Have your children had "false" friends?

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zeldapsychology
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25 Mar 2010, 8:35 pm

People they swear by are there friend but perhaps aren't? The 8 year old sister talks about this girl named Jamie (we've seen her mom etc. and she has played at her house) but mom noticed Jamie doesn't even talk to the 8 year old!! !! We also a couple years back the 10 year had a "friend" that called the house and cussed at my little sister (mom went up to the mom and talked to her etc.) but the 10 year had insisted this is a "friend" (they are no longer friends BTW) So have your children had "false" friends? I remember a topic recently here about a kid that just came over to play videogames and that's about it. So it seems like perhaps Aspies end up with these "false" friends. :-(



LolaGranola
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26 Mar 2010, 10:06 am

I don't have any children, but when I was young, most of my friends treated me quite badly. Bossing me around, teasing me, etc.


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DW_a_mom
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26 Mar 2010, 12:00 pm

False friends happen. With an 8 year old, I would say it is unintentional, as kids that age don't really understand the concept of "being there" for each other. If they want to spend time with someone in any way, that is a friend. If they don't like the person, that isn't a friend. Not much more to it than that.

By 10 or so that starts to change, and kids can be held more accountable for acting like a friend. Even then, however, they are still learning, and someone who was a true friend one day can turn on a dime and not be a friend the next, over who knows what issue they got stuck in their heads.

It all requires a constant conversation about what being a friend means, and how to act like a friend. Hopefully, they will have it figured out better before becoming adults. But, then again, I've met plenty of NT adults who don't get it, either. Some people just are that way.


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aurea
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26 Mar 2010, 2:12 pm

At the end of 2007 when my son was going threw the diagnoses process, we were asked if he had any friends. I said no not really. He said yes. He particularly kept talking about this one boy m, whom he insisted was his friend.
This boy was not one I would call a friend. He said nasty things to my son from time to time and even on occasion choked him, but he was probably the only child to consistently interact with my son. I think this kid found my kid interesting and weird at the same time. This boy was popular with some of the other kids and my sons obsession for awhile.



astaut
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26 Mar 2010, 3:55 pm

I was lucky to have good friends as a young kid. I was home schooled, and my parents did a great job of getting me involved in many activities that had (mostly) genuinely nice kids within them. In my later years of high school my family moved and I had to make my own (new) friends, and I would say I had some "fake" friends then. Being much older, I can pinpoint that some of my friends are better than others but it's still hard to know with the somewhat fake ones if they're worth keeping up with at all or if they are just totally fake, not interested in being your friend at all.

My 9 year old brother has a problem with fake friends, he is not AS though. He is ADHD and possibly ODD. He has always craved acceptance and just general need for friendship more than I do now or ever did. He has trouble spotting real friends now but he also has a different childhood than I did and we were very different as kids. I think the thing with spotting fake friends can be my problem where you just can't tell, or like my brother's problem where you crave friends so bad that you'll just take what you can get.