Hi all. I hope this is ok to post, but I’m really at the point of desperation to help my little girl. Both my girls aged 10 and 12 have autism. They both attended school on the Southside of Glasgow, but due to their autism found school really difficult. In Feb 2020 we withdrew them from school and switched to Home Education. It’s been great in so many ways, bar one. My oldest daughter is not only on the spectrum, she is also exceptionally bright, and has always had interests which were totally different to her peers, so making friends has never been easy for her. She did have a little group of lovely kids in school who all tried very hard to befriend her, but since she’s left school all those friendships have fizzled out. She has made one or two friends online through the home Ed groups but none of the friends either live near us, and/or have little in common with her, so again it’s been hard and those friendships have also fizzled out.
I have tried to reach out to autism groups on FB, and also Home Ed groups to try and find some connections for her. Her little sister has managed to maintain one friendship from school and she has one online friend. She is perfectly happy with those two friends, but her big sister is just desperately lonely. She told me today that aside from her immediate family, she hasn’t spoken to anyone else in around a month. My heart just hurts so much to see her so lonely. I’ve come across this forum and have decided to try once more to try and help her make a connection or two.
She likes art, anime, fashion and design, Japanese culture, dancing, acting (her own scripts performed in our living room), and some quite obscure animated tv shows like The Owl House, Steven Universe, Gravity Falls and Centaurworld. She loves musical theatre particularly Hamilton, and Matilda the musical. If anyone has a child with similar interests who’d be willing (or maybe also happy to meet a new friend), I’d be eternally grateful. It would be nice if she could find a friend close enough to us for them to meet up eventually, but to begin with she’d be more than happy to use What’s App or discord, so it doesn’t matter really where they’re from. Apologies for the long post, but I’m just trying absolutely every single possible route I can think of to try to find another child who’s in the same position. Hopefully they’ll be able to build up a friendship, even if it is just via messaging and/or video calls.
If anyone has a child with interests similar to those mentioned, and would be happy to help them meet my little girl please feel free to get in touch. Thank you so much. Ps…I’d be more than happy to meet the child’s parents either in person, or via video call initially. I realise you can’t be too careful online, so I’d be more than happy to be in contact with the parents too.
If there is even a group or club anyone can recommend for me to take her in Glasgow where there are not too many people attending, that in itself would be a big help.
thank you for reading this long post.