Help! Finding autistic friends for my son...

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YippySkippy yes, I will continue with the playdates without a doubt. I have distanced myself a bit from the group and the volunteering somewhat at this point. I think that's the best I can do for now. Thanks!

I think that is the only choice you really have. This person sounds like a real piece of work.

This president person seems to be in it for the control and attention, not to help the kids.
I feel sorry for her kid, it must suck to grow up and constantly be told and shown how wrong he is.
Too bad that other parents are loyal to her as a social obligation instead of ditching her group and forming a positive group with you.

Last edited by btbnnyr on 06 Nov 2014, 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ASDMommyASDKid agree!

I'm kind of scared to comment because I have a non-verbal teenager, which I guess makes me who you don't like... BUT, I feel like I've been in that support group and left. I found that the main group when I first entered the autism world (~12 years ago) was made up of "mommy warrior" types- the kind that believe vaccines cause autism and believe that you can cure it by doing things like draining your child's blood out and you know, whatever else. What you described sounds like those people. Maybe it's not but that's just how it sounds to me. They are very vocal and pushy by nature, so they seem to be more prevalent than they actually are.

My friend and I ended up starting our own "group" based on the principle that life would be easier if we had the world to ourselves, and we got a bunch of people together to pool money together to rent out a facility, such as a trampolining place. That way we can let our kids loose and not worry about other people. We take turns organising it. That's just what we decided we wanted, but I'm sure what you want, other people also want, so if it doesn't exist, you really only need one other person to start it.

The other thing is, you could sign your son up in a structured activity which suits his interests and parents aren't involved. Every year, I put my kids in a camp where they create a musical in a week. It's really laid-back, they write the script and songs but they let the kids improvise and the play ends up making very little sense, but it's great anyway. Parents leave during the camp hours though- there's 0 need to interact with them.

I think you're misunderstanding the situation. That's not what the OP said at all.

WelcomeToHolland I am very glad to hear your perspective. Actually, there is one child who gets along REALLY well with my son and the child is pretty close to non-verbal. There are very few things this child says, yet when he sees my son, my son and him are able to play together. Of course, they don't talk a lot, but they DO play together. The mother of this child has been asking me recently a lot of questions about what I have done with my child and why my son seems so happy. She was actually one of the parents who seemed very excited to be HAPPY for a change and that her son was having such a good time. I do NOT and WILL NOT allow my son to push out kids who are less verbal than him or lower functioning. In reality, my son does not either, he defends them and is very nice to them.

I agree as a whole this group is more about pushing their own agenda as to the causes and looking for blame vs. figuring out how to make our kids happy and successful. Years ago I figured that while I am intrigued and always want to find out more "medically" as to what the cause is, I can't focus only on that in order to blame others, but rather on what to do so that my son can live the best life possible.

My son has actually been pushing me for the last few months to start a "friends group". I have hesitated in a way because I don't want this woman to feel that I am "taking over or raining on her parade", since our focus is completely different, but at the end of the day I may do it anyway as again my intent and focus is my son and for our kids to enjoy their life as well.

PS the parents I don't particularly like are those who are constantly looking for all the faults in their kids and have nothing positive to say about them or who are constantly forcing them (AND MY SON lol) to be something they are not, by shooting down their ideas, their way of playing and truly treating them with disrespect and as "less than" people...

That wasn't intended to be argumentative- the OP is of course entitled to his/her opinion and I'm sure that's a common opinion on this website, which I am free to not log on to any time I want so it would unreasonable for me to be upset (I'm not)... But I don't think I misunderstood. This is exactly what the OP said:


What s/he's agreeing 100% to is


Well, we've got a low outcome on speech over here (and a number of other things)...so according to the OP->probably due to parental negativity-which is what s/he doesn't like. I really do appreciate that the OP wants to include the LF kids though- not everyone is willing to so that is nice.

Is it necessary to find other kids on the spectrum? Have you tried to find groups based around his interests instead?

I'm guessing one reason you're finding whiny parents is that the group is formed around the condition, and that can draw the whiny types you mention. If he's interested in, say, computer programming, and you find a camp for that, first of all, I'd bet half the kids in the camp will be on the spectrum, and second, I bet none of the parents will care.

