Lately I’ve been making my son go to the grocery store by himself to buy an array of lunch meats and cheeses, specific brands, types, amount, (he would have to ask for them at the deli), having him wait for the HVAC guy to tell him what’s wrong ( I would be conveniently late so he’d have to talk to the HVAC guy), made him go to Home Depot to buy blinds and gave him measurements (he would have to ask someone at Home Depot to cut them to size), drive thru”s for food (he has to order the food himself, pay for it), make him pay bills online and on the phone with a customer service person, make him call when my electric bill is too high (I will say I’m so upset about the bill, can he please call them for me and find out why bill is so high), pick up his meds, run errands for me, call and ask questions about bills or different phone plans etc
There are many many things that we can do to make our kids talk and interact briefly with someone else. I made him call his eye doctor for his 2 year check up. I made him go to the lab by himself for bloodwork. I made him call his GP for his yearly check up. Trying to convince him to call the dentist next, no luck there so far. I’m slowly “making him” do things by himself that I used to do for him or with him. Anything that would require outside interaction.
Since he enjoys driving anyway, I wanted to make good use out of it.
Going to try to make his daily errands progressively alittle more difficult, he may have to actually have a full conversation with someone.
When he returns from these errands, he seems happy like he accomplished something.
Getting him to talk 1st, then maybe work? My sons biggest hindrance was not talking or knowing how to socialize.
There are risks involved, including letting him drive my car by himself (I’ve always been in the car with him until recently), and I feel like so many things can go wrong, but at some point I’m hoping he would feel more “normal” again and doing what everyone else is doing.
It’s such a fine line between trying to protect and shelter them vs letting them go to be as independent as possible. My instincts are to always protect him and keep him safe. So scary