Should ASD kids be discouraged from trying to make friends?

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cyberdad, we [bJUST][/b] had this talk with our son's psychologist. I swear we just tackle an issue, think we're doing so well...then she springs the "Well, will you continue home schooling next year? We should think about getting him into more social situations"

She'd take him in her "social class" but understands our son would probably not respond well to "sharing" her or allowing her to be the authority figure in a group setting.

Hmm...she knows how he feels about sharing time, the sensory issues he has, but still thinks he should have even more group social settings presented??? It just makes me want to throw up my hands. Our son chooses to be social, just *not* with his age peers or his gender.

We have had great success with classes he chooses. Since he could walk, he's loved dancing and singing. So, he chose dance classes. Unlike other families, we don't use his class times as our social hour nor do we do errands. We stick by in so he "knows we're there", as he says it makes him feel better.

BTW-I think there are LOTS of girls w/high functioning autism both in Australia and in the USA...but, they are more difficult to diagnose when they are younger, as many are good at "hiding" it.

I think the girls probably just tend to go unnoticed, even if they have the same symptoms as the boys. In your area, boys who are not aggressive may also tend to go unnoticed. I don't think Hans Asperger ever noted his subjects to be more aggressive than usual and it might just be the aggression that is prompting parents to drag their children in for an evaluation. Many of these aggressive boys would have likely been diagnosed with ADHD in the 90's, and some of them may infact have ADHD rather than AS.

I've never been to these social skills courses as they did not exist when I was a child.

Apologies Im not expressing myself very well.
- my observations are that parents of HFA girls don't seem to enroll them in social sills classes
- a couple of boys were aggressive but the other 13 were passive, they were distant and unfriendly to my daughter but there again they didn't interact much with each other either.

I hope I wasn't generalizing but probably did without thinking.

This is not directly about social skills class - but rather about girls with Aspergers. I thought this might be useful to share. I'm relatively NT, but my 8 year old son has been diagnosed with Aspergers. After a lot of research and soul searching, reviewing my childhood, I've come to the conclusion that my father and sister very definitely have Aspergers - my mother and I are the NT's.

Throughout childhood my sister didn't really have any friends. She thought she did - she had classmates, aquaintances, particularly some odd girls (classmates) who would sit with her at lunch for company. I'm ashamed to admit this now, but I was totally embarrassed by her in High School. She was weird and everyone at our small school knew it. By the time we were young adults heading to University - she was accepted at a fairly well-known prestigious university, I went to a local state school. She completed her B.S., M.S., Ph.D., and post-doctorate. I finished a B.A. I went to visit her many times, but she was never that engaged in my visits. She seemed pleased when I was visiting - as I would clean her room, straighten out her clothes, prepare her favorite meals, and act like my mother.... but she wouldn't do anything WITH me. She had to study and couldn't be bothered. (Always been an issue for me... that I had a sister - but in reality I didn't have what I would call a "sister.")

Fast forward to now - I'm 48 and she's 47. She's a leading scientist at a prestigious university earning a six-figure salary, married to another leading scientist who is world famous in his field. They are married but find it more comfortable to live in separate houses - it works for them. They have a brilliant son who, in my opinion, is definitely Aspergers - but his parents continually emphasize that his behavior is "normal" - because to them it is.

Does my sister have life-long friends? In my NT opinion, I would say no. Has she ever had life-long friends? In my NT opinion, I would again say no. How can I say that? When I talk with people that she has previously told me were her close friends - they are miffed and surprised - and once again I'm embarrassed because I assumed there was a connection when there wasn't one. If I ask her if she has friends, SHE would say yes! She would say she has, in fact, many friends. Her reality and my reality are accessed differently. I want to emphasize, she is happy and content with her life.

I think girls, anywhere in the world, are not readily diagnosed because they are very good at flyinging under the radar. Back in the day, had my sister (for example) been diagnosed - my parents would not have looked for social skills classes for her - because SHE would pitched a fit. She wanted to hang out at the animal shelter 24/7. My mother had a friend who was rescuing animals at her home, and she allowed my sister to "help" there all the time.

Roxas_XIII, I thought your ROTC/AS analogy was excellent.

BonnieBlueWater -- your story about your sister is fascinating. She sounds highly successful in life, including work and what she wants out of life socially. This is a great example of how things can work for someone who isn't necessarily the NT version of what social life should be.

I am of the camp that thinks a child should have as much social opportunity as possible. Having said that, though, I really don't like the idea of forcing anyone to be social if they don't want to be. I just happen to have one of those kids on the spectrum who likes other people, who thinks he has friends, but doesn't really.

I think my son is likeable, and he has a big group of people he sits with (who aren't necessarily the nerds, this year) at lunch. He's smart, but different, to be sure. He's not as weird as other kids at his school, but he's naive and assumes people are his friends who are NOT his friends. That's a constant struggle. We've been through this before, to a smaller degree, with our older son.

