Not sure if ds (13) even fits in here

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My ds(13) is a middle-schooler. A few years ago we were given a 'provisional' dx of AS because he doesn't meet all the criteria. He does have an ADHD dx for which he is taking medication. We've been searching for answers for the past decade.

I would say ds's issues are mostly social. He can be rude & often times I think he acts like "Oscar the Grouch". He has always liked the villains in movies (like the Grinch) . We don't allow any violent movies/video games.

He has a group of boys that he sits with at lunch. Lately a few girls have joined the group and ds doesn't like this at all. He sees girls as bothersome and full of drama. He has no problems letting them know that he doesn't like them sitting at the table with them. I'm not sure if his feelings result from having 3 younger sisters, one of which is always trying to 'mess' with him. Those two have never gotten along.

Ds is also arrogant and gets very upset if someone is better than him at something. He takes his grades seriously and is in the gifted program. Last year he got a B on his report card. He was very upset and ripped it up saying he wasn't getting into a good college. There's another boy in his class who always gets good grades. Ds thinks the boy doesn't even have to try and still gets the good grades. Ds decided he didn't like this boy and is always saying negative things about him (in front of him and behind his back).

There is another boy in ds's scout troop who ds has decided he doesn't like either. The boy is always putting down scouting (his parents made him join the troop) and is just plain negative about scouting. My ds doesn't like this and rather than ignoring it my ds likes to put this kid down, too. It's almost like my ds wants to have an enemy. I asked ds about this and he said he doesn't like when some people seem to be getting a 'free ride' without putting any effort into it. My ds is very close to making Eagle Scout and so is this other boy. The difference is the other boy is doing the bare minimum to get by and my ds can't stand it.

Last year, at the bus stop, ds met a boy who had a very foul mouth. My ds couldn't stand it so he decided to tell the boy to stop and when the boy wouldn't stop, ds decided to throw rocks at him. When I found out about it, I told ds to knock it off and stay away from the other kid. Things were fine but ds would report to me that the boy would often stare him down while on the bus.

This year, I thought things were going well , until last week. I got a call to the school because ds had hit another kid on the school bus. Apparently, my ds was sitting on the bus and someone decided to kick his bow case (ds is on the school's archery team). The boy was trying to get a reaction out of my ds but my ds just moved his case. Then another boy (an archery team mate) started arguing with my ds about who was the better archer. The kid who my ds had a problem with last year told my ds to "Shut the ^&*( up". He started chewing ds out. My ds then threatened to shoot the boy with his bow but then hit him in the head with his bow case. This was reported to the school and my ds got 2 days ISS (in-school suspension). The assistant principal told me he gave ds ISS instead of OSS is because ds had a perfect academic/disciplinary record.

Later that night I found out from ds that the kid who chew him out had slapped him a month ago. Ds said he didnt' tell me because he thought he didn't want me to get upset. I told him that if anyone ever lays a finger on him then he needs to report it and to let me know. He knows hitting the boy with the bow case was wrong to do and ds was very upset. He said he's embarassed for anyone to find out that he got ISS. We've decided to remove ds from the bus and put him on the other bus that goes through our neighborhood. I'm worried that the few 'friends' ds did have will want to have nothing to do with him.

My ds is never shy about speaking in front of people. He has never, ever been shy. One plus is that class presentations have been a breeze for him, even with minimal preparation. His problem is keeping some of his thoughts to himself. A lot of times I get so embarassed when we are out in public and I'm having a conversation with someone. When he's ready to leave, he makes it known.

He doesn't perseverate. He is interested in hunting (dh is from a hunting family) and football (not just scores but he really enjoys watching the games). but he doesn't talk about it constantly. He also enjoys spicy foods and grew many varieties of peppers this past summer. In the past he has been interested in space (he cried when Pluto was reduced to a dwarf planet), dinosaurs and The American Civil War. He usually keeps his interests to himself.

He was on a year round swim team and was quite good but he hated it. He made it very well know to everyone around him that he didn't want to be on the team and didn't want to swim. We pulled him from the team.

He has never had any stims and was never prone to serious tantrums. He tends to brood when his football team loses or when something doesn't go the way he had hoped. He has slammed a door a few times when he was mad. If he got hurt when he was younger he would take his anger out on the object that hurt him and yell at the object. He's protective over his sisters, even his 'mean' sister.

