relationship with her brother william who's my son was creating a summer camp and that was so much fun but we couldn't just have a summer camp without having some really good friends to come so today i wanted to talk to about how we created friendships for william this is something that i've talked a lot about with other parents because we all want our children to have friends and be social and play outside and go on play dates but it doesn't just happen because our kids don't really understand or it's a surly wants that social connection so i have invited two of william's the best friends today to talk with me about what we did to create those friendships so thank you for joining me joe and tom jack a biggie thanks for having us yeah yeah i'm so happy that you're here and it's fun to to see you in this environment we're usually outside playing and to group activities in the neighborhood and we've known you forever literally since you were babies and you've known ashley and william and grown up with them and recently become really good friends with will you know but i want to ask you first and first i wanted to kind of share with you that we have thousands of people watching and a lot of them are parents and they're really going to be interested to hear what was important for you and how you were inspired or excited to be friends and how you got to feel comfortable with it with being a friend of william but before we do that somebody give you a second to think about it before we do that i'm actually going to explain why william it is a little yes of course of course right and i wanted everyone to meet william and i wanted him to see what we do here on the t v set but as you know you know we can't control things i want to kind of explain what we're going to do now because when he arrives i don't think it's the right time to explain the game because this is a new set a new environment he'll be excited to see you but he's probably going to be a little bit right excited and you know what's going to happen so we're just going to jump and pencils so what we're going to do is we're going to offer a pencil to william and have put it in the water what do you think's going to happen when we put a pencil in this bag i think stays in its polymers they stick together and keep the water in and normally as you know because you've come over to my house lots of times to do science experiments with william will explain it and so there's a teaching lesson but we're not going to do that today i'm just doing that for the viewer so they know why we're using this water here but yes so he's going to come and we have it planned but as you know we can't control helpings work he don't many days is very settled and calm and patient that's not how it was today but i still wanted him to to come and for you to meet him audience and for you guys to have this activity with him so we're just going to go with the flow like we always do and see what happens right yeah so now back to my first question to was we're talking about how we've known you for a long time and how you've been friends with ashley friends with william and there's a difference right in creating a friendship with someone like ashley who doesn't have autism or like with other boys down the street then creating a friendship with william but what in your perspective was the big difference and in those two relationships in creating them well i thought the big difference between ashley and william was that when i made friends with ashley it was a little easier because she could talk and we could kind of communicate but then with william i mean it was a little trickier because it was a little harder to communicate but once i got to know me i was really great and it's really rewarding to hang out with him because people who have autism they don't really judge you or anything like that they're always happy and they want to have a good time and i like that and it's really fun and rewarding well that's great and yeah i wri you know i'm if you don't have the opportunity to be but a child with autism they don't know all those things that you just that they're really happy and not judging and they're just good friends exactly yeah i'm sorry you were going to say something well most of my answer was in there reworded but what's really different from being friends with in a person with autism is  that in stead of a person with autism instead of just a regular person yeah a regular person can communicate and may be a person with autism ca but they're still fun to be around because they don't judge you and they're happy and they're always happy yeah yeah and excited traits of great people so yeah that's a nice thing to say i'm going back to what you said about not talking or communicating as much and your experiences with william he does not talk a lot there are children or adults with autism who do talk more it's just a little bit different right here and still there like you said great traits and great people so it's definitely worth getting to know them it definitely is yeah what we've done so many things together so many activities and one of the things that i thought was important and i'm curious as to how you feel was i really want to william to have a friend and so i created these playdates and bided you to come over and i managed i facilitated i coordinated how everything went and i told you what to do this marker to william or tom william walked away take the activity to him and do it over on the other side of the room yeah so how did you find that kind of instruction and feedback that i gave you and i said that was great but you just did how did you find that in helping you get comfortable with what you were becoming a friend well it helped me get comfortable with him because i come to new had you know a and i thought that was pretty cool yeah definitely do you feel that having some kind of instruction like that helps you connect with him quicker and more deeply yeah definitely because i like feedback too yeah you know i give you a lot of the exact right and i had to say that's what i appreciated from you because i would see you guys taking my instruction and really trying and sometimes that works really well but sometimes i could see we need to make a change so i'd say joke i'm here try giving him some space and then going back and inviting