Socialising

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I am a parent that is happy to hold on to my children as long as possible, but my son aged 13 voice has broken, taller than me etc. He still wants to spend all his time with me, I encourage him to with meet friends, I also have to initiate contact with his friends.

Went to the cinema with him tonight was excited about it until he saw his friends, was able to deceive to his friends stating that he was watching at older movie with me. I am OK with all this, but he was upset at home how do you deal with this situation.

Oh, man, do I know how YOU feel!! !

I have the exact same problem with my son, aged 15. He is happy to be home all day with me. I initiate activities with friends of his to come over, but it is NEVER his idea. These activities even turn out ok -- I think the other kids enjoy themselves -- but I swear that my son just never even THINKS to invite anybody over.

I'm guessing that alot of this is due to feeling inadequate in social situations. My son just does NOT know what to say, doesn't know how to initiate a conversation or keep it rolling. Also, oddly enough, the meds he takes seem to make him LESS social, rather than MORE social. With a parent, our sons must be comfortable. We do most of the talking, there's no pressure, and our sons don't have to feel like they are on the outside of a group, looking in.

I'm hoping that, with time, my son will find a group in high school that he "clicks" with. Even my other two NT children didn't really find their "group" until junior year. So I'm going to try and relax and not worry about things too much.

Oh, man, I WAS your son! I think your son may WANT to socialize, but may not be sure how to go about it. I didn't really socialize outside school till I was in high school and met some people who had similar interests...it was music for me.

My daughter has no interest in socializing. If I suggest something like why don't you email/call/ meet so-and-so she replies "What's the point? I'll see them in school on Monday anyway." She doesn't feel lonely when she's alone.

If we're out in public and she sees somebody from school then she hides in panic. It's like school and school people belong in one world and she keeps her true self in another world.

I wonder so much this stuff. How much should we make them? When does it get to the point that stressing them out is not worth it? If we want them to be happy and well adjusted, does making them go on social outings serve a good purpose? Or is it detrimental?

It's not unusual for kids with AS or similar ASD's to cling to their parents because of the familiarity. I would just tell him that has to spend some time with his friends without you, even if it's just a few times a month.

The point is she needs to improve her social skills to the level that she can be a fairly well functioning adult, because as an adult, social networking is important. That she panics when she see's people she knows in public indicates she still has a ways to go.

You should tell her when she see's people she knows in public, all she has to do is smile and greet them. The conversation will usually be very short.

My daughter with HFA likes to be around children, likes to run and free-play with them but she does not engage to any conversation whatsoever. We think that even the fact that she wants to be among children is a major step for an autistic child.
The conversation with new kids that approach her never goes beyond the "what is your name" stage.With a few of them they will start running around, chasing and laughing or sit down and play with toys silently. Of the 10 things that the other kid may say to my daughter, she will respond once or twice. But I can see in her face that she enjoys it.
My daughter has somehow "picked" in her mind one or two kids and she is happy when they meet (as I described above). For the rest of the kids, she does not panic but ignores them big time.
It is a matter of communication. I am sure that as communication skills improve some friendships will come along.
I think the important thing is for the desire to be there in the first place.

We are on the opposite side of this question....DS is desperately lonely and wants friends terribly. However, his social skills are limited so kids don't want to hang with him. Unfortunately, the meltdowns at school where he was restrained are legendary in our small neiborhood, so most of the neighborhood kids will have nothing to do with him. And that is very hurtful.

It was really great, he attended a social skills camp this summer with other quirky kids. It was wonderful because he truly fit in and was liked and respected. It was immensely gratifying to see him just thrive socially. I am planning to put together a monthly social dinner or something for the families that were in camp, so the kids can continue relationships. It was so nice to see them all happy.

This is wonderful!

As for the OP, my son still clings to us, but he is gifted with not caring what others say or think all that much. He doesn't feel the need to excuse giving mom a hug or doing something with mom. *I* am really careful about it, and might joke, "isn't it nice of him to humor me and keep me company?". I think that helps, anyway.

We aren't there yet so this is just my 2 cents. They say AS kids are a few years younger in maturity. What if you somehow nurture relationships with kids who are just a bit younger and base activities on your son's intersts?

Probably easier said than done.

My son finds kids that are younger than him annoying. Unless they are so smart that they can keep up with him intellectually. My son did develop a group of beta testers for his game inventions in elementary from younger kids, but this was a very unequal relationship; those kids were more like groupies than friends. I think it is going to vary most by how smart the AS child is; kids like my son are drawn most to intellectual equals, age not really mattering.

I don't know if other parents have the same experience with their kids.

Sadly, we have this not only with younger children, but with other kids with AS and poor social skills. While my son has gained great leaps socially just by understanding himself better, and actually has quite an active social life, he has zero compassion for people who mirror his difficulties, whether they be children, peers or adults. I assume that at some point he will figure this out, but it makes me very sad to hear him talk about the "annoying" kids in his social skills group, who are really not that different (fortunately, I think he has developed enough skills that he saves this kind of talk for after we're home.) I'm guessing many of these kids are smarter than my son in many ways, which makes him even less tolerant of their quirks.

We are very lucky right now, I think because we hit the diagnosis at an age where kids are slightly less competitive and more willing to offer their peers some help: my son is now doing fairly well socially after a HUGE dip at the beginning of the year. However, his social skills are still awful: at a recent birthday party, he guessed the gift one of his friends got him, and then proceeded to tell him everything that was wrong with it before I could intervene.

Once I was able to get him to listen, I did stop him and offer more appropriate language, and we went over several gracious gift-receiving strategies later on and discussed how he was going to apologize to this boy (he actually did like the gift a lot, but his first reaction to anything is always negative.) These incidents leave me quite worried for the future.

If it makes you feel any better, there is not a peer alive that is not annoying to my son, socially impaired or not. I really wish I could just remove that word from his vocabulary ... I get so annoyed hearing about how annoying everyone and everything is! His friend since Kindergarten is annoying for having too many friends; other kids are annoying for talking sports; his sister is annoying for being alive, and so on.

I've told him that he does not have a right to live un-annoyed (if it is seriously stressful, that is something else; we're talking annoyed) and that he is going to have to learn to deal with feeling annoyed without making an issue of it. He's doing OK, he mostly expresses it with us at home, alone, thank goodness.

Actually, that does make me feel better, thank you. Sounds like we're not that far off, then.

i personally think this has to do with some form of rigid thinking, a basic intolerance for other people and their ideas, actions, feelings. or perhaps partly some theory of mind deficit mixed in.

my SO exhibits this trait as well, and it is by far one of the most problematic traits for our relationship. he is very intolerant of people whose views differ from his own. while this doesnt cause an issue with most people, its rather different when its your significant other. you can arrogantly dismiss a stranger's opinion as stupid and ignorant and walk away without reprisal, but when you do it to someone who lives in the same household, it makes for strained relations. he has an overwhelming need to correct others also that makes it even worse.

the solution is simply tact and tolerance. these can be very difficult concepts to teach to children, but they go a long way in balancing out the rigid thinking. i have already started trying to teach tact to my 5 yo autie to prevent any more of those uncomfortable and loud "thats an old man on a bicycle" moments