My son and I have a wonderful group of families/friends that have children of all ages. Oddly enough, only one other with special needs. Nonetheless, my 8 yo. son get's an ample dose of play time with children ranging in ages 5 to 15. And all of my son's friends are crazy about him. I think the biggest factor for successful friendships is teaching your child that differences are what makes people special and to love ones self as well as others. My son's friends understand that he is speech delayed and develpmentally delayed. All of these things have been explained. What's most important to all of our friends is that we are fun and carefree. That we don't worry about "Autism" or anything else. We just do our thing and invite you to come along.I have to say that I am just the tiniest bit jealous of Jackie. It's wonderful, of course, that her son with autism has such an extraordinarily broad and successful social life. But quite frankly, my son doesn't.
Sure, there are kids down the street, and more kids at the Y, in the band, and so forth - and he sees those kids fairly often. But even when those kids are physically right here in the house, Tom really isn't interested. From time to time, one of those kids will ask him a question or invite him to play - and Tom's anxiety goes through the roof. When he's anxious, he'll run away, act silly, or even say "go away."
As a result, it's rare for anyone outside our family and tiny circle of close friends to see the "real" Tom - that warm, funny, interested guy we know. And because so few people know the real Tom, no one outside our little circle is "crazy about" him at all.
So, as the mom of a high functioning child with autism, I'm really at a loss. Social skills groups taught Tom how to share and take turns, and of course our day to day interactions with the wide world have built skills ranging from ordering from a menu to playing mini-golf. But with all those skills and experiences, I'm still in awe of moms like Jackie.
How DO you help a child with autism to make real friends?
Please keep me informed of other comments to see where this subject goes from here. I too, am a mother of a 9 yo boy with mild autism and has been in public school in general ed. classroom and still doesn’t have any close friends or a buddy at school. Most kids in his class pretty much tolerate him during social recess but, again there is no close bonding as you see with the typical children in his grade level nor does he seem to be included during lunch conversations, etc. (breaks your heart)
It’s so hard to get by the speech problems, he had been labeled as the weird kid since Kindergarten. (you know how it is for kids like him)
He has asked some kids for playdates but to no avail. He usually ask the girls, they seem kinder to him than the boys at school but, no takers yet.
Keep me informed.
Thank you.
I am both of your Moms Lisa, you and Jackie. I have two sons with autism and they present with their autism as two opposites and yet they both have a diagnosis of High Functioning Autism.
The elder of my two sons is a Tom type of person. He has never wanted lots of friends. Never even wanted to try and form friendships. He has one good and true friend and his elder brother and that is the way that he likes his life. Who am I to tell him that he needs to try out social groups? We tried cubs once when he was much younger and he stood and shook with stress and anxiety, tears streaming down his face and so we came home. He is 21 next month and he has already stated quite clearly that he wants no parties or unexpected gifts. He is happy to share a meal with his family, friend and godparents in his favourite restaurant. My son is a very private person who does not wear his heart on his sleeve and only those of us who live with him truly know him and know that he has the wicked sense of humour and actually does like to have fun – only maybe not fun as others would see it.
My youngest is the social butterfly with autism. He played out with his friends (yesterday there was 12 of them) until 8pm last night. We are fortunate that where we live we have a grassed area where the local kids love to play and where we can see our son at all times. Yesterday they played football, tag, climbed trees, road their bikes around the Close and had a wonderful time. He was even invited to join a get together in a Neighbours garden with his friends. So I suppose that you could say that socially my youngest is flying. Yes he has friends and is accepted by them warts and all, and generally has a great time playing out. However having friends does not stop him from being confused by those friends and their actions and interactions. When other kids go in for the day and maybe watch TV for awhile before going to bed, we start our de-brief session. We work though things that have happened that our youngest failed to understand or stressed him out. While playing out is what he wants to do that does not mean that it does not stress him out. He works hard to fit in and it often takes its toll on him, so maybe he is not really like Jackie’s son because playing out comes with a price tag for our son.
