Hi! I’m a 12-and-a-half-year-old guy from California who now lives in Pennsylvania. I love Nintenedo 3DS and Wii. I got a WiiU for Chanukah and it’s pretty cool. My favorite games are SuperMario Bros., MarioCart, and Just Dance 4. On the computer, I really love Minecraft. I want to design video games for Nintendo when I grow up. My favorite book is “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” by Judy Blume. And I really like Legos too. But I don’t like sports. And I don’t even like to go outside very much. I hate spiders and I REALLY hate bees. I get along really well with younger kids and adults.. If this is like you, maybe we could have a hang-out.
If only it was that easy to find a friend for our son.Ben was diagnosed with Asperger’s at the end of Kindergarten. One of the most painful aspects of parenting a child who has autism is knowing that your child doesn't have friends. Not a weekend passes without hearing Ben cry that he has no one to hang out with. His loneliness is exacerbated by his siblings’ playdates with their friends. It is heartbreaking.
Ben had very few playdates as a young child. Most of them were, with hindsight, opportunities for me to hang out with moms whose company I enjoyed. Ben wasn’t a very fun playmate. His style of play had more in common with much younger children rather than with his peers. He would be completely engrossed in his toys, but rarely displayed any interest in what the other kid was doing. The fact that we rarely arranged for playdates was brushed aside as an unfortunate reality owing to my very busy schedule as a congregational rabbi. It wasn’t until Ben’s sister, Lilly, came along that we realized it had less to do with schedules and more to do with Ben.
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