Hanging Out Doesn’t Have To Be Hard: Neurodivergent Teen Meet Ups
It hurts so much to watch your neurodivergent teen struggle to find and form friendships! But there are specific skills teens can learn to help them build better connections and have more fun. Our meet-ups are designed to help neurodivergent teens feel accepted, become more comfortable in their own skin, and venture out into their community.
Going out with friends is something many teens take for granted, and something many parents expect to happen naturally for their children. But neurodivergent teens need support to find their footing in social situations, and their parents are often at a loss at how best to help. There are certain key ingredients needed to successfully build social skills and a sense of belonging for neurodivergent adolescents- acceptance and non judgment, direct teaching of skills, support in implementing these teachings, and multiple opportunities to practice.
Our outings provide a powerful solution by saving you from having plan, book, and potentially oversee an outing all while struggling to identify peers to invite and crossing your fingers that they will accept. Instead, we provide monthly outings that offer a variety of fun, age-appropriate activities with a hand-selected group of peers accompanied by trained, relatable facilitators. In fact, not only will our meet up program provide that, it also includes two thirty-minute-long coaching sessions each month to help your teen prepare for and get the most out of our outings.
Providing Acceptance and Non-Judgement to Neurodivergent Teens
From bowling to ropes courses, we ensure events that allow neurodiverse teens to get to know each other within a welcoming, accepting and inclusive group of peers. This may sound like we are guaranteeing that everyone will be flawlessly pleasant to one another and integrate with one another seamlessly, but of course that is not the case. We can say that the group is welcoming, accepting and inclusive because that is the tone we set as facilitators and because each group member is expressly taught, during individual coaching sessions, that those are the basic tenets of the group. Acceptance means not just that our group members are accepted by our staff but also that they are asked to accept the neurodivergence of others, even when it is different than their own. The power of being accepted cannot be underestimated and can be an important foundation from which to increase our own self-acceptance. From this safe place of acceptance, a neurodivergent person can more readily examine what aspects of their interactions may not be working for them. They can begin to understand that they can accept themselves and want to improve aspects of themselves, rather than using all or nothing thinking to create a false dichotomy between those two stances. Adolescents, especially those learning to navigate their neurodivergence, learning differences and personality quirks, are more likely to accept teaching and support within this safe and accepting environment. So, in effect, the groundwork for teaching skills has been laid.
The skills neurodiverse teens need and the support to implement them
Every meet-up member is assigned a specific social coach from our team to work with them twice a month in one-on-one sessions. During these times, with an attitude of curiosity not judgment, and support not critique or evaluation, our coaches will not only bolster your teen’s general social understanding skills but also work with them to practice and improve specific skills based on their individual personalities and needs. These social coaching sessions are what make the meetups an opportunity for success, rather than just another potentially frustrating social situation. We will thoughtfully and directly address the barriers that have been blocking your teen’s social success. In our experience, some of the more common barriers to social success that linger even after neurodivergent teens have been through more basic social skills teaching include social anxiety, rigid thinking and cognitive distortions and beliefs.
This is because social skills training can sometimes fall short of helping neurodivergent teens actually try out what they’ve learned in a safe way. Taking a skill that was discussed with a therapist and knowing when to apply it in real life can be quite a leap. Even if you do pull a new trick out of your pocket to try in a social situation, it’s difficult to get the most out of that attempt without an expert there to coach you through the interaction and the aftermath. Combining coaching or teaching with facilitated outings means the neurodivergent teens in our meet-ups get the best of both worlds. Our members are supported by staff at all our outings so they get support and feedback in real time about how to respond to any situations that arise. This combination of real-world experience with therapeutic feedback is far more effective than asking teens to take skills they’ve only talked about in the abstract in a therapy session and figure out when and how to apply them out in the real world on their own.
We understand how important it is to help create these successes so our members can see their capabilities. As they continue to add to these initial successes, a new pattern can emerge and their perspective on socializing with their peers may change.
Neurodiverse Teens benefit from Consistent Care, and Persistent Practice
Building these new patterns can be challenging since it can be hard to convince neurodivergent teens to try new experiences. Signing up for an ongoing program like ours can help because rather than trying to decide over and over again on separate new experiences it can be framed as making one initial decision- to join the group- and then each outing is not a new decision to be agonized over but just a foregone conclusion that they will attend their regular neurodivergent teen hangout.
Of course, given that many neurodivergent teens struggle with flexible thinking, experience anxiety, and are prone to “cognitive distortions” (skewed views and thought processes that are inaccurate but may never have been challenged), some of the outings will challenge them to move beyond their comfort zones. Rest assured that no activity is chosen at random or without consideration for how its specific characteristics work to support our goals.
When an outing elicits an initially negative reaction in a participant, it is important to let us know so we can talk with you and your teen to clarify what aspects are concerning and explore the basis for these concerns. Oftentimes, it is simply a case of rigidity on the part of a teen whose neurodivergent brain chooses the familiar over new experiences and at these times extra support and reassurance can be provided to empower them to move through this initial resistance with curiosity. Rigid thinking or cognitive inflexibility is important to tackle as it can limit a neurodivergent teen across many areas of their lives- from restricting their hobbies and interests to avoiding social situations, academic subjects or even career options. This is why when a teen balks at one of our outings, we encourage them to adjust their expectations. We help gently push them to see that an outing doesn’t have to be a perfect “10”, i.e. the most fun or their most desired activity, in order for them to have at least some fun.
On other occasions, an activity that may seem dangerous at first glance, such as a ropes course or ax throwing evening, simply has to be viewed in the proper context for its benefits to become apparent. For example, activities like these that have a heightened physical component can help participants who struggle with attention and focus tune in to their senses in a way they might not otherwise. Physical activities with a perceived element of risk can naturally push us to adhere to safety regulations or the environment around us, providing practice with mindfulness that other day to day activities may not invite.
Want to help your neurodiverse teen have fun and hang out with peers?
There are some key things any parent can do to help support their neurodiverse teen’s social development. Practice acceptance of their differences and frame all efforts to help them learn new social skills as a way to improve their enjoyment of social situations, not a way to “fix” anything about them or help those around them feel more comfortable with them. Get them social skills training and find opportunities for real time feedback that is supportive and consistent. Finally, realize this is a learning process and as such takes time and like any new skill, practice. Provide safe and non-judgmental environments where they can practice these new skills on a regular basis and be sure to praise all their gradual successes along the way.
