DS won't acknowledge bus driver? Thoughts?

I would work on social graces on someone else. I ride public transit rarely to I speak to a bus driver. Also there is a confusing rule/s that is taught at schools-- don't talk to bus driver it can distract them or it is taught as only talk to the bus driver if you need help. At 3 you could be sending confusing message.

I wouldn't worry about it either. One of my students was like that with most people. He needed some time with the person to warm up. Even after seeing me every week for several years, he still had a lot of trouble greeting me but would warm up after I was there for about 5-10 minutes and then be extremely engaging. And saying bye was easy.

Thanks for your thoughts!

My son doesn't acknowledge the driver either, and he's had the same one both ways for months now. I really don't think it's a social grace issue, at any age. He's in a hurry to get to his seat, sit down and pull out his chewie so he can ride to school.

I appreciate your thoughts, I'm just surprised I guess. Do you think that 3.5 years old is too young to say hello to a bus driver or that he's SN? Or maybe a combination?

Honestly I think both age and personality. I don't think any of my kids would have said hi in that situation. (Heck, two years older I couldn't get them to say hi to the kid who had speech therapy right after them every week, despite his repeated attempts to engage them. And he was just a kid LOL.)

I wouldn't try to force it. Some kids that age may be fine with it, but certainly not all. Just because he doesn't want to doesn't mean there's anything wrong with that.

What about working on waving hello/goodbye instead? When working as a clown, kids would be very shy about saying thank you for balloons or facepainting, but would usually be willing to give me a high 5 or a wave.

I wouldn't force the issue.. I think at 3.5 he is still pretty young to be expected to properly greet the bus driver every time.

I would just practice ways of greeting others at home and in time he will probably start to do it on his own.

At 3.5 our mostly NT son (he's got SPD, but his language is quite fine) wouldn't acknowledge anyone. He's just really introverted, somewhat anxious and not willing to perform.

Things that help:
1. Time, time and more time.
2. Giving him a non-verbal way of greeting people. Ds would wave when he couldn't talk.
3. Starting with very familiar people and explaining to ds why it's important to acknowledge them (not speak, but acknowledge them). "If you don't wave or say hi to your friend, they'll think you're mad or you don't like them."
4. Modeling good social graces as much as possible.

Ds is 7, turning 8 soon. He will greet people now. It's soft, but he says something. He'll even carry on mono-syllabic conversations with our neighbors. (How are you? "fine" How's school "good" "who's your teacher "Mrs. J.") In church, he even shakes hands during the sign of peace! (We're working on eye contact with that, but I know a lot of his peers won't do the hand shake.)

At 3.5 I'd rather just not push the issue. It's not going to be held against him that he didn't greet the bus driver at that age.

If you don't mind me asking, why is he taking the bus? 3.5 seems a little young for that.

I don't have any additional insights on the greeting thing, but I wanted to answer the bus question from MusicianDad.

Transportation is generally part of special education services. We aren't using the bus at the moment, but have in the past. It was actually much easier for DS to seperate from me at the bus stop than at school. I don't know why, but it was. Also, depending on the district, the appropriate class for a particular child may be pretty far from home so it may be logistically difficult to make the drive on a regular basis and still care for siblings or make it to work on time (for example, in San Francisco there is really only one inclusion preschool and it's on the far northwest part of the city, so if you happen to live across the city. . .).

Ok, that was probably way more than you wanted to know.

Catherine

When I work with kids that don't want to say hi to someone, I tell them it's polite to wave with at least their pinky. You don't have to talk, just acknowledge (I don't say it that way to the kids) with a little wave.