him into the game and then i saw you do it and william come back to work you know so so you were really good about listening and trying new things and taking feedback was there anything uncomfortable like you know we're all as people we're unpredictable right now you have regular friends  family members right but with autism is kind of there's a little bit different in terms of maybe some loudness or yeah they run they flap their hands to something that was there anything that you found uncomfortable as you were building that friendship well in the beginning when i went over to your house for the first few times he would come and come into my face that's ok that's what they could do but i knew when i stayed there more i felt more comfortable with it because i understood that children with autism can do that and not really that bad it's kind of like i kind of think there are coming up to explore and say hi yeah you're right because i mean since they can't really communicate and like speaking they can come up and you know say oh that's what i think yeah that made me a little uncomfortable too but then i was just like oh i would i do you know yeah he's cool dude got used to it and again that's another form of communication and releasing energy yeah you just get more comfortable with it and we don't just stand there that's grey and you know what by you getting comfortable with it and understanding it you more like a fashion thank you yeah fashion show that was fun oh my god wanted to have because we were doing activities that were fun and colorful and it would inspire william to look and participate and let's see the next the next picture will oh that's me that tav look at how colorful you were wearing a bow tie i know and funny wake bright and so the next picture actually shows you going up to william william look at you yeah so what was really nice about this is that you took the activity to him so we were hoping william would dress up and eventually you'll see that he did a little so yes well our other friend well with the hat on he couldn't be here today he really wanted to be but he's on vacation and working so but what was great is will this will the so excited you put glasses on yeah to participate in the fashion show you look great and do what you think you want to do this again thank you for telling me all right we really have some water going here but i'm going to hold this and you take a pencil and put it  very happy you joined yeah you are welcome to stay because we're going to keep talking or you're welcome to leave it's up to you oh there he was dead oh yeah yeah really i don't know i normal kids do right and say you guys were his friends we invited you over for a field day and we did tug of war water balloons right and we had a lot of fun and as you can feel the able to bring some psychics some people to kind of help us create this field experience a very good organization yeah but because the port services yes we love them and let's see what's next i always love ah that was so you are this is about about three years ago so just i wanted to kind of show the scope of all the many things that you have done with william and dishing to the camp in the field trip  you really have hung out with him and helped him experience things like other kids and you went to play baseball with him and show him how to play baseball that was that you love that you're here i remember the baseball remember that was a  i have brought these bags in a cooler and i usually put food in the cooler and he thought there was food in the cooler and i wanted to eat so that's something that i now know if i invite him someplace i need to be aware of the fact that there it might be a missed miscommunication or misunderstanding so that was great it was great yeah and he came in right when we were talking about coming up really close to you and i love how you just sat there and allowed him to come up and say hi and you knew he was saying hi he did that many times it's great right and got to sit here look at pictures because he loves pictures and and just to reiterate from all of the activities were doing so now that you've been with william you know have your friends how has your view on autism changed if any or there's nothing really wrong with autism i mean yeah i mean it's just it just makes for a little different but i mean everybody's different there's something special about everybody and everybody should be accepted and i think people who have autism or mazing there many things every time i see william and other people who have it well thank you that's very insightful and very kind and you're a very you both are very a warm open i was there anything i think i interrupted you that's ok but at first i thought his autism was a little odd but that's because i didn't know what that was at the time and i was friends with william before i knew what autism was so now i know i know why but east he's still a person he's very special and all our children with autism are very special oh that's wonderful thank you for sharing that and we don't we don't have much time i want to ask you one final question as i said there's thousands of people watching what is it that if anything you like to say to parents or kids like you who are wanting to create those relationships between their kids and other kids it's not as hard as you think it is yes no stories you think it is you could probably go into the neighborhood and find you know where your neighbors and asked them to come over and i mean so the pro will do it do it we did it it was nice yeah right well thank you i appreciate that especially hearing this not as hard as you think it is because it's really not it takes take and thank you to all of our viewers for watching and this is a really special episode and i hope that you enjoy meeting my son and meeting his best friends and i can't wait until our next show because i'm going to introduce you to a dear friend of mine dr susan ford she is both a chiropractor but she also has or knows an allergy elimination technique which has done wonders for me and my family and we are going to tell you how it works show you how you can do it yourself but also how you can contact her or other practitioners if you're interested in doing more of it so in the mean time take care and i i hope that you have a lot of fun creating