My 12 year old son does not want friends

Hi Anna. I'm mom to a 35 year old son with autism. I believe forcing someone to socialize, beyond everyday expected cooperation is just cruel. However, I would recommend continuing to provide opportunities for him to socialize as well as quite times. When my son was in school he did not socialize well with the other children because he didn't understand the concept of  playing or imagination. He was much happier doing laundry or shopping. Now as an adult he has become more curious about playing. Last Sunday he was playing with some kids at church with water guns. He had chased a group of kids into one of the classrooms, knocked on the door, and said: "I am the police, open the door so i can shoot you". Ok, he still doesn't entirely get it , lol. But the point is we don't want to change our kids, we love them the way they are. And we certainly do not want socializing to be bad thing or a requirement. Also consider, there are a lot of jobs that require solitude that are difficult to fill. For example: Truck driving, light house security or any night security , train engineer, horticulturist, data analyst, computer programmer....just to name a few. Hope this helps.......Laura

Thank you. I really appreciate the input from people’s own experiences. I value it more than the advice of NT experts. The last thing I want is to put more pressure on him. He’s coping so well at school that I have made that decision to not try and force ‘friendships’ on him too. Cheers.

Hi, bit late spotting your post :)

My experience in high school included a 'socialising group', I was taught (forced tbh) how to talk to people, make eye contact, 'be more normal' etc. It's made me a fantastic actress in hiding my traits but has caused more problems in the long term.

I'd agree with not having this kind of pressure/ stress for him and see about a club/ group that he is interested going to. :)

NAS64118 said:

Thanks very much for your reply.  Sorry I haven’t responded sooner but I’ve been a bit snowed under.

You're welcome; and no problem, I have no doubt that you have much more pressure on your time than I do!

NAS64118 said:

when the experts are telling you you are risking your child’s wellbeing

The trouble with this is that the "experts" often define "wellbeing" very narrowly as "behaves more like a non-autistic person", and define a "successful" life only as one with the usual non-autistic ambitions. They also often speak as if our autism being less visible on the outside indicates that we are less autistic on the inside; and this is simply not the case. Feeling that we have to constantly force ourselves to behave in ways which don't come naturally to us can be a huge burden to bear; which can lead to chronic fatigue, persistent anxiety about our performance, confusion about our identity, and a feeling that we have no control over the direction that our lives take.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for a child to assess their own life in these terms, as they are still developing their sense of identity, and they are led to believe that doing what the "experts" guide them to do is the only route to satisfaction in life. Many of us autistic adults who have spent decades "masking" our autism as we were trained to do as children (whether by therapists or by school bullies!), beg to differ. I certainly feel that "being autistic" has not harmed my mental health anything like as much as "pretending not to be".

Private education is probably not possible for us right now, but I am going to look into whether I can get control of his EHCP budget, in which case I might be able to flexi school or home educate and pay for him to do courses that match his interests.  Scouts could be a good idea. I know 2 of his primary school class are involved with Scouts so it’s definitely something I will encourage him to try. Thanks for the suggestion. A

Have you considered private education?      It's crazy expensive (around £20k/year) but if he's bright, you'll find the price acts as a filter that removes a lot of the nasty elements - and with smaller classes and more teacher involvement, there's normally a lot less bullying and their academic potential is maximised.

Another thing you might try is getting him into Scouts - a couple of hours a week of adult-controlled, activity-driven interaction - and again, the kids tend to be 'nicer' kids - the horrible kids just don't do Scouts.

secondary school seems to be a minefield. I can’t imagine where in his future life he’ll be put under the same pressures as now. But I don’t want to limit his future by taking him out of the system if it can offer opportunities. It’s clearer to me now that any artificial friendship will be worth nothing much. Luckily he is still happy to talk to me and his Dad at the moment and if that remains the case we can be the support for him. He’s a wonderful person. I do hope he makes a friend one day though. Thanks for replying.

Thanks for your reply. The more replies I get to my post, the more I realise what I already knew - that you can’t make friendship happen. Unfortunately he’s being bullied now at school and I wish he had even one ally to watch out for him. However he does have us - his family and we think he’s the bees knees. And if it comes to it I will take him out of school. Just troubling times at the moment.

