As we pulled into the street where Ian takes his Sunday afternoon therapeutic art class, we passed Tenafly Arts studio. 

"Look, Ian! It says Tenafly Farts. Did you fart? Did you smell up the car? Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

One of the reasons that my kids like me so much is that my sense of humor stalled out at about sixth grade.

Ian's art class is marvelous. They draw and dance to music for an hour and a half, which he loves, and they also infuse social skills training into their lessons. 

Ian could use some help with his social skills. As we walked down the street to the bagel shop last week, he approached a woman of a certain age and asked, "Are you OLD?" with a light conversational tone that one would use to ask about the weather or the baseball scores. I knew what was going to come out of his mouth, because he's done this before. So I clamped my hand in front of his mouth and smiled and shrugged at the horrified woman. 

In addition to his art class, he's attending another social skills class on Monday and one at school. Of all the therapies, this type is most sketchy to me. I'm not sure how much the kids are really learning there. But it's another opportunity for Ian to be around other kids and it helps expand his speech repertoire. 

After attending countless awkward graduate school parties, I do think that many people could benefit from social skills classes. Lessons would include: No one really cares about your dissertation. If you don't know what to say, ask questions. People can see you picking your nose in a car. 

If you could run a social skills class, what lesson would you teach?