Games to Enhance Turn-Taking, Sportsmanship, Social Skills

By Jeanne Holverstott, M.S.

Q. I read that when Temple Grandin was a young girl, her mother hired a nanny to play turn-taking games with her to improve social skills. What sort of games do you recommend? Are there any that you don’t recommend?

A. After every holiday meal, my family would gather around the dining room table with a game purposefully selected by my mother for this occasion. I remember Taboo, Scattergories, Trivial Pursuit, Outburst. No matter the age of the player, the expectations were the same: follow the rules, win with humility, lose with grace, do your best, and never, ever complain. Games make up the fabric of a childhood and, perhaps, a lifetime, and appropriate game play opens doors to respect, friendship, and fun.

Turn-taking is a highly intricate skill that is easily taken for granted. When does your turn start? End? Whose turn is it? Where/how do you pay attention when it is not your turn? Do you need to pay attention when it is not your turn? Does someone else’s move affect your game play? How long can I make others wait? The type of game you select depends on the goal.

If your goal is turn-taking, keep the amount of “turn” time low to help keep the number of “turns” high. Consider: Candy Land, Connect Four, Jenga, Topple.

If your goal is sportsmanship, consider games that are quick and can be replayed frequently to minimize the devastation of losing. Consider: Connect Four, Tic Tac Toe, Operation. Also consider games that incorporate “small” losses within the game, rather than one “big” loss at the end: Chutes and Ladders, Mouse Trap, Sorry, Aggravation, Trouble.

Most games can be turned into games of cooperation. Take a game like Battleship. By putting two children on a team, they have to figure out how to work together. Who puts the pegs in? Will they take turns calling letters and numbers? Will one call a letter and one a number? Who will place the ships?

If your goal is simply to have fun, there are some basic considerations to make sure fun does not turn into a disaster. In general, consider:

· The level of distraction the game presents. I hate Mouse Trap, but kids love it for some reason unbeknownst to me. Mouse Trap provides pieces that are continuously distracting, falling apart, and creating problems.

· The level of attention required to complete the game. Unless we are playing a prodigy, we wouldn’t expect a five-year-old to play chess; expect some games to be too challenging for children to endure without a break.

· The length of turns. A Sorry card tells you exactly what to do, but Scrabble might take time, and lots of it, to develop the perfect word. Waiting is sometimes like asking a child to fail.

· The length of the game. Risk, Monopoly, and Chess are somewhat like a marriage: til’ death do you part. That being said, I have perfected the art of “pausing” a game (you’d be amazed at what post-it notes and paper clips can do). If you have 30 minutes, don’t attempt to squeeze in a “long” game; repeat or modify a short game.

Perhaps more than anything, games create memories and self-confidence. April 12, 1993 is a date I will never forget. I beat my mom at Scrabble for the first time. We had been playing for five years.

Intervene, Intervene, Intervene

By Kate Duffy

A while back, Toni, the SpectrumConnection editor, asked me to write about how far parents should go to help their teens on the spectrum land a job. Since then, several of our Hot Topics parents have shared their kids’ job search stories with me, and I realized there was no easy answer to her question. For the most part, though, their stories revolved around the kids’ inability to accurately read situations, to remember instructions and to multitask to make a deadline. Looking at that list, it sounds like business as usual on the job for most of us — which is why it is so very important that our kids start learning about the world of work as soon as they can.

That’s why the short answer to Toni’s question is this: do what you need to do.
And don’t do it alone.
Team up with the people in your life to introduce your teen to the world of work. When you get burned out – and you will – you’ll have reinforcements to soldier on to do the hard work of teaching your kid that he has to work and that not everyone is as fascinated with Pokemon, fighter planes, railroad time schedules as he is. You want your teen to join the outside world in a safe, organized manner, so bring in those folks you think would be good role models and champions for your teen.

How involved should you and your team become with your kid’s job search? There is no one right answer, but remember that our kids are generally younger than their chronological age, so that a 16 year old on the spectrum is more like an 11 or 12 year old emotionally.

The end goal is for your teen to get some work experience and to be out in the world, so he understands more about the way the world operates. Given that, it’s not as important how your teen gets a job, just that he has one.

For many, the first job is sacking groceries. So you definitely want to know your neighborhood grocery store manager. You’ll want to talk to the manager before your teen does, letting him or her know about your teen’s strengths and problems. In addition, you’ll want to let the manager know something about autism, especially how prevalent it is, how it affects families throughout the community. By hiring your teen, tell the manager, the store is helping the autism community, which is loyal to supportive businesses.

Do you need to let your teen know about all your behind-the-scene maneuvering? No, you don’t, and it’s better if you don’t. Each kid is different, and so you have to tailor the approach to the kid. For instance, both of my sons are on the spectrum, but they are very different from each other temperamentally. With my oldest son, Nick, who has a lot of anxiety, I frequently have had to go around his back to get him to try new things. That’s how he started playing chess, which he loves, and is a skill he has made money from for a number of years.

Playing chess on a team and then being the team’s assistant coach for three years was a great experience for Nick. Not only was his chess coach a wonderful mentor for him, he also taught Nick how to be a leader and supervisor. For three years, til he got a paying job as an assistant chess coach, Nick worked with Mr. Cooper and learned the important workplace skills of showing up on time, conversing politely even when you don’t feel like it, and managing others – in this case, kindergartners to 8th graders, not a particularly easy workforce.

When he was 14, he also worked for my friend Necia, building her small business a data base of clients and contacts. Three afternoons a week that summer, he walked to her home-based business a half mile away and got to work. What he didn’t know, though, was that I had asked Necia to let him work for her because I knew she would be a good mentor for him, that he would learn about the world in a safe, organized way with her.

Don’t feel badly about intervening in your teen’s vocational life. There is a lot of competition for jobs right now, and our kids need to be part of a team – even if they don’t think they do. Sign them up for Vocational Rehabilitation services too because the VR counselors will then be a part of your team, which gives you a bit of a breather. Remember, the type of skills it takes to get a job do not come naturally to our teens. That’s why the unemployment and underemployment rate for people on the spectrum is about 92 percent.

So get your team together and remember you are not alone. There are lots of us out there doing behind the scenes coaching with our kids. Just keep the end goal in mind and plug away.