With my son, we can see that he is lonely, and he gets tired of spending a whole weekend with his old parents. Yet, he doesn't even really think about calling other people to do stuff.

We lucked out recently. There is a group that the school put together, boys who may feel some anxiety at school. My son likes these guys, so I suggested that he get their names, numbers, Facebook ID's, etc. so that he can get them together for a movie or laser tag. Apparently it worked -- the lady running the program at school emailed me to let me know that everybody thought it was a great idea.

So, sometimes, you have to facilitate this stuff. I had to send a Google alert to my son's phone to remind him to get the names and numbers. We will have to take two cars to drive all of these boys somewhere. But if these quiet kids who are on the fringe of high school society can find a nice big group of friends to hang with, then they have a support system that works for them.

BonnieBlueWater, do you think if your sister asked them they'd say they were friends? Because when I was little I had a girl who was my friend, maybe my only friend sometimes, and she asked me to play and said we were friends and stuff, to my face, but behind my back said she didn't like me and hated having to play with me. And people are nice to my face and then others report that they've complained about me behind my back a LOT. It's one of the reasons I hate "politeness" and "tact" (which are polite words for "pretending to like somebody and making them believe they can count on you when you really hate them and would double-cross them in an instant-- basically hating somebody enough to not even tell them you hate them"). I would so much rather people be honest with me-- I don't mind in any way that they don't like me or have complaints, but I think it's horrible to lie to someone.

Thanks for your feedback Bonniebluewater. There are 5 major centres that run social skills classes for autistic kids in the city of Melbourne Australia. I;ve left my name with 4 of them to contact me when there is a girl in their groups sessions for making friends. It's been 6 months and I have had no phone calls back,

Having read your story I'm inclined to take my daughter's name of their waiting lists. To be honest my daughter really enjoys going to the Melbourne zoo more than she does meeting other children. She'd rather play with fluffy toys and animals than people, but she loves spending time with mum and dad in the playground or at home.

That's silly. At 6 months most babies can't even talk. And surely understanding ToM in theory(even if I have to purposefully think in order to use it most of the time) would put me at a much higher social age than just "6 months".

But I think the entire "social age" concept itself is ridiculous. When someone is said to have a social age of 12 it doesn't mean every one of their social skills is average for a 12 year old and chances are they're not going to be any better with 12 year olds(if anything worse, since many kids that age are pushy and mean). Personally, no matter what social age I'm at I definitely get along better with fellow adults than with children. I don't even want kids. Too much work.

But I digress, here's my take on the main question:

I don't think they should be discouraged or encouraged, but the most important thing is TALK to your kids!
There's a very real risk that your kid could desperately want friends but it might not be apparent. Every now and then ask your kid how their life is going, and what they'd like to see happen(both short-term and long-term) and help them do it. If they complain about not having enough friends you could suggest some programs or get your kid involved in some club related to an activity or interest. If they want to just be alone or just have a few friends(not truly apparent unless they say it) then still know what they want to achieve in the future, and think about whether this is possible without some "social practice" and how much is needed.

bonnie: I was on the other end of that story, though not with a sister but with my NT mom. Maybe it is not the same (we are all different NT or AS) but I am also missing that my NT mom can not (or will not) understand how one can think about science/global problems, and gets bored easily and I am bored with her talk about the weather and neighbors and so on. We do love each other and having her in my life helped me a great deal to accept that people have different priorities and there is nothing wrong with it. Still we can not spend more time together since there is a tension but now I know what I can and can not expect to change and enjoy what I have. Though regarding the friends I am opposite of your sister, had known and stayed in touch with people for over 35 years and still not sure if we are friends.
And I love your note about your sister's son, I have a son and he is normal to me but he sure gets the looks.

Also for cyberdad: using your daughters interests is the best way to find some friends, likely that is the mode that she will have later in life too.

I'll recount a strange situation at school. One of the parents was talking to me at pickup time and asking me to bring my daughter home (to her place) as her son was really patient with kids like my daughter (I assume she had seen my daughter in the classroom).

I dropped by with my little one, the look on the boy's face seeing my daughter was first one of curiosity, followed by one of puzzlement that she didnt talk. Then.....a look of total disgust over his face.....it was like the changing seasons...he was staring at my daughter's dreamy look (she tends to pretend she isn't listening) when she is in an unfamiliar situation and she wanted to go home. The look in the eyes was like a predator seeing vulnerability, quite a scary thing to see in a 7 year old boy.

I very quickly made an excuse and left. Unlike adults NT children are less sophisticated at hiding/masking their true feelings, what psychologists call display rules are not properly developed. In future when my daughter plays with other children I watch their faces very carefully.