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Friendships

NAS83248

Hi, I’m new here. My 14 year old son has just been diagnosed with asd/dyspraxia. 
I suppose I’m just looking for abit of advice on how to deal with friendship groups breaking down. He’s been slowly pushed out for being the weird kid (breaks my heart) and now his only long term friend has started blanking him too. It’s souls destroying to watch. 
I don’t know how to bring the subject up without making him feel worse, Iv tried getting him to make new friends and his teachers have put him intouch with a nice group of kids at school but once school finishes he’s abit of a recluse… he says he doesn’t speak to his friends after school and that’s just the way it is. He’s very black and white with stuff and school is school and home is home  so the two don’t cross over. 

im not really sure why I’m here or what I’m asking to be honest it’s all abit of a whirlwind at the minute and I feel like I just need to vent

Parents

  • School is a very stressful place for autistic children, I have not come across a single autistic person who ever said that they liked school. I am still in touch with quite a few people I was at school with and when they say they enjoyed it, I wonder if it was really the same school. I fully understand your son's unwillingness to let school intrude on his home life, which is safe and comfortable, in any way.

    Autistics are often quite happy with their own company, I wonder if you are more distressed on your son's behalf, than he is himself? Of course many or most autistics do crave friendships and relationships, but we need the people we interact with to be relatable, accepting and non-judgmental, and we are not well equipped to recognise such people, or to initialise relations with them.

Reply

  • School is a very stressful place for autistic children, I have not come across a single autistic person who ever said that they liked school. I am still in touch with quite a few people I was at school with and when they say they enjoyed it, I wonder if it was really the same school. I fully understand your son's unwillingness to let school intrude on his home life, which is safe and comfortable, in any way.

    Autistics are often quite happy with their own company, I wonder if you are more distressed on your son's behalf, than he is himself? Of course many or most autistics do crave friendships and relationships, but we need the people we interact with to be relatable, accepting and non-judgmental, and we are not well equipped to recognise such people, or to initialise relations with them.

Children
  • in reply to Martin

    I think you are absolutely right! It effects me so much more than him and I need to remember he does prefer his own company or his online friends that he has common ground with. 
    He has willingly taken himself away from his friendship group because of a boy who wasn’t very kind to him and I am super proud of him for doing that. 

    Thank you for replying.