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Incouraging friendships for autistic teenager.

NAS81852

Hello, I have a 15 year old girl who has recently been diagnosed with autism. We are really struggling with friendships for her. She doesn't have any friends in our area or at school and I have run out of ideas in ways to help her with this. She is feeling very isolated and lonely. She is very high functioning and desperately wants to interact with her peers but finds the initial conversation or approaching new people to hard. If anyone has any ideas or ways they have encouraged this that would be great. Thanks in advance. 

Parents

  • My son is 15 and has selective mutism as well as ASD, but he does talk to his friends on Discord. Through gaming he's ended up chatting to a girl in Hungary. I think he talks to her quite a bit and I've encouraged him to chat to people online as I've personally found it to be a good way to communicate if you're anxious about more direct communication.

    Obviously this comes with a huge safety warning for youngsters - be conscious that the person may not be who they say they are, and never agree to meet up with anyone you only know online. This has been drummed into my son and is regularly revisited.

    Lots of online games have some kind of guild system, which typically connects players on Discord. Of course if your daughter isn't into this, it's probably a non-starter.

  • in reply to CharlieFreak

    We do encourage safe online interaction but she would love friends to visit and do activities that are local. We were hoping that some of the online people she meets would be local but it hasn't worked out like that yet. 

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