn't by being afraid to talk to strangers, or by going up to someone and saying, "Hi, I'm Steph!", or by randomly interrupting a conversation to ask people what they are talking about.    Here's a clip from the episode:   It's important to be okay with knowing that, sometimes when we have a really great interaction with somebody or really great experience with somebody, that may be all there is to it. We may not ever talk to them again or see them again. And so part of talking to strangers is being okay with that. Part of talking to strangers is being okay with the fact that this may be the last time you ever talk to them again. I actually think that's a good thing. I think it takes a lot of the anxiety out of it. Because even if you try to start a conversation with a stranger and it's super awkward and doesn't go well, you're never gonna see them again. It's okay. I think that actually makes it easier than trying to start a conversation with someone that you actually will see again: somebody at work, somebody at school, somebody at, you know, one of your hobbies, I think it actually makes it easier. It's almost like strangers are for practice!

One of the many reasons summer camp is my favorite is because we spend SO MUCH time playing. No matter how old everyone is, we all play for, like, the whole time! We hang out on a playground, we do organized executive functioning games, and we do board and card games EVERY DAY!    In this week's podcast/YouTube episode, I'm hanging out with Lindsay from Mindful as a Mother.  Lindsay and her business partner are both child counselors and have created an amazing program providing resources to parents of neurodivergent kids, which is a category Lindsay falls into as well! We talked a lot about how social skills can be taught in ways that can actually be harmful for our kids, and how focusing on play makes everything easier and better.    Here's a clip from the episode:   Lindsay: So first, when your child is in a play state, that is when they are the most regulated, most open to learning, and most open to change. So I try and get every child that I work with into a play state, and make things as fun and engaging as possible when they are learning new skills so that one: that information really sticks, and two: they're more likely to absorb and be able to apply it later. Steph: Yeah, so you're mentioning when they're in a play state and they're just kind of more receptive... my immediate thought was, if you're familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, right? That we, when we are worried about things, we're not in a play state. When we are stressed, when we're anxious, when we're hungry, when we're tired, when we're afraid, we're not in a play state. And so I hadn't really thought of that before but I think that's such a great thing to be aware of is that if your kiddo is playing, they're comfortable, right? They're physically comfortable, they're emotionally comfortable. And so yeah, and it really is interesting, any time we can make something fun and engaging, just how much more... Even as… as adults, right? That's why, games! I mean, the concept of gamification is such a big deal.  Where to find Lindsay: MindfulasaMother on social media