My Misguided Attempt To Avoid The World of Gaming

 No one wants their child to be left out. It doesn't matter who you are, watching your child struggle with friends takes us all back to the playground.

 As a working parent, I hate the concept of play dates. I was never around to arrange them. Other mothers would dutifully exchange numbers, but the kids who had nannies picking them up were kind of out of the loop. My nanny once explained to me, "mom's hang with mom's and nannies hang with nannies". I thought, that's dumb. But she was right! And the nannies were a bit shy of me  So she had numbers, but when I was home with the kids on the weekends, I didn't! I felt terrible not to be able to hook my kids up with any friends. The schools no longer allow student directories because of the privacy act. How about a box you could check that says " don't include my number" to help working parents?

  We were the first in our group of friends to have kids by a long shot ( seven years! ) so somehow without the school contacts, we were a bit out of the loop. Mom guilt is a tough thing anyway when you work full-time, but this really confounded me. I started to worry when the boys had these social issues that somehow it was my fault for not arranging more playdates. That maybe they were missing out on crucial social skills. I managed to completely block the fact that they were at school all day with endless opportunities to socialize! I yearned to be able to toss them out the back door and have them hook up with whomever was loose in the neighborhood like we did as kids. Playing just didn't seem that hard back then. I don't remember my mom endlessly on the phone making playdates. We did it ourselves!

  We often hung out in the playground in the evening but usually, we were the only ones there.

  Now although very different, my boys have gotten along very well over the years. My oldest could usually be counted on to include his brother if we did find a playground playmate. Mostly though, my youngest gravitated to very small kids. He is amazing with them. When we had staff functions at work he would have a small train of toddlers following him everywhere. He would get right down on their level and they loved him.
He would tirelessly read story after story. When my oldest son took his babysitting course and was successfully taking babysitting jobs, my youngest was eating his heart out with envy. That was what he wanted to do but he was two years behind. Young kids saw how amazing he was. They looked up to him and thought he was a demi god, or at least some sort of part-time superhero. When he was with them, he knew himself. He was totally in control and comfortable. Peers were another story.

  At school, my children were handicapped by their mother.  I was totally against video games.

   I thought they were the root of all evil. Everything I had read told me they were bad for boys, who already have trouble expressing emotion and caused a lot of aggression. I banned them from my house. As we approached grades two and four the 'friendship issue' reached a peak. My oldest came to me and told me none of his friends wanted to come to our house because we had no game system. Still, I stood my ground, sure that one day they would thank me. That is until one day I was proudly telling one of my "mom" patients that I didn't allow them in my home. She is really a funny lady and has three older teens. She sat up in the chair, locked eyes with me and made the following statement,

" Kathryn, do you remember when you were young, there was that weird kid, totally out of touch whose parents wouldn't allow TV because it was the root of all evil? Do you remember how we all laughed at that poor kid? You have become that parent!!!! " I froze. I totally remember that kid. I remember his name to this day!! OH GOD, What have I done!

   She laughed and seeing the stunned look on my face she said " they don't speak the same language as the other kids, how can they have friends? Stop at Best Buy on the way home and be a good mom! "
So I did. I came home with an XBOX 360 and neither of my kids could believe it. Now it didn't obviously solve all of our problems, but it did solve some.

  And the best, was yet to come. The best thing to ever happen to Asperger's kids was online gaming. No mom required. Both of my boys have possey's of young dudes with names like " Spanky spanky" and "Piggy" and "ROFLcopter" that they play online with. They use headsets and have more fun than I have seen in our house in a long time. They laugh and shout and cheer. They have never met these kids, they are from all over the world. One kids is from Australia.

The lesson I learned was that you can't fight progress, (but I can set time limits on it!). But in retrospect, to ban it all together would have limited a really important source of socialization and friends.

  The funniest thing is that while they are playing I can hear them laughing and joking and occasionally just to be funny I will toss in a " mom" comment like " don't yell move, ask him nicely!" and I can hear their friends laughing. Sometimes I even get called over to say a quick "hi " into the headphones. A cameo as "that mom" that makes the Canadian kids be polite while gaming!
 
  It is hard to stop being a mom, even when it makes you kind of uncool!

In love and light,
Kathryn