Hello,

When I was in secondary school, I didn't have any friends. I really only had one friend that I kept in touch with after primary school. In secondary school, I  had acquaintances that I got on with. Unfortunately for me, a lot of the people that were in my classes were oiks that I didn't trust, or want to be associated with, because I knew that it would just cause trouble for me.

Just give your son some time. Since he is only in the second year of secondary school, he may just meet a very good friend (Eventually).

Hi Anna - I'd leave him be - you can't force him to make friends and it's a stress he obviously doesn't need.

Does he have any hobbies that would naturally involve others?     If he has, I'd gently encourage him in that hobby and see what happens - he needs to measure and judge others as 'worthy' of his attention and that their contribution to his life would be worthwhile - like if he's into cars, someone else with comparable or higher knowledge would be rated as 'interesting'.   That might develop into a friendship - but you can't force it.

I'm in my 50s and have probably only 7 friends - lots of acquaintances and people I might socialise with (if I can be bothered) - but only 7 friends - and I rarely see them but we keep in contact via e-mail..

Thank you for your reply. It is very useful to hear from other people. I don't always have faith in my own instincts (maybe comes through being brought up to be obedient rather than questioning!), so it’s nice to feel like I might be thinking the right way for my son.  Many thanks. 

Thanks very much for your reply.  Sorry I haven’t responded sooner but I’ve been a bit snowed under. I appreciate your insight and it backs up the way I was feeling about all this.  At his EHCP review I am going to ask to have this target removed and I think the points you have made will be useful to use as part of my reasoning for this. I’m not a big one for small talk myself so i do understand where my boy is coming from to some extent.  It can be difficult to stick to your instincts (and the wishes of your child) when the experts are telling you you are risking your child’s wellbeing. I also appreciate your point that this would be awkward for any child, not just one with autism. Thank you.

I hope this doesn't sound too cynical or trite, but: Are the other children under any obligation to befriend him? (I think not!) Friendship is a two-way relationship and, autism or not, there's nothing he can do to force anyone else to befriend him against their will, just so that he can meet an arbitrary target. If he's facing any stigma from the other children for his autism, even at a low level that's not overt bullying, this risks making him feel like a "failure" because of others' prejudices. If he does manage to force some superficial relationships, but only by putting on the act of being someone that he isn't, they're hardly likely to be the kind of "friendships" which would "save his mental health" in any case.

I think you're quite right to be cautious. It sounds to me like "behavioural engineering" of the worst kind - potentially setting him up to fail through no fault of his own. Whether that is the case or not, he is very likely to see it that way if he is admonished for not meeting the target, and the results of that could be very counter-productive. I wonder how many non-autistic people would find it so easy to socialise if they knew that someone was looming over their shoulder ticking things off on a clipboard the the whole time!

The idea that we can be helped with social problems just by throwing us in at the deep end to acclimatise is very misguided. It totally ignores that the source of our social problems is not just lack of knowledge or practice; there are often much deeper reasons for it to do with how we process information about the world around us. For example; when I don't use eye-contact, it's not because I know nothing about it or how to do it, it's because doing it would overwhelm my brain's power to process the information from my other senses, and no amount of practice or social knowledge will stop that from happening. While it certainly is a good thing to help him to understand the people around him better, if he has trouble reading people's intentions at a perceptual level, it may be a very demoralising and frustrating experience trying to learn it for himself by trial and error, especially if he finds any social faux-pas along the way embarrassing  (this is the way that I had to do it as a child, since I didn't fit the autism diagnosis as it was back then). Does he receive much help with these aspects of his autism at school (assuming that they even recognise them as a potential problems)?

Encouraging an after school club sounds more positive - so long as the activity is something that he's genuinely interested in, of course! A shared interest can be a much easier way for autistic people to kindle a friendship, as there's much less awkward "breaking the ice" and making idle chit-chat that we so often struggle with - those can always be worked on later once he's built some confidence by maybe finding a couple of friendships that come naturally with him barely noticing that it's happening. But again, if it's something that he feels forced into, it may just make him more resistant to trying.

I doubt that he'll be encouraged to make friends by turning the subject into something that he sees as "test" or a source of conflict with adults. I think you're right not to push too hard, just as it would be right for a non-autistic child.

Best wishes to both of you.

I think I would say to err on the side of respecting his wishes, based on the fact that I'm now 52 with no real friends that I see often & quite happy that way (I do have my wife though). I had one or two friends at school.