How did you or your aspie child survive high school

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I dropped out as soon as I turned 16; bored and the teachers were idiots. Tried a couple times to go back. An accelerated school where I did 2 years in 1 was the best thing for me. Even so, I dropped out of that school, tried night school for a GED, dropped that, bought a book and studied on my own. Got my GED at 21, went to college at 32, graduated at 40 with my 3 children at the ceremony. Went to grad school, dropped out because I couldn't get the politics. Dxed w/Aspergers at 55.

Keep him stimulated in learning. Help him find his niche; it will not be on the normal path.

the fact he's insanely medicated does disturb me a little.

Anyways I got through higschool by focusing on getting it over with in the hopes things would get better once I was done, well I cannot really say things have gotten too much better. Though it is nice I don't have to deal with being picked on or worrying about being picked on, on a daily basis like I did a lot of times at school.

But sometimes I wish I would have just dropped out.

For the most part, I befriended the right people as acquaintances and once people knew me well enough, they didn't hassle me as much. Eventually it just got too much BS with the teachers and I left in protest. Their loss, as the school got allotted money and disability services hours (which they used for others because I didn't need too much help) for me being there.

I had good friends and academic achievement. I felt happier at school than at home.

I loved and thrived in high school.
It's college that's terrible.

I skipped school in 9th grade, had to go to court for truancy. After that, in late 9th-10th grade, I simply just figured I'd "do my time" but that I had no hope of an actual education in high school, and it was a ruse. In 10th grade, I got expelled and arrested because some kid from my class robbed me and I attempted to fight back, and he lied about the whole thing and said I attacked him, then I later ended up going to jail for it and getting my GED there.

So in short, I didn't.

I quit when I was 16. I was counting down the days until I could quit ever since grade school.

From 12-16 I skipped so much school and was in a different school every year and had to go to family court so many times. I even got sent away a couple of times.

When I was 18 or 19 I just went and took a ged test and passed it. I'm good at multiple choice tests.

I think things would have been much better for me if I could have been home schooled. No one ever suggested it and my mother probably couldn't have done it. My main issues with school were not getting along with the other kids and not wanting to go there. I just wanted to stay home.

I could not get my two eldest to go to high school. I tried everything short of standing over them with a whip. I thought about it since in my state I could go to jail if my kids didn't go to school. Eventually my son was old enough to drop out. I signed the papers to homeschool my daughter then left her to it since I had to work full time and more. My son is now a hard-working man with a wife and four kids. My daughter went into the Army at 17. She got her GED with very high scores. She didn't make it through the Army for physical reasons, but she has her Master's degree in social work. My youngest son dropped out when he was 18. He spent most of his school career in special ed, but learns best in his own way. Now he is in college studying programming. He's been building computers and helping with other IT tasks since he was a small child.

I grew thicker skin.

Much like someone said above, I don't know how I managed to survive high school. It wasn't until 2 years prior that I was mainstreamed into a regular classroom because of my hearing loss. Then I went to a college prep high school, away from my longtime classmates who all either went to deaf institutions or a vocational high school.

At the time I knew I was different but didn't know why. I think my saving grace were two things: I forced myself to join the basketball team and I loved learning, however difficult that was because of my hearing loss and social ineptness. I was picked on constantly up to like a quarter before 12th grade graduation. I suffered in high school socially. I suffered, period. I remember boys touching my body inappropriately in the 9th grade, I once told an assistant principal and basically got laughed at. I got blamed for doing things I didn't do.

High school was such a pain that when it became time for my daughter to enter high school, I made sure she didn't choose this particular high school although times are different and she's a different person than I am. I just did not want to have to relive those times for when I have to go there for meetings and such.

Weird, for me it's the total opposite.

See below.

Last edited by Aharon on 28 Dec 2011, 2:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I had a very VERY hard time in school, socially. Middle school was the worst. High school was decent though, because by then I'd learned some survival strategies. Two things that helped me most were imitation and prompting. It was very exhausting but I learned to stand, sit, talk, walk, and dress "normal". I really wasn't so good at the talk part, but one thing I could do was listen to people talk and then prompt them to continue talking by asking questions about what they just said. I didn't have any real interest in what they were talking about, but I did have a strong interest in not being bullied or tortured so I was keen to develop a good image with people. Then, if some random creep tried to give me a hard time, people might go, hey he's alright leave him alone.

The danger of imitation is after awhile, I really couldn't tell if I was acting anymore or if what I was doing was genuine. Pretty soon I was feeling pretty normal inspite of what was going on behind closed doors, but that all changed when i got married. It was like a hitting a brick wall. You might be able to fool your teacher and classmates, maybe even yoù friends. MAYBE even yourself. But there's no fooling your spouse.

While imitating my way through school, I'd failed to learn how to handle anything deeper than a superficial relationship. That's where I really need help now. As for how people treat me now, I have good working relationships with my coworkers and they seem much more accepting of my uniqueness, and I've loosened up quite a bit over the years.

In closing, I'd say there are some things that I would recommend. They're not fair, but that's life isn't it?
1. Learn to imitate.
2. Don't draw attention to ones self. This even means learning to laugh at a joke you don't get.
3. Ask questions, listen a lot, ask more questions.
4. Find something you're good at and join a club. It will give you a basis of common interest with people, who may actually end up liking you, and they can be your experience in developing better relationship skills. Temple Grandin recommends this and I wish I had done it instead of going home and hiding from everyone after school.
5. Realize it WILL get better! Some kids can manifest some of the most sinister, vile, soulless, twisted personalities, but we all grow up, and someday your goofiness that kids today pick on you for will be the same goofiness that, when your older, younger people at your work might think you're kinda cool for. What a world.

I kept to myself and didn't draw unwated attention to myself

I was very isolated.I was mostly into my music and didn't study that much.My marks got progressively worse in high school as I had no interest in studying.I did what I had to do to get by.I didn't date at all or attend any dances. Not a period of my life I would want to go through again.