Please help my son is stalking a girl during school...

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Looking at the big picture, finding out who's fault it is, and where to place blame, the girl and her friends, my son, the teachers,is no longer my objective. (As upsetting as that was anyway) My objective is how can we go forward avoiding this in the future, and I guess finding an effective way to teach him proper social skills so if/when something like this happens again he will be able to navigate through it a little better. To reach out to a teacher or us as parents for help if need be. Unfortunately people will always interpet these situations differently and sometimes judgmentaly, it seems to be an ongoing part of life for people on the spectrum. Aspies face the challenge of learning to adapt to social baloney,however unfair it is. : / We're feeling the burn.

^^Totally agree.

This may be an opportunity for you. When the incident happened with my son, he was very upset about it because he really did not know what he was saying and he was upset that anyone would think he would purposefully say that. I told him that these things were likely to come up again and I really wanted him to trust me to come to me and talk to me about the things he is hearing in school before he repeats them. I told him I know how embarrassed he felt and I wanted to help make sure that didn't happen again. I told him it wasn't his fault that his brain did not naturally "pick up on" these things, and that I would help him. Since then, we have worked together to minimize the likelihood that he makes the same mistake again. He asks me about all kinds of things he hears at school and I tell him exactly what they mean and we discuss why people say it and what the possible consequences could be.

Granted, it isn't that your son said anything wrong, but hopefully you can use this opportunity to encourage him to tell you what is going on in school so you can help him make sense of it. I can tell you that in the last 2 years, my son has gotten much better at identifying times in which he probably doesn't understand the meaning of what people are saying. That's the best we can do, sometimes, is to help our kids understand when their neurology might impair their understanding so they know when to reach out for help.

Dear Parent,
It happens sometimes that individuals with AS perseverate and continue to contact a person they have a crush on . It an look and feel like stalking to the person being contacted and the person with AS does not understand.

I think talking with the school psychologist will help. You can explain that you know your son has a crush, that he is not aware that his behavior is problematic and that there is no ill intent but that you need help to guide him to learn the rules (those that he is expected to know but doesn't pick up because he has AS). IF the school psychologist is not well versed in AS then you should find a clinician in your area who is and get your son help so that he is not inadvertently pegged a problem and not bullied.

I would suggest contacting his cell phone company and ask about changing his telephone number. I think he needs some guidance from a professional who understands AS in how to use technology appropriately.

This will become even more important as he gets older.

Are you familiar with Tony Atwood's books? If you do not have access to a good AS professional, then contact the American Psychological Association for help in directing you. I am glad you wrote in. This is very important to get a handle on quickly.

best Regards

Learning what seems weird and being able to then ask for help understanding it is less independence than some people want, but I think it's priceless, and just the only way I can see for dealing with tricky situations of people being manipulative. The reason I emphasize this is because spotting that something odd is happening is how I know to ask for help. It's not about blaming it's about recognizing something I wouldn't naturally catch, or know what to do about (being manipulated), and this isn't an easily taught social skill (those are valuable too of course). InThisTogether's advice seems very good to me.

And that’s why sex-segregated schools and preventing all contact with opposite-sex kids, with the possible exception of family members, make things so much simpler for parents.

I find it unnerving that he also sounds like what I could have been at his age had I been a bit more self-confident, less afraid of my own social blunders and used to enjoying a little more personal freedom. If I didn’t become an unwitting stalker, it was mostly for the following reasons:

• I never lost my general fear to initiate any kind of social contact.

• Any kind of social contact in which the sex of the other kid made a difference looked suspiciously like an attempt to get myself into the world of dating, having a girlfriend, going out with someone, or whatever it should be called. This was an extremely cloudy concept to me, and the only thing I knew is that it sounded very serious and adult-like, so I should steer clear of it unless my parents ever gave me explicit and unambiguous permission to start living that part of life. Needless to say, this never happened.

• It didn’t occur to me that the girl’s consent was important. This is one of the most scary parts of the situation from my current perspective. However, I knew very well that both my parents and the girl’s ones had every right to forbid all contact between us. Eventually, however, I accepted the premise that no girl had any reason to like me.

