Published on 12, July, 2020
My 12yo son is feeling the effects of not having friends to socialise with during the school holidays. For a long time he has said having hardly any friends doesn't bother him, but he has now admitted it does.
Does anyone have experience or knowledge of support groups, ideas for improving his interpersonal skills, techniques to be more tolerant of other people's ways of thinking that might differ from his own, as that is a real blocker for him.
Thanks!
The best way of increasing an autistic person's understanding of others is through "shared interests". If he knows anyone with the same or similar interest to his own play with them.
In the mean time he can join online autism communities where he can find autistic people he feels he can relate to. Communicating online can remove so many boundaries for autistic people, it gives them more time to process information, there is no gestures, body language or facial expressions to get in the way, they can be in a comfortable environment.
It's extremely unlikely an autistic person on a community will have a go at him, it's actually seen autistic people can communicate with other autistic people better.