Being a parent means that you have to get used to frustrations, but when your child is not used to engaging in new things, and prefers to be by himself rather than with his teammates, it is difficult. What is even more hard is when other parents don't really understand why Alex doesn't want to have anything to do with their children. Its not the other children's fault, Alex just prefers to be around the people that he already knows. He wants to do things his own way, on his own time, and that is something that is very difficult to break him of.
Alex likes the little town that he lives in, because it is what he is used to. He loves his family, his friends, and even my co-workers, because not only are they who he is used to, but because they accept him for who he is and just basically let him be himself. Alex can sit there during one of my crew meetings and listen while he reads his books, and he enjoys it, but when we try something like baseball, he clams up again.
It is hard because he yells when he does not want to do something, and at baseball practice there is a lot of yelling. The volunteers that help are good at trying to get him to engage in play with them, but he still is not sure of his surroundings enough to be comfortable with that. It would help if he would go more than once a week, but alas I have no control over what his father chooses to do with him on Thursday, the other day he has practice during the week. I drive 45 minutes to become frustrated trying to get him to understand that this is fun, and it is something that he likes. The other 45 minute drive back home is devoted to me trying to calm myself down because I know that no matter what, he needs this. He needs to keep doing this if there is going to be any progress made.
My son is different. And that does make things harder on me, on the people who love him and want to see him succeed, but at the same time it makes it so that I can't just pretend like nothing is wrong and use the same parenting methods that my parents used on me. Its hard to get people to realize that we are not "anti-social" because we want to be, it is just what makes Alex the most comfortable. And when he is comfortable, that is the window of opportunity that we have to get through to him.
He still lines up his cars, sings at random times, and prefers to sit and read to himself more than almost anything else. He loves to go for rides in the car, because it is soothing to him, and above all else, he likes his life in this little town.
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