I have no doubt in my mind that he will be able to live on his own. He is self sufficient and very responsible. He is always asking to help around the house (he mows the grass, helps dh do small repairs, tends a garden) My fear is how will he survive socially. I'm worried that he'll be alone. I can totally see him as the grumpy, ol' man next door living all alone.

Right now, I just don't know what to do with him. I have social anxiety and I don't know if I'm projecting my feelings onto him. He is really a good kid but I feel like I need to be helping him in the social department but am not sure what to do.

Please excuse any grammatical/spelling errors. My feelings are just all over the place. Thanks for reading.

Outside of being good at sports, your son could pretty much be my son. My son has a very strong sense of justice, right and wrong, and that drives some of his social issues. There is no doubt in my mind that my son is ASD, btw.

I'll have to come back, though, since right now I'm at work ...

Why do you call him ds?

In school suspension is a strange concept to me. What does that even mean?

I dont agree with swapping the bus. Personally, I was never bullied because I was tall and I stood up to it. The trick is to skillfully enforce a boundary rather than knock them out. But if push comes to shove that happens wherever dominance thinking is in play. It is in play already but its not phycical dominance it seems more social.

You help him best addressing your social anxiety

I have some tips on that too but cant write essays or articles on a forum really

He sounds like me as a teen. He is fine. He is smart, sounds a good athlete and masculine. Those are all good things.

Welcome! I'd say there are a lot of parents here of kids who have similar issues, whether or not he exactly meets the ASD criteria.

I've decided it will work best if I comment on specific sections of your post.

I found middle school to be extremely hard on my son socially. Kids are changing. What your son thinks he knows about getting along no longer works for him. Things he used to have in common with other kids are no longer shared interests. And the hormones ... they make people do crazy things. If your son is ASD, he likes predictability, and gets upset by change. Well, socially, its all change right now, and the battle of the sexes will seem to him to be at the heart of it. He may not know what is bothering him, but it is probably bothering him quite a bit. Nothing is worse for a child who has trouble reading social cues than having all the rules keep changing around him, and that is just what they are doing. The response is going to be to search for order, something familiar, and to get more controlling. It's defensive. Ineffective, but instinctive.



I've learned with my son that while he comes across as arrogant, that isn't what he is feeling. What he has are very high standards for himself and those around him, because his mind things are black and white: you are either good at something, or you are not good at something, and all the gray areas in the middle seem to be invisible. ASD seems to be a condition of extremes, and that seems to be true of world view as well. The perfectionist attitude seems prevalent among many gifted middle school boys who are not ASD, as well, so it could also be part of self-identity; they struggle so much to understand and cement who they are, what their place will be, and these are kids who have been told their whole lives they are smart, but now they are getting more competition. It could just be a struggle in their own minds.

Grading rubrics are also the bane of existence for many AS kids, and many bright boys in general, who know all the material in school, but may not be the most organized, or the best at decorating their papers to get those bonus art points some teachers include. Since middle school grading relies more heavily on organization than knowledge, it can be tough. I spent a lot of time talking to my son about how it is simply a life skill to learn how to do things the way your teacher (or boss, or client) wants them, and the ability to do that is often, real world, seen as equally if not more important than how much you know. It is a frustrating lesson for a kid who knows more than all the people around him to absorb, but it is one they need to learn. Kids like my son don't inherently understand the merits of the rubric; I really had to sell it to him, and also let him know that it doesn't really matter if he likes it, life is just better if you learn how to play the game.



Sounds like my son and another boy in his scout troop. Once again, I've presented it as a life skill, the kind of thing you learn to accept. You can't focus on what other people do or get, you can only focus on feeling good about what you do and get.

ASD kids are often rules kids, seeing the world very black and white, so what they believe in, they really believe in, and they lack the theory of mind to understand why not everyone else sees it the same way.



It can really offend an AS child's sense of order when the rules are not followed.



When my son gets in situations like that, where things are spinning out of control, everything jumbles up in his brain. I am wondering how close to meltdown your son may have been; reading the free e-book at ASDStuff.com might be insightful for you.

Beyond making sure you prevent meltdowns, no kid is going to be perfect. Your son was pushed past his limits. There were consequences for it, fine, but he needs to understand that he is human, and stuff happens. The best thing to do is avoid situations that can be triggers, to the extent possible.



My son loves to talk, and doesn't have a shy bone in his body. He definitely can over-talk, but sometimes it comes in handy. He receives speech services to work out the pragmatics, and know how to read the body language that people give off to show they are not interested, or want their turn to talk, etc.



