Camp and Social Skills

The Critter was expelled from another camp yesterday.  If you read through previous camp posts from last year, you know this is not the first time for us.  I REALLY REALLY thought this one would work, so I guess I'm either an optimist, stubborn in advancing The Critter or insane since I keep trying. Maybe I'm all three.

This camp was different in structure & approach. First, it is a non-profit and ahead of the curve in inclusion of differently wired kiddos.  It is completely outdoors with LOTS of hiking, creeks, critters, even whittling. Since The Critter is older, he is in their Counselor in Training program while Younger Critter is in regular camp.  We figured since he enjoys helping at school, tutoring, teaching his social skills classes and hanging with his little cousins, this might be right up his alley.  He LOVED the half day training.  Because of the July 4th holiday and vacation, he had 2 camp days, then a week of family vacation and then back at camp for a week this past Monday.  Day 1 of the two-day camp had us picking him up early - he threw up after seeing his own blood from a scratch.  Day 2 he did GREAT and was super excited about being bitten by a baby snake. Family vacation was like having pre-relocation and pre-head injury kiddo back but grown.  Flexible. Agreeable. Excited. Amazing. Parents love seeing their kiddos happy and growing, so it was a really nice week.

Day 1 back at camp and he became upset with the kiddos, who are 5-7 years old, yelled, stormed off and ranted at a counselor about them.  Apparently, he called them sluts and scumbags during that rant.  BOOM!  Home he goes!  Understandably so, right? Thankfully, the counselor said that the little kids did not hear the name calling, but he still yelled at them which is emotionally unsafe for them.  Natural consequences of leaving camp like this include zero Zero ZERO media, not even TV, so he did some chores and read a few books.  The learning he showed from a day like this is pretty amazing and shows how far we've come.  He did not dismiss the whole camp as worthless and refuse to go back. He was really upset with himself and sad.  He was able to know what happened, trigger points and what he should have done differently.  1. Get more than 3 hours of sleep - he waited  and snuck to his laptop to play games all night. 2. If over-tired, do NOT put your body with a sensory hair-trigger to the fight/flight/freeze response in a physical game where lots of 5-7yr olds pile on you.  3. KNOW that your typically overly intense language(which usually includes expletives) needs to be replaced.  These three things are important life skills that neurotypicals don't struggle with much.  That #3 there has been a BIG problem for us for a very long time.  The Critter feels fully justified in unloading his intense, expletive-rich vitriol on anyone who he feels deserves his justified outrage about all things unfair.  We have been unable to get him to agree that this does not serve him well since for so long he would lose all language completely when he was emotionally overwhelmed.  The intense language helped him find language that matched his feelings, BUT he now needs to stop. He knows that his little bonus cousin is 5yr so when I asked him what HE would do if someone called her a slut, he shut up and realized what he had done.  Code switching is when you change how you speak to match your audience.  ie I may swear like a sailor and throw in a LOT of southern slang when out drinking with the kookoo mom group, but bring out my $5 words and legalese for an IEP meeting sans expletives. Most people learn to code switch without thinking about it, but for the neurodivergent, this can be a big piece of the social skills equation.  It has always been a struggle for The Critter, although not always with swear words.  When he called his 3rd grade peers coelacanths, that is socially odd since it is not a word they typically know.  When he wanted to argue politics with his preschool teacher, he had trouble not doing that because that is not typical conversation for preschoolers. So, Bad Day 1, he learned that he should buy-in to learning to code switch, replace swearing, self care to not socially overextend himself when not 100% and get a good night's sleep before a big day.

Bad Day 2 comes along the following day.  He did all those things he learned and called the same kiddo who played the role of Super Pest on Bad Day 1 a Little Skunk when he said The Critter stole his stick.  Unfortunately, The Critter refused to give up the stick and yelled "Little Skunk" at the kiddo who was saying that he stole it and then escalated further when the counselor asked him where he got the stick instead of immediately and heartily extolling his virtues and swearing that she knew he would not steal.  BOOM! Home he goes and is now dismissed for the week and possibly for the summer.  Still understandable, right?  Yelling at little kids, even when they are intentionally antagonizing(yes, Little Skunk probably was intentionally calling him a thief even though he knew the stick was not his) is indeed emotionally unsafe for the little kids. The Critter, however, does not fully understand what replacement social behavior he should have used other than to just not yell.  In fact, he still had the stick and was going to take it home as a prize.  When I made him leave it, he was going to throw it into the woods so Little Skunk couldn't find it again.  Oy! No lesson learned there.  I made him drop it at his feet instead and then asked him if he was upset he lost the right to go to camp.  He certainly did.  I asked him if it was worth losing the right to go to camp over a stick when the woods are full of sticks.  Nope, definitely not.  Another day of chores and reading - and thought. Some surprise role playing when I called him a thief and said he stole something from me and some practicing giving in when his younger brother wanted something he had first.

Good news is, this camp truly means it when they say they will work to help unique kiddos.  They agreed that being years behind in typical social skills means that the learning curve is steep and that you do not learn without making mistakes, especially something as complex as social skills.  The Critter is now on Good Day 2 back at camp this week .  If this camp had not changed up some things to help and welcomed The Critter back, where is the learning going to happen? If a kid in math class gets a bad grade on the quiz, you don't kick him out, you help and try again once the skills are learned.  Social skills are NO different except that they are not learned in a bubble but with others who are learning at the same time. If Little Skunk gets yelled at by a much older kid for intentionally antagonizing him, maybe he has learned a valuable social skill along with The Critter. If The Critter comes back and apologizes for losing his temper, EVERYONE learns a social skill.  Unfortunately, behaviors are treated as needing to be separated instead of just showing that a skill is lacking and MORE practice, not isolation, is needed.  Social skills are invisible, too and once learned there is no gold star or A+ on a paper and most of the time, not even a recap of what was learned. After Good Day 1, The Critter told me MULTIPLE times(remember I'm persistent) that he doesn't want to talk about it and I just need to be happy that he's got this now.  LOL!  He's right!  So, while The Critter learns to Let it Go, Choose Happy instead of being right, Give In even if you disagree, Ask for Help early, and SOOOO many other things, I will work on learning, Shut Up and Be Happy when things are good.

Full confession - I cried this morning about just this.  I am sooo happy to have a happy critter, so similar in essence of personality to the little boy who was there before the world changed that I am SCARED of losing him again.  I know he's the same person, but to see him express that wondrous, positive intensity so freely after so long seeing it trapped behind his differences, I want to cancel school and cancel the world and everything else to keep it here. Not possible, but a mom can dream, right? At least when it all starts back up on Friday for them, I will know that they return with confidence and skills learned in the social wilds where social skills are practiced naturally, including all the natural consequences that come with mistakes.