Making and Keeping a Friend

It's not easy for Chaz to make friends (on left) when he does.  Usually, the other kid doesn't have much patience. Then, there are some kids that just have a calming effect on Chaz.  The twins (one shown in picture) has that affect.  It's surprising because there has only been one other kid that could do that.  His name is Seth and Chaz met him in Kindergarten.  We moved away and Chaz was very sad because they got along so well together.  I remember reading about exactly this topic in Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's.  In that book John talked about only a couple of friends he did really well with but then they would move away and he wouldn't have any friends again.  We didn't want to move away but a house was being built for us and where we were staying was only temporary.  Chaz never got over Seth and still talks about him 5 years later.  Recently, in my other blog, I mentioned our science center trip and guess who we picked up?  We went and found Seth and took him with us.  Chaz was beside himself.  He was just so happy.  Seth STILL has a calming effecting on Chaz.  I'm starting to get what it is.  Seth has always acted very mature for his age.  He is just not hyper in any way.  Chaz does well around older kids.  Not ones that are kind o spastic.  Well, like my other kids.  In general, I have really active kids.  No joke.  So, Chaz being my oldest, gets a lot of influence from the younger kids.  So he tends to act younger for his age most of the time.  Whenever Chaz has spent some time with older kids, he'll come home really mellowed out.  Unless of course he had video games and, well..... that's another blog for another day!