PANDAS & Friendships

[earnestfamily7]

Does anyone have any suggestions or success stories on how to keep your PANDAS child's friendships? In addition to her asking/checking/anxiety/meltdowns on an array of issues, my daughter is having a very hard time w/ jealousy. She has never had a meltdown at school but I am starting to feel that it is just a matter of time based on some of the things she says at home. She is jealous of the the friendships other girls have with each other... she feels she is intentionally being excluded... even thought some of the girls have been to our house and vise versa... she started crossing out pictures of some of them in the school newspaper yesterday. She is 7 in 1st grade. I think this may be related to cognitive inflexibilty issues, in that she has it in her mind how the friendships should work - how long each should play - roles they should have etc.... and when it doesnt work out (like every day!) she is so upset at home when she talks about it.... and she told me that she started yelling at them and then feels very bad and says sorry a million times.... I am nervous and scared about where she is heading with all of this.... this is just another "issue" to add to the mounting list!!!!

 

Anyone else with similar issues and suggestions please weigh in....

[jewels]

As a mum of a 7 year old girl - I know exactly where you are coming from. Take down all her friends telephone numbers, and after school and anxiety calms try getting your dd to telephone them one to one. Also give her a topic ie tv programme to talk about also so that she doesn't get fixated on one subject.

 

I speak to my dds friends parents that are not close friends of mine, and tell them that when she has an infection she is very emotional.

 

Also watch carefully non PANDAS little girls - Alot of it is girls just being little girls.

 

Hope this helps you and dd

[MomWithOCDSon]

My DS12 has always been more of a loner, and as he's gotten older, he's just been very particular about friendships. Yes, he has some "odd," or maybe more accurately described now that he's in junior high, "uncool" behaviors that can make him a pariah with some of the more mainstream kids who form the various cliques at school.

 

What he's been able to do, however, is pick out just a couple of boys his age who either share some of his eccentricities or who are just very naturally easy-going and tolerant of them. One friend he's had since 2nd grade, for instance, is a very easy-going, "normal" kid who treasures DS12's acumen at certain things -- video games, computers, swimming -- and so, on a one-on-one basis, just waves aside some of the odder parts of DS's personality or behaviors. We do, however, outside his friend's hearing, coach him from time to time on how it isn't appropriate to constantly ask your friend if he washed his hands after going to the bathroom or petting the dog, and how it isn't fair to talk his ear off or insist that he watch you "battle a boss" on your computer game instead of letting the friend have some fun of his own with a turn at the game controls! It's almost like, even with a 12-year-old, sometimes you're dealing with the socialization issues of a 4 or 5-year-old; there's just a slower maturation in some ways, I guess because so much of his brain and life experience has been consumed by other concerns.

 

This year especially, though, he's found another boy in his class who is very similar to him; so while this boy will express concern over some of the behaviors he doesn't have himself, he's more tolerant of them and stands by DS12 while he struggles through a compulsion or whatever.

 

Kids can be pretty resilient overall, but I think there's a difference in genders, too. From what I've seen, though I don't have a daughter, girls are maybe a bit more susceptible to feeling the pangs of "not belonging."