Some of these I can relate to; others I can't, but I think the next step might be to get your son assessed for speech services at school. You might also want to look into NonVerbal Learning Disorder (not sure I'm remembering that name right), which can be similar to ASD but has some different criteria. Just as ASD is a spectrum, being on or off of it is, as well, so it also possible for someone to have quite a few ASD traits without being ASD; the downside to that being that they won't qualify for any services. Speech is really the service that is doing the most for kids in your son's age group, and if there is any chance you can get him qualified for it, it would be helpful.

I would definitely recommend the book at ASDStuff.com, and reading around the forum for advice on how to handle some things that might be going on with your son. We've got families with a variety of issues, and I think some of the protocols work for quite a few different kids. The label doesn't matter nearly as much as figuring out what works for your unique child.

Thanks for responding. I probably sound like I'm in denial but I'm not. It's just that I'm wondering if we are going in the right direction. He's clearly different but I don't know if my own insecurities are making that fact more magnified.

BTW, he's not really an athletic kid. He failed miserably at baseball, basketball and soccer. Swimming went really well for him but he's not into it at all. He learned how to ride a bike right before he turned 6 but seems to prefer more sedentary activities. He does really well at archery which I guess is a sport but doesn't get the ol' heart pumping.

ds=dear son. It might not be a common acronym.


The kids don't attend regular classes for the duration of their in-school suspension. It's not as 'bad' as having out of school suspension but it's still pretty bad.


My ds is pretty big for his age but the other kid is bigger. Ds told me that the look in the other kids eyes was 'pure evil'.


Yes. I was bullied as a child so I am hypersensitive to social situations.


Thank you for responding. I am very grateful because there is no one IRL (other than my husband) who can even begin to understand.


I know he has so many good qualities but sometimes people don't see the good because of the 'bad'.

No, I don't think you are in denial, it's tough when you've got a borderline child. My son has a small little social group full of such kids and he is the only one who has a diagnosis. Still, me and the other moms are finding we need to parent pretty similar, which is why I think reading this board could be useful, right label or not. There are some on-line tests you could have him try, too, btw. Obviously they are very loose screens, but it helps you figure out direction.

For us, high school has been much better than middle school. The kids have a better sense of who they are and don't seem to need to climb over each other anymore. But we also have an unusually diverse and accepting school.

I was a bit like that in middle school (ages 11-13). Here are some general ideas that might be useful-I really hope some of it's helpful:

He might benefit from social interaction with older kids rather than those his own age. They might be able to model effective peer relationships. When I was that age, I mostly hung out with older people who shared some of my interests.

It's clear he has a passion for justice and fairness-so volunteering for a charity for the needy might appeal to him. That would also give him the chance to hang out with a wider range of people and develop his social skills. Volunteering at an animal shelter might also be good for him.

Things like some supervised babysitting and pet sitting could also appeal to his sense of responsibility, as well as develop his social skills.

Hopefully some of this is helpful to you, and I hope things improve soon. I grew out of this stage by the time I was 15-some of the things that were the biggest help to me were friendships with older people, doing social justice work and developing a peer relationship with someone else who was a bit different from the norm.

I posted my responses in italics.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. Your post has been very helpful.

my son is soooo much like this! He KNOWS all the rules, right from wrong, and he wants others to follow them, but he isnt one to be a stickler to the rules himeslf. He is one of the most sensitive, caring people I know. He is affectionate and if someone is upset he will go out of his way to do ANYTHING to make them feell better. Usually, he doesnt see when HE is upsetting someone (by being blunt , syaing "you arent good at singing", or "I dont want to play with you!") but if someone is hurt or crying, he wont rest till he cheers them up.

My son has not one shy bone in his body. He will go talk to complete strangers, he has no issues talking ina group or taking the lead. For instance, we go ot Manhattan often, my son will go over to stranger on the subway and ask to sit casue he is a little kid. Or if my son hears us discussing how to get somepleace, he will stop a stranger and ask for directions...lol. He also loves to talk to people, loves people, he makes beautiful eye contact and has a nice speaking voice.

the other thing, is that my son is very smart and knows all the answers, and al the right things to do, but he cant always follow thru or remember it in the heat of the moment. He is very hit or miss in how he will react of behave.

Your son sounds a lot like mine!

I also have a child who is so borderline that some parents I know think we are "faking" it or "overreacting."

However, a lot of our issues are the same. We were convinced the diagnosis was accurate when we went to a multi-disciplinary center for developmental issues at a local hospital - they went over the criteria after the diagnosis, and showed us exactly how DS fits in.

