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Friendships in autism

Zoenut

My son is 11 years old, in year 7 and struggling. 

He is verbal, but has always struggled most with the social side of things. He has never made a friend, in primary school he was assigned friends by his teacher and he has kept those 3 friends ever since and only those friends. 

it is his birthday in a couple of weeks and we are taking him to London as per his request on the weekend to celebrate. For his actual birthday we have tried to allow him a choice of a few options on what to do.
- Option 1: do nothing (have a nice calm normal routine day) 

- Option 2: arcade and food with 1 friend 

- option 3: arcade and food with all 3 friends 

- option 4: have a friend over our house 

He has chosen none of these, now saying he wants to do the arcade with me and his mother. 

As lovely as that is, it makes us sad to think he doesn’t want to celebrate with friends as this is a common occurrence we are coming across.

He never talks to or sees any friend outside of the school setting now he is in secondary school and we are not as involved in setting up his social circle. His school report says that he is not a team player and doesn’t interact with any of the other pupils and that he comes across quite isolated from the rest of the year group. He doesn’t have any interest in interacting with anyone apart from us and I’m worried that this will only get worse as he gets older. 

As his parents, we know he has a different way of think than us, and we may just not understand his thought process. But we are so worried about his future. Creating connections with peers of his own age is so important, and me and his mum aren’t going to be around forever and can’t be the only people he is comfortable around.

We just feel a bit hopeless and at a loss on how to help him better. Thoughts and ideas would be lovely. 

Parents

  • Hi,

    I only comment as I feel I have experience of being the kid more than anything else. I'm 42 and recently diagnosed as AuDHD and remember vividly not connecting with other kids at that age and often would rather be around adults rather than other kids my age. I guess the biggest thing I would stress is try not to force it. What might seem negative or not what you would like is not necessarily what he wants if that makes sense? My own Dad always says that he thinks I live a kind of half life not seeing people and just being by myself with my cats but i'm much happier and more comfortable living that way. One thing I would say is that I don't have much support and I am trying to work that bit of my life out and perhaps there is something in having people around you for that purpose. But yeah I think the biggest thing is to not force it and certainly accept that what might seem negative to you isn't negative for him. I hope that made sense and wasn't too wittery and certainly hope it didn't sound judgemental in any way! I have zero experience of having kids or anything like that I only know what its like to grow up 'different'.

  • in reply to alterpop

    Thank you so much for giving us some advice! Definitely doesn’t feel judgemental at all, the more advice we can get the better as we are struggling to come up with the best ways to help him navigate the world as it can be so confusing and overwhelming. I appreciate you sharing some of your experience too.
    We struggle sometimes to understand what our son wants as he’s not the best at communicating his needs, I think somewhat out of fear for being ‘wrong’ so will often even mask with us which is something we’re trying to encourage him isn’t needed but I think will take a while. 

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  • in reply to alterpop

    Thank you so much for giving us some advice! Definitely doesn’t feel judgemental at all, the more advice we can get the better as we are struggling to come up with the best ways to help him navigate the world as it can be so confusing and overwhelming. I appreciate you sharing some of your experience too.
    We struggle sometimes to understand what our son wants as he’s not the best at communicating his needs, I think somewhat out of fear for being ‘wrong’ so will often even mask with us which is something we’re trying to encourage him isn’t needed but I think will take a while. 

Children