Living with two such different kids with autism has taught me a great deal about the condition and how it presents. I find watching my eldest wanting to live an almost solitary life quite upsetting at times, and yet I find seeing my youngest trying so hard to ‘fit in’ and often becoming totally confused by it all just as upsetting. Both have social and communication difficulties and I do wonder if the youngest will be able to keep up with his friends (he is now 11) as they grow up, and how he will then ‘fit in’ to the group. Socially he is flying at the moment but he fails to spot danger signals like potential fights brewing between other children and not understanding their tone of voice. How will this affect him in later years if he is say sitting in a bar with his mates? Of the two I know which one is likely to be the most vulnerable
Have you asked your son if he wants “real friends”?
(posted on behalf of Jypsy)
in answer to Jypsy’s question – I HAVE asked, and the answers are confusing indeed. On the one hand, he’ll say “I just like to relax by myself,” which I certainly understand. On the other hand, though, he’ll mention that he wants to invite one or another child to his birthday party – even though he’s never tried to engage with that person (and even rejects the other child’s advances). I honestly don’t think he KNOWS what kinds of relationships he wants – my guess is that he’s too anxious to move forward, though he thinks it might be worthwhile…??
Lisa (autism guide)
Many kids with autism have social difficulties. My child can parallel play all day long but to engage in 1:1 actual peer play is difficult for him. He has an easier time if it’s out doors than in doors as well, since the comfort level is easier and not so confined and direct.
For many kids, it’s on going modeling and still, many may always have a problem relating in a social setting. My son can label expressions and emotions all day long on paper, however to put it to practical use on people, he simply can not do this. This poses a great social deficit when you cant interpret social intent. Besides making friends, my son can interpret those meaner kids nor does he back off before he’s about to get hit. It’s really hard to model all possible social settings. We do RDI, which I believe greatly helps. We modeled and over exaggerate emotions and facial expressions in every minute of the day, along with the help of some neighbor kids. I started RDI when my son was about 4, and I had our neighbor girl and her brother as a great example. They were very patient and tolerant of my son who changed activities at the bat of an eye while outside and inside did next to nothing but trains and even then, he directed their play and touching of his things. While they played, I was never far away from hearing or seeing what they were doing. When my son didn’t at least announce a change in ‘his’ plans, I redirected him to go back and do that. Eventually, the neighbor girl who was ever so smart for her age, caught right on and she offered the better social behavior. As my son became older and progressed, we had the girl not go along with my son’s restricted play, but suggested her choice. It takes a lot of time and work and patience to work through restricted play, offering the idea others do not share those same restricted desires and that going beyond those restricted things could in fact be ‘fun’ for a kid with autism. It’s also still difficult to transition the same skills learned at home with 2 kids, into a school setting with many peers.
RDI stands for relationship development intervention. It attempts not only to interpret social settings and peers and friends, but also tries to teach the child with autism ‘why’ one would want to, ‘why’ one would want to connect with another. My son may never be a social butterfly, but I found this to be the best way to help him go beyond his autism, to relate to another person. I don’t expect him to be perfect, autism does effect a persons socially, but this is a nice method to give him some tools.
Hi Lisa-
My son struggles with anxiety around his peers as well. He can completely shrink around children and try to hide behind me so they won’t see him. It makes me sad, because I know how awesome he is. When we decided to try a new biomedical treatment with him, he asked if it would help him get better. I told him that the doctor thought it might. Then he asked, “How will I know when I’m better? Will I have friends?”…..that about broke my heart, because it meant that he knows his autism prevents him from having the friendships that he clearly desires.
Recently, I attended a social skills conference put on by a local SLP and speaker, Cathy Burgess. She works primarily with children on the higher end of the spectrum and she has recognized a gap in their social learning that she is now trying to address with parents and teachers. As a result, she designed a graphic of a wizard to be used to teach the children the 6 skills that are necessary to understand in order to participate in healthy and successful and meaningful relationships/friendships. Without seeing the graphic it is difficult to appreciate how it relays the components which are:
Awareness– learning to see with “spy vision” and discovering what others see and think. Also, learning to see the big picture and not just the details in isolation.
