While I’m away, readers give the advice.
On supporting a socially awkward child:
The main approach these days is to offer social-skills intervention to kids with the difficulties — to try to fix the kid, in other words, to better fit in.
While there certainly is a benefit to them, particularly for kids with severe impairments, when it comes to getting subtle social interactions right, there’s really only so far these interventions can go. The kid is still going to be seen as different by his or her peers. And the more subtle the issues are, the harder they are to address.
In my dream world, interventions would not focus just on the kid with a disability or who is just socially awkward, but on all the kids in a class or sport or activity. Regular kids, who don’t have these challenges, may be the most able to understand and learn about such differences — but we have to teach them to do this.
How many parents ask their kids how they deal with the shy kid in their class, or the kid who seems different and strange? Why don’t we teach all children to be open-minded about their peers who are different?
Wouldn’t it be a better world if, instead of focusing on changing a square peg so it can fit in a round hole, teachers and parents taught kids to be compassionate and empathetic to those square pegs?
Encourage kids to widen the circle of who fits in, rather than putting all the responsibility for fitting in on the kids who are perhaps the least able to adjust.
— B.
On dealing with someone who won’t let an issue rest:
Mom thought I had lost my mind when I transferred to Texas because California was too expensive. Every week in our Sunday phone call she would say, “Why don’t you move back to California? Don’t you miss it?”
My explanation (“Mom, I’d love to but I have no job there, it’s too expensive, I have no friends there anymore, it’s just not possible,” etc.) fell on deaf ears.
Finally I’d had it. I said, “Mom, remember how you used play golf before your back surgery but you can’t do that anymore? How would you like it if I asked you every week: ‘Why don’t you play golf anymore? Don’t you miss it?’”
She was silent for a moment and then said “Oh. I had no idea I was doing that.”
And after that, our conversations (and our relationship) improved a lot.
— Texas
On friends who tax our patience:
I have a friend who I’ve known more than 30 years. She suffers from mental illness (in counseling, good days and bad days) and due to health issues is nearly homebound. When we talk, she dominates the conversation — oh, I can interrupt, or occasionally she will ask about me, but when I’ve had a few words, the conversation goes right back to her and her issues.
Yet she often thanks me for the calls, and I realize that our calls aren’t about me. It’s an opportunity for her to connect to someone she cares about.
It IS about her, she needs someone to talk to. And I’m OK with that.
— S.
— Washington Post Writers Group
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