WelcomeToHolland, while I think there might have been lapses in judgement in terms of phrasing, I think what the posts were intended to mean was not that poor outcomes are an indicator of poor parenting, but that poor parenting can have a negative impact on outcomes.

I would hope that everyone here knows that how autism expresses itself is a fairly random thing. I have a friend with a high-functioning honor student - the kid across the street from her is non-verbal. She told me they met when the kids were three and pretty much the same, and they did all the same interventions and were basically the same kind of parent, but her child was just developmentally closer to NT than the other boy.

I didn't say that parental negativity causes low outcome in all cases.
I said a big part of low outcomes is probably negativity of parents, because I have observed it in person with many parents who don't believe that their kids can do anything or learn anything and therefore don't advocate for their kids to learn and develop cognitive skills and so their kids dont' have the chance to learn and therefore have low outcome by adulthood. This applies both to LF children who aren't taught in ways that they can learn and HF children who are taught more but still many parents are negative and place limits on their children, who then miss out on their full potential or anything approaching it.
Stop twisting what I say into something it is not, Holland.
I volunteered my time and effort at an educational nonprofit for LF children, specifically to go against the negativity of parents and the dysfunctional system that focuses on traditional behavioral therapies to the detriment of the kids. The first step towards improvements for the kids who have not responded well to therapies is the parents making a big change out of the traditional system. Each child has hope, including the kid who constantly self-injures and has to have his arms tied to the chair, or the kid who is smart enough to start his own computer business but his negative parents and teachers completely ignore him when he shows them what he is capable of. Let's not pretend that negativity of adults, esp. parents, doesn't contribute to mistakes in raising autistic children and lower outcomes than possible.
When I see them in person, the difference between positive parents and negative parents is so obvious. I think it may be felt by the children, and indeed I think I can feel negativity and like to keep away from negative people in general. The negative parents are focused on how low functioning their children are and how intellectually disabled and how embarassing in public, but the positive parents are focused on a small gain here, a little progress there, and over time, these add up into more independence and intellectual ability than negative parents would ever conceive, but of course the negative parents then say that wouldn't work for their children, because they are negative, that's how they think.
These same things apply to autistic people too. Negativity often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for autistic adults who dont' believe they can do this or that and therefore dont' try and therefore don't do. It's easier to blame the autism than to take a little step out of the comfort zone.

btbnnyr I agree 100% with you. As you state, this does not only apply to autistics. My husband came from a family that was not very well off (lived in poverty and even food stamps for a while) and he accomplished NOTHING in his life until we met. His parents constant "you won't do anything in life because those good jobs are for people who are born rich, etc" gave him very low self-esteem and caused him for many years to not believe he deserved anything better or that he could accomplish anything in his life. After he began hanging around people who didn't know where he came from and who were succeeding in life, his perspective drastically changed. He went from having a mediocre job making 1/4 of what I made to having a great job making much more than I made in a very short period of time.

Of course he's not the president, etc. but he accomplished MUCH MORE than he ever imagined he could accomplish just by being around people who believed in him.

Just because someone is autistic or poor, etc. does not mean that we should assume that they cannot do anything in life. The constant negative view of the parents does make a huge difference in the outcome of their children, autistic or not.

Perhaps I am not understanding correctly, by why can't the kids just have a play date without the other parents there at all - if you are already meeting one-on-one with the moms/kids, how about suggesting the parent just drop the child off for a couple of hours and you can watch over them.

This is what we have done for years. Now I admit I am kind of an introvert sometimes and not really interested in making friends with the other parents too much. I just wanted my daughter to have friends. So we would invite 1 friend over for a couple of hours and the parents got a couple of hours of freedom - win-win all around.

I hope you are able to figure something out.

Actually, I am doing that now with a couple of the kids, however, the parents who are complaining the most will NOT allow their kids to be at anybody's house without them?only at school.

Anyway, I pretty much give up with this group. I am looking out for my son and the kids and they are having a great time! So I will continue to get playdates, etc. with the kids whose parents are more open and the others I will just stay away from. I can't have so much negativity in my son's face all the time and won't put up with anyone treating my son with disrespect for the sake of "having him have a greater group of friends".