helping your child with autism make friends: matt & max.

This summer Max spent mornings with his junior respite worker, Matt. As part of working with Max, Matt wrote a weekly blog about his experience.

Here is Matt's take on how week 6 went:

With the pain of teething still hurting Max, he continued to try to hit and scratch me in frustration. However, an awesome thing happened when spent an afternoon at blueballoon - the clinic where Max goes for all of his therapy. At blueballoon, he was amazing - using full sentences, singing, matching pictures and he spoke so clearly. He was also full of smiles when we would play games there. He giggled a lot and it was a really positive experience with him. Also, his therapists gave me suggestions on how to deal with his scratching and pinching. The biggest thing I learned is to just ignore it and walk away - which was actually quite successful. They also suggested to sometimes tell Max I will take certain things away when he isn't behaving. This was slightly less successful but still worked. Using these tools led to less scratching by the end of the summer.

helping your child with autism make friends: matt & max.

How is it already the middle of August? We've had an awesome summer so far and Matt and Max have really been through a lot together - including Max being sick and out of sorts and treating Matt to an assortment of annoying behaviours. Lucky for Max - and me - Matt has taken it all in stride.

Here is Matt's latest update:

This week was a balanced week. After getting over his cold, Max has become calmer and less irritable so it was quite an easy first half of the week. However, with his recovery of one problem another arrived. His new teeth have begun to come in which I can imagine wouldn't feel too good. This led to him deliberately doing things he wasn't supposed to because he needed an outlet for his frustrations. He has also become quite taken with music. Every time he gets upset I can put on his children's music CD and he calms right down. This was a good week with Max.

helping your child with autism make friends: matt & max.

This past week was a tough one. Max was sick with a wicked summer cold. His behaviour went sideways and he tested all of us with his whining, squealing and shrieking. I was fairly certain Matt was going to tell me he'd had enough and would be back once Max was back to his old self. But Matt stuck it out and once again blew me away with his maturity and patience.

Here is Matt's week 4 update: 
This week was a little bit more difficult than other weeks. Since Max was sick he had become more irritable and his way of conveying these feelings were by yelling more often and louder. This was hard for me because he also would start getting upset at things, and when I removed the thing that made him upset he got upset again. This was lose-lose situation. Other than that we went to the park for the first time together. He seems to have an infinite amount of energy when surrounded by climbable objects. So other than him not feeling well, it was still a successful week with Max.


Read more of Matt & Max's adventures

helping your child with autism make friends: matt & max.

One of the best parts of this summer has been watching Max and his respite worker, Matt, get to know each other and bond. The bonding happened very quickly. Max took to Matt like a house a fire. The first week Matt had a bunch of questions for me, which I expected, so I stayed front and centre so he wouldn't feel like I had thrown him to the wolves. The second week I started to back off - I even ran a quick errand to the grocery store to see how the fellas would do without me. By the third week, Matt had the whole Max thing down pat - even giving him bathes and helping him go to the washroom. I could not be more pleased with how Matt is caring for Max. It's actually a bit mind blowing that he is 13 years old. He has the patience of a saint and really gets how to work with Max. I asked Matt to write a weekly blog post on how he sees his relationship with Max developing so that I could share it here. We're playing a bit of catch up, so here are the first three weeks.

Weeks 1 & 2: 
The first two weeks have been interesting. We were still getting used to each other so the first week it felt as if he were testing me to see what he could get away with doing and what I would not allow him to do. Also the change of pace to the mornings seemed to change his bathroom regularity so their were a few accidents. But as we both got more used to the schedule, things leveled out and became more normal. Max's physical and mental development has improved greatly over the past two weeks. He's begun to use his words far more often and he has begun to become more independent especially with bike riding. Also the first time setting him up with the bath was not as hard as I had thought because he knew what to do. If he didn't want something like the water level or temperature he would voice his opinion and I would change it. Overall the first two weeks were good.

Week 3: 
This week was interesting because with Max beginning to trust me even more we are able to do more. He is now able to ride his bike by himself with only a few minor stumbles. With this there is also some trouble because if he falls he does not let me help him up or help him on the bike again. This is part of him becoming more independent. Also, he was beginning to get sick this week which triggered more of an easily upset Max than I was used to. I hate seeing a child upset but it's also my job to make sure he is not doing what he's not supposed to so I had to stay patient through this. With all this it was a challenging but very good week.

helping your child with autism make friends.

The one thing that I want for Max to have more than anything in the world, is friends. That sounds like a simple thing, but for that to become a reality, there is a lot that needs to happen. From a skill development perspective, Max has to prefer the company of others to being alone. He will need to understand the give and get of relationships. He needs to have the opportunity to develop deep and meaningful friendships outside of his immediate family.

Max has a lot of people in his life who he likes a lot. He has favourite therapists who he lights up for, his EA at school who he will do anything for, and of course, his respite worker Sarah, who is his favourite person on earth. Out of all of these people, only one is male. I would like him to have the chance to have a male role model, besides his dad. One who he feels comfortable with, and likes as much as he likes Sarah. It has been a long time in the planning, but, it looks like he will finally get to build this type of relationship.

Over the summer, Max will be spending mornings with my friend Tracy's teenage son, Matt. They have started spending time together on Sunday afternoons to give them the chance to build a friendship naturally, no pressure. Last week Sarah came over for the first Max and Matt afternoon to answer any questions Matt had about the ins and outs of Max. Yesterday, the two fellas hung out on their own and played stair-ball (a game that involves throwing a ball up the stairs and catching it when it bounces down), played outside, and cut paper. Max was very, very happy and Matt's comfort level and confidence increased considerably. The key for me is that Matt is not a therapist - that isn't his role with Max. Matt will help Max learn an entirely new skill - and that is how to be friends.