The basis of a healthy social contract between individuals is reciprocity.\u00a0 At root, individuals bond–as family members, friends, lovers–because they give each other pleasure.\u00a0 The more pleasure–and the more equal the sharing–the closer the bond.<\/p>\n
The game starts at birth.\u00a0\u00a0 Adults must start it, as they are the more competent partner (or should be.)\u00a0 Given the average infant, the average advice on child-rearing results in a baby who soon realizes that people make him feel safe and comfortable and happy.\u00a0 Within weeks, the baby is responding to this with signs of happiness as well as notices of “something’s wrong, fix it!”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Caring adults are then rewarded by the baby’s joy.\u00a0 They like the smiles, the coos, the wiggly arms and legs, all the signals that the baby is happy and likes having them around.<\/p>\n
Adults then intensify their attempts to get these happy reactions from the baby, repeating the ones that work–because they’re enjoying the baby just as the baby is enjoying them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Before the average baby is a year old, he knows that adults take pleasure in him–some of the time–and can tell when he’s pleased an adult.\u00a0\u00a0 Average babies begin consciously seeking to please their adults at least some of the time–more if the adults are also playing fair, not demanding more than the baby can give.\u00a0 (Adults have longer attention spans, and often want babies to interact longer than the baby can.)<\/p>\n
This is the basis of healthy social motivation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Healthy adults know that other people can be a source of pleasure, and know the rules of their culture for getting a good reaction from others.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They treat others pleasantly,\u00a0 expecting a good result most of the time, and are neither pushovers nor bullies.<\/p>\n
When something keeps an infant from responding “normally” to those first contacts with adults, that game of sharing pleasure back and forth can fall apart.\u00a0\u00a0 The baby may not get a feeling of safety, comfort, and pleasure from the same adult actions that work for average babies.\u00a0 The parent, faced with an infant who rejects baby-book advice–who grins and chortles when a fan comes on, but cries when sung a lullaby–may become frustrated and angry.\u00a0\u00a0 They may assume the baby is being difficult on purpose, trying to get on their nerves.\u00a0\u00a0 Here the reciprocity is not pleasure, but distress, and both are learning that the other guy is not playing fair.<\/p>\n
As this child grows older, he experiences more discomfort, more misery: he learns that other people do not provide comfort and fun and joy,\u00a0 but make inexplicable demands and always seem angry or upset with him.\u00a0\u00a0 Pleasure may only come when he is alone, and (in some therapy systems, in particular) he is almost never alone–he is always being harassed (in his mind) to do tasks that make no sense to him.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The more difficult a child is to comfort and share pleasure with, the harder it is for adults to take pleasure in the child–so in addition to not experiencing others as a source of pleasure, these\u00a0 children may not know that anyone could take pleasure in them–that they are capable of giving pleasure.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One parent of an autist told me, many years ago,\u00a0 “I can’t reward him for doing something I like because he never<\/em> does anything I like!”<\/p>\n Consider what that feels like to the child–a child already, neurologically, finding it harder to grasp the social signals we give each other.\u00a0\u00a0 Autistic children are sensitive to anger and fear: if they experience other people as radiating anger and fear (which, at a young age, they cannot possibly understand), and never or rarely receive pleasure from others, and no not know they can be a source of pleasure….they have no basis for desiring more contact with people.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why would<\/em> they care what others think?\u00a0 Why would<\/em> they want to get close to people, when they’ve experienced people as a source of discomfort, demands they can’t understand or meet?\u00a0 How can they possibly learn to understand others, feel compassion for them, when they’ve never felt understood,\u00a0 felt that someone had treated them compassionately?<\/p>\n Neurologically normal children from dysfunctional families can get to the same point–asocial, anti-social, not caring about others, etc.– without a neurological disability.<\/p>\n What can adults do?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0\u00a0 Just understanding that it’s essential for all<\/em> children to experience human contact as safe, comforting, and pleasant, and to know that they can and do give pleasure to others,\u00a0 is a start.\u00a0\u00a0 Then it’s a matter of the adult figuring out what,\u00a0 for the individual child,\u00a0 makes that child feel safe and comfortable, what gives that child pleasure.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s not the same for all children–and that includes autistic children.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Make sure that every day the child gets enough comfort, enough pleasure–enough to counteract the necessary (for all children) negatives.<\/p>\n Autistic children have the potential to be loving, caring individuals–but like all other children, they learn how by being loved and cared for in a way that works for them.\u00a0\u00a0 Without reciprocity of pleasure, there cannot be a healthy social contract.\u00a0 Note that “healthy.”\u00a0\u00a0 There are unhealthy social bonds based on sharing negative, damaging feelings: fear, anger, humiliation, pain.<\/p>\n Helping a neurologically different child discover that it’s worth the struggle (and it is harder for them!) to reach out to others, learn social skills, move out into the world is more difficult–but worth it.\u00a0\u00a0 Somewhere I still have a picture of our son riding a friend’s horse, a big grin splitting his face.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve shown that to other parents and asked “How often does your child look\u00a0 like this?\u00a0 This happy?” \u00a0 That matters.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Find a way to elicit that kind of grin–and show that you like the grin.\u00a0 Do it again.\u00a0 And again.\u00a0 Build the bond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The basis of a healthy social contract between individuals is reciprocity.\u00a0 At root, individuals bond–as family members, friends, lovers–because they give each other pleasure.\u00a0 The more pleasure–and the more equal the sharing–the closer the bond. The game starts at birth.\u00a0\u00a0 Adults must start it, as they are the more competent partner (or should be.)\u00a0 Given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,12,18,10],"tags":[3,25,49,24,8],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interventions","category-life-on-the-spectrum","category-opinion","category-socialization","tag-autism","tag-motivation","tag-opinion","tag-reciprocity","tag-social-skills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.speedofdark-thebook.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}