Thanks for you kind words. I just hope that sharing our journey will help other parents struggling with the same issues. Forgive me if I am talking too long.
On your questions:
1. OP wasn't always popular with his peers. In fact he had severe issues with his social skills which was coupled with his communication problems. As I said in my last posting, he would and could only play another little boy who also had severe developmental problems while he was in pre-school.It was heart wrentching to watch for a mother. Other kids either ignored him or picked on him. As he was getting better with his conmmunication skills through speech therapy, he started to build relationship with normal kids. We monitored it very closely. We would alway be there watching and intervening if necessary, until the relationship began its "stable" phase (harder than my own dating days :)). OP is always a very nice kid. He was never the aggresor to other little kids and he was so desperate for friendship. However, certain kids would pick on him since he was not a fast talker. If it happened repeatedly and intervention from parents wouldn't work, I would not let OP play with these kids any more. I didn't complain to the other parents, just politely found excuses saying that OP couldn't play at that time... Fortunately a family moved in at our next door and they had a little boy who became th best buddy with OP. They were very compatible and liked same things (e.g., computer games) and he would always laugh at OP's jokes (OP has a very good sense of humor but was not always appreciated). I am still so thankful for all the pleasure that he had brought in OP's life. After we moved, OP was depressed for a long time because he lost his best friend. We looked around in the neighborhood and found another little boy who was his age. We invited that kid to come play and again monitored closely for several months. This time it took a lot longer for them to work out the kinks in their relationship since they are more different but it was OK. We also invited other kids (e.g.from his class) to come over to our house or to go on trips with us. We took his friends to the museums, movies, circus, hiking trips, canoing, even to broadway shows. We always offered to pay for the costs and took a lot of time off work to do it. On one hand OP had a lot more fun with the activities, on the other hand kids wanted to be his friends so they could be invited (I guess). I volunteered in school - reading to the kids or helping the teachers with other activities, so I could observe his school time and also get to know his teacher and classmates. Over the years, as he is working out of his problems and his confidence grows, it is easier and easier for him to make friends. We talk a lot and I always try to listen and help him analyze the situation if he runs into a problem. These days he has a lot of friends, and he gets invited a lot more than we invite other kids. I try to respect his choice of freinds, even a few of his them are bit "questionable" in my view. For example one boy has been his friend from school for 3 years, ever since he moved to this state. That boy pushed and hit OP on the school bus when school first started. OP cried at home but told me that he would take care of it "like a good little hobbit". I respected his decision and didn't intervene immediately against my motherly urge. He did resove the issue although I am not sure exactly how and they became the best friends. Their friendship helped OP to adapt to his new school. However, that boy is from a very dysfunctional family and his parents couldn't care less about his schooling. He picked up a few bad habbits from them inevitably although he is basically a nice kid. So on one hand I am glad that he was OP's first friend in the new school and feel sorry for his family situation, on the other hand, I worry about his influence on OP. I don't want to tell OP who can he can be friends with or not, so the only thing I could do was to watch closely, talk to OP (as diplomatically as I can), talk to his teacher, get to know the kid, etc... It has been a fine line to walk. Anyway, to my delight, OP's teachers have told me repeatedly that OP has been a positive influence in that kid's life and one teacher even credited that kid's progress in reading to OP's help. I am glad that he could maintain his value (at least most of the time) even though his friends could have other views. This means so much to me. To lots of parents, this may have come natual for their kids and they are certainly blessed. But it has been a hard journey for OP although it is definitely rewarding. Now since he is more mature, I am trying to show him the methods such as positive reinforcement, negotiation and compromise, especially in his dealings with his two year old sister, who is verbally talented, often pushy, and eccentric (totoally opposite of OP). It is only working 10% of the time, but it is a step up from 0% (when they always resorted back to screaming, crying, pushing, and fist fighting)!
2. Books - many experts have book lists for kids and I certainly don't want to pretend to be one :). Although both my husband and I are engineers, we both love to read and we picked books that we like and would interest OP (doesn't always work and we never force him). He has two book shelves full of books and we go to the library all the time. We encourage him to read a variety of books, though he has developed his particular tastes (again his little sister has totoally different style of reading). We both have been reading to him since he was little and he still loves to be read to. I remeber the days that I had to read Captain Underpants over and over and that was torturous (I disliked the book)! This summer he is reading Harry Potter the 4th year while I am reading him the 5th year book. At this stage (he is turning 9 and going to 4th grade), we feel that he needs to read more classical works (in addition to kid's books). So we have been introducing him to books like Mark Twain's "Hackleberry Finns", Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings", Homer's "Odyssey", etc. Since he likes history, we also got him many books on American history (he loves to read about the presidents and the revolutionary war). He got into mythology after he learned about ancient greek and roman cultures at school. I bought him books on Greek/Roman Gods and Homer's Odyssey. I heard from the speech therapist years ago that reading by parents was the single most important indicator for kid's reading success, and I took that advice to heart. You know, I benefited a lot from reading with him too. Once I was on a business trip to England and met for the first time the people from the other company with whom we were about to start a significant collaboration. My counterpart was a very reserved woman though she was polite. We somehow started to talk about kids, and found out that we were both Harry Potter fans. That was an icebreaker. We started to discuss what we liked and not liked about the 5th book, and we were both passionate about it. That was certainly a good beginning of our work relationship. She has been very helpful to me since. I am also a big fan of the Lord of Rings, and that has also made me friends with various interesting people...
Anyway, sorry about the long reply and hope that you'd have the patience to read through my mumbling :). I should learn to be more brief. I am like a typical mother who can't stop when asked about their kids!
Have a great Holiday!