• I was already used to the idea that, if something is pleasurable, chances are it’s wrong for some intricate reason or other. Thus, since girls were naturally pleasant creatures (no matter how much they could negate that pleasure if they chose to be unfriendly), there had to be something wrong about getting close to them.

I think this can be summed up as FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). It really works wonders when it comes to stopping people from doing harm. It probaby stops them from doing much good, too, as a side effect, but, well, nothing is perfect in this world.

But society is not sex-segregated. Better kids unlearn these mistakes when they are kids then when they are adults and people expect them to behave normally around the other sex.

For parents who have teens, particularly male teens (sadly, male behavior is viewed in a different way than female behavior) I highly recommend giving them the book A Five Is Against The Law. It is written in simple language - it seems geared towards kids who might have a language/cognitive impairment, but I still gave it to my son who is hyperlexic and whose cognitive functions are fine.

It very clearly defines stalking-type behavior and the consequences for it. It gives you an outside source to refer to (my son didn't believe me when I told him things he was doing were unwanted back in 1st grade.) It talks about social consequences as well as legal consequences. While it is icky, I think it's important to use a tool that outlines the problems in very clear language.

Second, having had the phone problem: our rule is that since social media, emails and texts can be copied and forwarded, they are not private. Therefore, we reserve the right as parents to review any texts, emails, or posts that DS makes; if he wants privacy, he can make a phone call in his room (we are able to trust him with that.) Our rule is that texts, either incoming or outgoing, may not be deleted - and we sometimes check with our mobile phone provider to make sure that the phone logs match the number of texts on the phone. I know this sounds harsh, but we found out the need for this the hard way when DS was conned by a "friend" into cyberbullying a girl.

Breaking the rules means either no phone, or restricting phone access to a predetermined contact list (your mobile phone company can do that - restrict data, texts, or calls and put them on a restricted list you give them.)

I am not generally a fan of pure punishment for kids on the spectrum, but the stakes are very high in this situation: if the rules aren't followed, you need there to be consequences (like losing the phone.) Otherwise, you might wind up having to navigate the legal ramifications of this kind of behavior.

The saddest part is that typically this kind of stuff is totally innocent: sometimes there are sensory things going on (they like the way someone smells or their hair feels) or sometimes they mix up the social cues and are following a script that is inappropriate, or sometimes they are talked into something by kids who should know better. The problem is that the reason doesn't really matter: the other person has a right to autonomy and our kids need to learn that.

Society used to be a lot more sex-segregated than it is today. The army and most workplaces were unquestionably male-only; other workplaces were no less unquestionably female-only, as was housework. Women seldom ventured outside without being escorted by one or several trustworthy males, and they risked being considered and treated like prostitutes if they did so. There were very few, specific places and occasions in which you could be introduced to new, opposite-sex people, and fathers used to keep their daughters tightly locked away in their high castles, making any potential suitors jump through as many hoops as they liked to make sure only the very highest-quality males got as much as to see them.

Bearing this in mind, it seems obscene that I, for instance, was allowed to see, share a classroom with, and even talk to so many girls, whereas countless boys in history, probably much more worthy than me, had to die in battle, or toiling miserably, or from the plague, without ever enjoying any of these now so common and disgracefully cheap pleasures.

This does not strike me as being historically accurate. Poor fathers had no castles to lock their daughters up into, and royalty with castles, had numerous non-segregated social functions. While jobs may have been sex-segregated, as it is in some sectors, in a de facto sense, even in the Western world today that does not mean people did not interact with non-related people of the opposite sex, in the course of that job, and other daily tasks.

As an example think about secretaries, waitresses, and stewardesses. Who do you think they interacted with? Women who did factory labor in textile factories had male bosses, etc. The military has had female nurses and other staff, well before women were actual soldiers. Was it a co-ed as today's modern society? No, but at the same time I think it would be extremely hyperbolic to claim the amount of sex-segregation you are speaking of.

Are there times and places where what you are speaking of has been attempted? Sure, even today, in some places. I don't think it reflects anywhere close to most places and for most of history.

Regardless, it is not the world most of our kids live in, and they need to learn to deal with both sexes in an appropriate way.

That does seem to be the critical thing.

This whole thread scares me. I don't feel competent to deal with these issues. I don't know what to say or how to raise the subject. My kids don't seem to be there yet and when they talk about other kids who are talking about sexual issues, they say "X was talking about gross stuff. I don't want to hear that."

