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9 year old autistic daughter and friends

maaya

Hi

I have a nine year old recently diagnosed daughter who is painfully aware that she has no friends. At school she has friends who play with her but if they do agree to come for a playdate it's not reciprocated so she has not seen anyone all summer nor did she speak to anyone through lockdown. Her autistic sister does have reciprocal friendships. 

At school her behaviour is apparently good but at home she explodes. She says she sees others going home with each other but she never gets to go anywhere and gets very upset which impacts greatly on her home behaviour. School say there is nothing they can do as she plays with peers at school. 

I am devastated that this is the situation and wonder if moving schools would help but she would have to go on a waiting list and is in year 5 which would mean changing two years in a row when she moves to secondary unless I can persuade the council to keep her in year 4....

I wonder if you have any suggestions. 

Many thanks 

  • in reply to maaya

    Are they clubs she was keen on joining or ones you maybe encouraged her to join? That can make a big difference. Being with a group of people who share your interests is very different from being with a generic group of people who maybe don’t.

    what’s your daughters most favourite things to do in the whole world?

  • in reply to Gerty

    Hi thanks for the reply she does do a couple of clubs but doesn't mix with anyone whilst there. Thumbsup

  • I'm sorry but the answer is probably exposing her to a much larger group of people outside school. If she's very good at masking she may cope well at school but there is a difference between coping and thriving. She needs to find people she doesn't need to mask around. Then it will become reciprocal. But the number of people willing to make friends with your daughter when she's not making an effort to be 'normal' may be so small loking in the school pool alone may be too narrow.

  • Would she be able to join the brownies or guides or scouts or similar, sorry not sure what age each of those is, make friends.oitside school, or join a group where she will have shared interest eg, St John's ambulance, provided the leader is autistic aware!

    Some of these organisations are more disabled aware than others, inclusion is something they encourage.

  • in reply to NAS74811

    Hi

    Thanks for the reply, yes I plan to keep up the playdates when possible too. I wish there was a simple solution! 

  • Hello

    I’m so sorry I don’t have advice but I could have written this post. We seem to be going through the same thing. My daughter is 8 and I thought it may have been ok when schools started back 2 weeks ago (we are in Scotland so start back earlier). She has barely seen anyone over summer and the first 2 weeks back seem to have been a lot of wandering in the playground by herself and getting very upset about it in the evenings. Watching this thread to see if anyone else has advice. My plan is to try to keep going with the playdates even though they won’t be reciprocated.