Emotions– Recognizing and understanding other’s emotions; knowing your own emotions; managing your own emotions; motivating yourself; managing relationships
Perspective Taking– Using Carol Gray’s thinking and speaking bubbles to understand the thoughts of others (comics can be really helpful); Knowing the difference between what you think and what you say
Problem Solving– Learning to break down a problem into manageable steps: Identify the problem, identify the causes, brainstorm solutions, select best solution, implement solution plan, follow-up/evaluate/monitor progress…
Conversation Skills– Builds on all the previously learned skills; needs strong questioning skills/turn-taking/getting other’s perspective; learn to shift topics–to flow and not jump from one subject to another; learn age appropriate slang; understand appropriate loudness of voice for different situations ( difference between telling a secret and hailing a cab, for example); learning to stick with a conversation from start to finish
Friendships–understanding the different kinds of friends (best buds, kids you hang out with; people you see casually); understanding how relationships have different circles (home, school, family, strangers); Understanding personal and public space
Anyway, it was a fantastic conference and I learned so much. It did overwhelm me to realize how many deficits my son has–and helped me appreciate why he is so frozen by anxiety around kids.
While my eldest son was being diagnosed the clinicial asked him what having a friend meant. She asked him many questions about friendship and he was unable to answer any of them if I am being honest. This made me very sad because he did have one friend and I realised that the friendship was very one sided, with his friend giving and my son taking simply because he did not know how to give in return. My son was 13 at the point of diagnosis.
A couple of weeks ago I saw his clinician again and she asked me how my son was, she always does. I replied that I was happy to say that if she were to ask my son now all of her questions about friends and friendship that he could answer them and give appropriate answers. My son will be 21 next month.
Yes it was a long time coming but it came. My son was 16 before he felt confident enough to speak to anyone whom he did not know. We had to work hard on what makes a conversation work for both parties and when to stop talking. Reading post number 6 I think that we probably covered most of the points raised at the conference but did so more by accident than design. This is the kind of information dare I say training that we parents need. It might high light the deficits that our children have but unless we know what they are how can we hope to help them?
I’m a therapist who specializes in working with kids with special needs. I spent years working in a school setting, so I got to see what really goes on in the classroom and playground.
There are lots of things you can do to help your child make friends, too many to list here, but I’ll highlight a few. One, if your child can make one best friend, life at school is much better. Teachers are a great help here, because they can point out and even initiate relationships with a likely friend. Social skills groups, preferably right at school may help, especially if they are play oriented, not just conversational. Then it’s up to you as a parent. Take a friendship to the next level with playdates.
Second, try to help your child fit in. For all kids this involves physical things like acceptable hygiene and personal habits, as well as dressing the part. (I know parents don’t like the shallow aspect of fashion, but kids really notice when others dress differently. I’ve spent a lot of time working with the popular kids and bullies and trust me, whether you approve or not, other kids are paying attention to how your child wears her hair, if he picks his nose, or she wears floral stretch pants. That difference is another hurdle to overcome.) The other way to fit in is through playground activities. For boys, and to a lesser degree girls, sports are key. To the best of your abilities, try to help your child be comfortable with basic throwing, kicking, and running. Practice as a family.
Finally, kids make friends through activities as well as school, but they need some time to connect. A four day art camp through the city probably isn’t enough time to make a lasting friend, while a year long scout troop may be. Social activities specifically for families with special needs may help your child find someone who can appreciate your child’s unique gifts.
As a consultant working with individuals of all ages on the autism spectrum, the only program I have seen to really impact motivation and subsequent competence in making friends is the RDI program (Relationship Development Intervention). Go to http://www.rdiconnect.com, there have been 2 studies so far (and more in the works) which show RDI is the first program for autism to result in change in diagnostic categories on the ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule). RDI is not a quick fix, it is based on typical development and takes commitment for parents to help guide the child (or teenager/adult) with ASD onto a more typical developmental pathway. Prior to RDI I was trained in variations of ABA, as well as other autism programs like Son-Rise, Floortime, etc. and the RDI program is the first I have seen to yield significant qualitative changes in the children who go through the program.