Our 15 yr old son has been mainstreamed, but...

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I want to let him know about this website.

He's been mainstreamed, having had lots of help with aba in his earlier years .
However....I believe he needs to know that there
are other people who struggle with the same issues he does.

When, how would be the best way to do this?

Contact the local Autism Society and see if they have a group available for high functioning teens.

Email him a link, with the header:' Thought You Might Find This Interesting...'

and a note: "Some fascinating conversations going on in the forum threads"

and let it go at that. Let him discover the rest for himself. We'll be happy to see him!

Yay! more Aspies! This is why WrongPlanet is alive and well, so we can be here for your son and thousands more like him! We are looking forward to him joining!

Merle

I say give him the link and let him find out for himself what we're all about.

I'd be happy to give him the grand tour.

He was diagnosed with high functioning autism, but the leader of a social skills group he attended about 4 yrs ago
thought it might be Aspergers. Either way, I hope he will find Wrong Planet a place to meet friends and discover
that there are lots of people like him and that he isn't weird. Going to school with typical peers, I worry about him
feeling different, and thinking it's only him. You know what I mean?

I appreciate all of your answers and suggestions.

Itll be good to have him here and know he ain't alone.In high school and such, I always felt alone.I knew I had ASD in high school, but didn't want to tell anyone out of fear of being bullied even more.

There are many here who are successful college students.Meeting them and talking with them will be beneficial to your son as he will get pointers and information on what to expect in a few years when he goes to college.College is way better than high school.

Well, I sent him an email with a few links to different topics of the forums here. I don't think he's checked his email though...
I am wondering what his reaction will be...thanks again for all your responses. I am glad I found this website.

My son used to say "I'm really weird mom, right?"
That used to break my heart. Then we got the AS diagnosis and now he's learning there is a reason things are tough for him.And I encourage him to read through these forums, as there is infinite wisdom from many like him.
He's 16, at least he can relate to their stories and look forward to a future, as many AS diagnosed people have gone on to have relationships and careers!
Especially the 20 somethings. I like to point out their successes to him.

Thanks for your comment. It is encouraging for me to read through these forums. I hope my son will find it so as well.

I know what you mean about when they feel bad or say something, it does break your heart.
When my son was in around 4th grade, he was already feeling hopeless, mentioned not wanting to live anymore, and so I found a social skills group for him, with kids around his age with similar issues, to see that there were other kids like him. He enjoyed the group, but also made comments that he though some of the kids were "weird". He went for about 3 years, I think. Our Regional Center since has reduced the amount of time they'll offer services. Like spurts of only a few months. We stopped going.

Now that he's in High School, I am seeing him pulling back a bit socially, where a couple years ago he was not as reluctant. I sent him the link for this website and so far he hasn't mentioned it to me, but I am wondering whether he will become angry at me for pointing him in this direction. I just dont' know. He's very touchy lately. And I know he isn't looking forward to school starting, as some of the boys he hung around with there, have switched schools.

I'm so thankful to have found this resource/forum though.

My mother never let me call myself "weird" or "unusual" let alone anyone else. To her I will always be "unique." I couldn't have asked for a better upbringing.

And we had no clue about AS when I was a teenager. I was mild enough to essentially go unnoticed, I was doing well enough in school, and I had adult "friends" I could confide in. Nevermind that I had almost no friends my own age until high school. My classmates knew I was weird, regardless of what my mom thought. That ended up being a draw in late high school, though, as us "weird" people banded together in a loose coalition,

imo aspergers is a evolutionary step up in humanity. aspies on average have higher than average IQ. a good number of them above 140. im at 127. also the the mensa club have a very high percentage of its members being autism, many of which are aspie. i dont remeber the number exactly, i read it in a article a long time ago, but it was very high.

the only real disvatages we have are in social skills, if every one was aspie that disadvantage would be much less.

so i recommend you remind your child of the postive sides of it, when i was first diagnosed i was very depressed about it, manly cause i thought it was bad and a disability, i have now came o the conclusion its a double sided sword, with gifts and hardships. if i go back to my birth and decide if i was going to be aspie or not, i would choice aspie. and as for joining wrong planet. why not, my help.

LOL, I just wrote that in a thread, LOL. So I'm not alone? LOL.

I'm a little worried that the school district will want to mainstream my son. Our school district used to say how we would get to have our son in this special NP school for aspies, but only for a few years, then he'd be mainstreamed again. Luckily, they've seen the success and I think they'll let our son stay there through high school. I hope he stays there until he graduates because:
1. They actively teach him social skills
2. All his friends are there, and they're like him, and they all get along amazingly well
3. He has gained so much self confidence from that school

Down side is that he also has a processing issue, and they can't seem to accommodate him the way he needs it. Thankfully my husband has given up on trying to make them teach him the way we've proven he learns best. Now, we simply pay for tutoring ourselves. It makes his school day longer, but he is tough. He is catching up to grade level now because of it, and lets face it, you can't win every battle. The three advantages above are worth their weight in gold, and the "normal school" would have continued to drop him and he would never have grown up to be self sufficient, whereas now I expect him to go to college and be something. (Well, I always expected that). They used to tell us he was mentally ret*d, we told them “but he understands Einstein’s theory of relativity, we know because he has asked us pertinent questions on the subject, showing cognition. This was at the age of 7. They thought we were crazy, of course… they always think the parent Is wishful thinking!

I hope he likes it at school. There are things you can do to avoid socializing when it gets overwhelming. Just find a nice spot to read a book, and if people approach you to say hi, it’s not so bad because they’re coming to your controlled space and all you have to do is practice being polite and friendly. Tell him not to feel pressure to have a group of friends, he’ll probably find one or two people eventually that he likes, and that’s plenty