DS doesn't seem to get kids being mean

[hjdong]

I've been wondering about this for awhile but I thought maybe I was over exagerating DS' nice-ness until another mom pointed it out to me. Her son was pushing DS and after we stopped him she said, "Jamie never seems to get when other kids are being mean, he always thinks they're joking." She's right; DS doesn't seem to get when other kids are mean to him and he's never pourposely mean to other kids. He gets anger as an emotion (as in yelling in Target "Momma's out of latience and we need to buy some" and he plays at making a mean face, angry face, mad face) and he'll get mad himself at us. But he's never pushed or hit a kid. Only once has he fought with a kid over a toy. O.k., so some of you are thinking, and the problem is . . .

Well, a kid hits him, and he laughs. He has no defense because he doesn't recognize it as an attack. And he has a friend that this makes more and more angry so he gets hit more (well, until we step in, he never gets really hurt).

Her recgonizes other emotions in kids. If another kid is crying, he stops whatever he is doing, annouces, "So and so is sad," and generally will not continue playing until they are feeling better. He loves getting other kids to laugh and giggle. I'm just pointing this out because I don't think it's a sign of autism as in he doesn't get emotion - I think it's that he's just nice, only too nice, to the point of being unable to recognise when others aren't. And I'm not saying he's blameless either. He's the kid who takes the joke too far, never recoginzing that the other kids have stopped joking.

Right now, I waffle between stepping in and letting him handle things. But, if I let him handle things, he really doesn't handle it, because he doesn't get that there's a problem. So I spend a lot of time saying, "See that look on his face Jamie? He's not joking any more, he's mad. What can you do so he's not mad anymore?" or something to that effect, which generally diffuses the situation. If I let it go to the logical conclusion of the other kid hitting, he justs laughs, the other kid gets madder, he laughs more, and on and on.

Any thoughts? TIA,

[Roleysmom]

Holly, for my 2 cents (which may be worth exactly that), I think you are handling it perfectly. I think it's a great idea to coach him through the situation, explaining the other kid's emotions or reasoning. It also sounds like it is helping to resolve the situation and to give Jamie some other tools besides laughing. I don't think it's a bad thing at all that he doesn't necessarily recognize the meaness, it probably protects him from hurt feelings. (And you've got a good strategy in place for dealing with the escalation and helping him figure out next steps when a playmate is angry.) He sounds like such a wonderful sweet natured boy!

Paula -- mom to Roley Julia, January '02