I am very grateful for the good advice here. I feel I have a few things to help, now.

It's bigger than this particular issue for many kids on the spectrum: I talk to my son about how he treats MY body and personal space (demanding/stealing hugs, grabbing my hand, stealing food off my plate.) While I hate to restrict affectionate behavior, I make a point to stop him, remind him it that he HAS TO ASK AND LISTEN TO/RESPECT THE ANSWER. Bodily autonomy is a global issue: sex-specific stuff is only one aspect (although the one most likely to get them in serious trouble.)

I am very glad that we are starting to see rape prevention programs frame rape prevention in terms of "make sure there is a yes" instead of "no means no." I try to support that premise in every way possible, even though we aren't remotely talking about those issues now.

Really, really - check out the book. It may be an imperfect tool, but at least it's clear.

Advice taken. It's not the particular issue of this thread that keeps me coming back to it, but this whole area of personal boundaries, sexuality and understanding the written and unwritten social rules around all this stuff.

There is a huge gulf between what is said and what is done in many cases. How can I explain why almost everyone agrees what the rules are and how people should behave, but then so many people break those rules habitually?

An example of this is sexual harassment in the halls at the middle school. There is a group of kids who hang out in the hall and grope or verbally harass girls. As there has been no visible consequence for many months, the whole thing is a mess and will probably end with changes at the district level, lawsuits and possibly criminal charges. How to explain this!! !??? What a mess our species is.

I've not had to explain anything like that, other than that it can happen.

But that kind of thing usually makes those who notice uneasy. And the rest don't notice. If your child is uneasy when others violate the rules, then whether there is any apparent consequence or not, that's a moment he or she can learn from.

Or am I missing something?

I get where Adamantium is coming from: my kid has a very hard time distinguishing between social grey area and social stuff that's just plain wrong. He tends to follow and script off of other kids he knows - so we are a bit at those kids' mercy, at least until we know what is going on and can deal with it. And we've had to. DS does not believe that "adults understand how kids talk," and he's right enough of the time that we have a hard time convincing him otherwise.

For instance, something we have a hard time with is that "friendly punch" that boys do in the lunchroom - you know, the goofy whack on the shoulder. DS took it as permission to hit the kids who were annoying him, and of course didn't pull his punch...which we found out when we got a call from the Principal (who, fortunately, was very understanding and worked with us to make sure it stopped.)

It's hard. Sometimes we handle it with "rules" as in this instance: hitting gets consequences both at home and at school - no hitting, period. That took care of it.

Harassment is a little more difficult; we often talk about how some kids get away with breaking rules and some don't, but that the rules are important and are there for a reason. I try to talk a lot about how unfair harassment is and point it out whenever we see it, be it in real life or in a book, or TV; I talk about how horrible the victim must feel and how unfair it is that the perpetrator was able to do that without anyone stopping them (sadly, our current Vice President is providing lots of examples.) I remind him of what it felt like to be bullied, and draw a comparison to how the victims feel.

Really, we're throwing whatever we've got at it and hoping something sticks....

It confuses me, my kids would be upset this happened, and my daughter with AS would be angry adults didn't stop it.

Is it about trying to fit in? I don't understand with how much kids with AS suffer bullying, how would watching a group harass and touch girls seem ok enough to copy?

Sure - if things go the way I think they would, DS would not be able to label it as harassment. Plus, sadly, one of the ways he has dealt with the feelings bullying brings up is to take it out on kids who are lower on the pecking order.

I would guess that he would be horrified at mistreatment of girls - but I am also guessing that the girls smile and giggle when it happens, yes? DS would probably not catch on that they are expressing discomfort and fear with smiles and giggles, and might assume they were enjoying the attention. When we had an issue with him sending inappropriate texts, it simply hadn't occurred to him that the person on the other end might be scared or hurt - he saw that the friend who put him up to it thought it was funny.

I would guess that also there are boys whose girlfriends actively encourage them to grab their behinds? DS might not be able to distinguish between agreed-upon if not totally appropriate PDA and unwanted harassment in the same way he can't tell the difference between lashing out and a friendly punch on the shoulder.

The autism spectrum is a big, big place and it has room for kids who react in all different kinds of ways.