The big thing they uncovered, and the therapy that has been most critical: a pragmatic speech deficit and speech therapy. When they suggested it, I thought they were insane (DS was speaking clearly at 9 months old) but he has bounced back beautifully with the help of this therapy. It's not a magic bullet, but that and a social skills class have been a huge help.

I think he probably as Aspergers because he sounds just like me . I definitely would have been described as grouchy (and probably still would be to some degree) at his age. I would say that it was probably caused by lack of sleep (I have always had difficulty falling asleep because I just could not stop thinking about something I found interesting. If this is the case for him too, I have found that listening to music at a low volume at bedtime helps alot) and having to socialize more than I wanted. Allowing him ample time to pursue his special interest in solitude will do WONDERS for his mood.
I agree with him about teenage girls . I'm sorry to say that with this particular problem I do not have any solutions. I don't think his feelings have anything to do with his sisters, I think it's just the nature of girls at that age that is hard to deal with; need for socialization and attention, loud, etc.
I too tried to be the best at everything is school. I was just very driven, as it sounds he is, and I eventually grew out of it to some degree. This level of ambition will help him overcome difficulties he will have, I did for me. The anger over the B is familiar. I always hold myself to extremely high standards and am frustrated with myself when I don't make it. He's probably mad at himself for not getting an A.
I don't think he dislikes these boys because he wants a fight or someone to dislike, he dislikes them because he sees their actions as wrong or inappropriate. I get frustrated with people that are doing what I consider to be outside the rules I have in my head. ds didn't think swearing was appropriate at the bus stop so he tried to correct the situation. He is just doing what he sees to be right. When I was a kid and was angry with another person, for doing something I perceived as wrong, it would make me furious that everyone else would blow it off or ignore it like it was nothing. What helped was talking about it with my dad and having him relate with stories of his own childhood. Having someone else just recognized that something was wrong helped me let go and I was able to deal with it. It might help if you relate to him about the things that he sees as unacceptable. Feeling as if someone understands where he are coming from will help.
Also, it may help him if he can share his thoughts with you AFTER social events. Talking about the conversations later might help him stop feeling as if he must share them during the social event.
It might help to give him a timeline for social situations. Telling him when you will leave( and a time he can look forward to) will help him endure it. Without it, social events seem to drag on forever and it is difficult to pretend you want to be there.
It is good to hear that he is self sufficient. I think when he decides he wants to socialize he will find a way that suits him, maybe on a website that correlates to a special interest. If he is a stubborn as I am he will flat out refuse to learn to be social until he is good and ready . And when he does, he is driven enough that he will succeed.

My son doesn't talk to strangers unless they ask him a question or unless he needs something (ordering food in a restaurant). He's not afraid of them but I guess he doesn't see the point in making conversation.

I love that he isn't afraid to get up in front of people to talk. There are many boys his age that can't/won't do this. A few weeks back he was presenting his science fair project to a few judges. One of his slides was missing & instead of floundering he apologized and went on. He didn't miss a beat and was even complemented by the judges for being able to continue on.

Ds also ran one of the big meetings at a Boy Scout campout (about 50 people were there). This involved him being the emcee, running a flag retirment ceremony and organizing the other scouts in doing skits. I was a proud momma that night. He's only 13 and he willingly took on the role.

One thing to knw about AS and ASD is that while our kids may share common traits, they arent copies of eachother. They are very individual just like NTs. What happens often is that people (I did as well) have stereotypical views or pictures of what someone wth AS or ASD is like, and when their child deviates from that stereotype, they dont believe their child is ASD. It happened to me years ago. I pictures Aspergers more like rain man, more aloof, more anti social, less affectionate, etc...

Once you realize ASD is a HUGE spectrum, our kids are all so unique and different, they may have some quirks and some differences but there is no cookie cutter kid with ASD. Even kids with Aspergers are on a spectrum. My son is on the mild end, or HF end, and it took me forever to get a diagnosis. And I truley believe if I didnt keep pushing and going to more professionals and NOT dropping it, he would have no diagnosis today, or maybe ADHD and anxiety, but those alone dont explain al the complexities of my son. And I NEVER went into this thinking my kid was anywhere near the spectrum, mainly becuase of how social he is and how he has imaginative play and makes great eye contact...and I am a special ed teacher who SPECAILZES in autism!! !

hang in there, you are doing great by your son!

Ditto for us!