"This is what a friend does" list.

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My son is expressing feelings of sadness because he is lonely. I see him making unhealthy relationships. We are in cognitive therapy and extensive programs right now helping him through this, but he responds well to written lists so I thought I would show you what I have so far and ask for your input on this.

He likes to draw cartoons so I thought I could get him to draw this out in cartoons to help him internalize it.



This is what I have so far:


A friend respects the laws.

A friend helps you.

A friend has similiar interests that you do.

A friend talks to you and does not say things often that makes you feel bad.

A friend is fun to talk to.

A friend has fun talking to you.

A friend does not get mad if you have more than one friend.

A friend likes to be with you.

A friend likes laugh with you.

A friend doesn't make fun of you and understands your perspective.

A friend cares about your opinions .

A friend cares about your feelings.

A friend follows the rules.

A friend talks kindly to you and about you.

A friend respects your personal boundaries.

A friend respects your spiritual beliefs.

A friend doesn't joke around about physical violence or hurt you or others physically.

I think that's a very good list.

A friend reciprocates. That is the big lesson. I took me 20+ years to get it right.

However I can give some advice on the approach to making friends suitable to some ASD if he is having trouble making friends. Some things you are never going to notice, therefore some lateral thinking is required to beat the odds.

Thank you both for the feedback!

I would like to hear your suggestions 0.

Just out of curiosity, are you trying to make an actual list of what a friend does, or more of the idealized person who you think your son should befriend?

For example:

A friend respects the laws.

A friend follows the rules.

These are not at all related to friendship. They may be admirable qualities if the laws and rules are rational and reasonable, but they are by no means required. In fact, the ability to overlook small infractions and not tattle is an important part of friendship. Plus, if you tell your son to only make friends with people who always follow the rules then he will never find a friend. Perfect people dont exist, and friendship is definitely not based, nor should be based on following rules.

Also, some of your criteria seem to be written for women. No offense, but since you arent a male, you dont understand what male/male friendships are like. You have the rules:

A friend respects your personal boundaries.

A friend doesn't joke around about physical violence or hurt you or others physically.

Guys hit each other all the time. Just because we hit each other doesnt mean we are in a fight. If your son makes friends with another guy they will end up hitting each other. I still tackle my friends to the ground, and fight them for the last soda can, its what men (especially boys) do. As long as your son's friend doesnt go for blood, then you dont need to worry about a little sparing.

Ok I didn't have much success in school so it may not be the best environment to begin with. This is because it is a "social network". Or maybe the focus should be on after school activities as there will be less people around. Generally the bigger group the more complex the social network I think.

These are my tips:

• Focus on one to one relationships. You can be in a small group, but try at least some of the time try to "get to know" people individually.
• It is good idea to approach people who don’t know anyone, also might have common traits like social anxiety/shyness.
  
• Having said that you shouldn't get too attached to a single, person nor put all your eggs in one basket at the start. So if you have been socialising with one person for a bit, after you have had a break from socialising you might focus on someone else. You could rotate between 3-4 people over the week/months.
• It really works better if the different people you socialise with don’t know each other well. I think it is something to do with those people already having set behaviours and conventions.
• You are going to have meet more people than are going to be your friends. The ratio could be 10-15 to 1, but don’t despair these are decent odd that will pay off eventually.
• Besides it is you that will find that you don’t like a some of them. There is no reason to continue with someone you just don’t get on with.
• If you have got to know these people a bit more, gradually you can introduce them to one another or go out specifically with one another. I call it adding to the tar ball.
• Reciprocation is remembering to do stuff for them once in a while, especially if they have done stuff for you. It is also about taking the initiative sometimes, when asking to meet up,etc. I have a rule now which is bascially I have to see them in a month.
  
• There are different types of friends. Some people you might not be close friends out of the activity you are doing. I found this difficult to learn and accept. Now, I couldn't do with out it. I am friendly with my martial arts training buddies, but I don't want the extra stress of socialising with them outside of the context, when I have very little in common with them otherwise.
• You are not going to know if someone is really a close friend for months. Just because you don’t know doesn’t mean you should stop socialising with them. It is hard but you should resist the need to pre-empt rejection. Sometime there you can misconstrue things when there really isn’t an issue.
• There is no ideal number of friends. I have 2 close friends that I see approximately every two weeks and that is enough for me. Some people have hundreds of friends and they are still not content. They must have some other issue, plus their friendship is spread pretty thin.
• Tracker is right, you are not going to get perfect friends. The problem with list like above is that we can take things literarily so there is no room for exceptions. These are precisely the social subtleties that can be difficult to gauge. If they are to accept your idiosyncrasies you have to accept theirs.
• People will give you confusing and contradictory advice on socialising. That is because they are not really aware of their behaviour at all, being inherent/instict. If you are consciously thinking about it that make it all the more impressive.

my little close-knit band of friends as a kid, were all "fellow losers", from different malfunctioning backgrounds. we were constant backstabbers, we stole from each other, and bullied each others. somehow we always knew where we stood.
i guess true friendship is to, despite all the crap, be able to be completely honest with each other, and most important: KNOW each other.

0-

Your insight is incredibly helpful to me . I really appreciate you taking the time to share this with me. I will put it in his friendship folder that he refers to often. This is well said.

Zeg- Knowing each other is a good point to bring up since he thinks just about anyone is his friend.

Tracker-

The list isn't meant to be idealized, although it probably seems that way. I am just trying to give him a "picture" of what a healthy relationship usually looks like for people. When I say that a friend respects the laws, I am talking about not stealing, not doing drugs, my son just turned thirteen and functions at a seven year old level in some areas . I'm trying very hard to be objective for him. I appreciate all of the input on this thread. I don't require a lot of socialization but we know a lot of people so this is an interesting subject for me. I can fit in just about anywhere and know the ways to small talk and such although it annoys me to a certain extent.
When I talk about physical violence I am talking about threatening to kill people because a person is mad. I am talking about grabbing a knife and going after someone. He doesn't like to be touched at all so the boundaries issue is a big one with him.

I don't think people should touch him if he doesn't like it. Even if they are playing around. He has sincere sensory issues I don't expect him to make friends with perfect people. I am just trying to give him basic guidelines so that he doesn't end up hurt, hurting someone else or in jail.
Maybe my statements are too broad for him since he is on the spectrum.

I would alter the "shares similar interests" item. This is the one that traps my son up, because ideally he wants friends who want to do all the same things he wants to and share all the same interests and that just isn't possible. He isn't willing to LOOK for the common ground.

Which is, in fact, funny because his best friend is very much UN-like my son in loving sports first and foremost, which my son has about zero interest in.

What they share is enough RESPECT for each other to be open to the differing interests and they share a willingness to compromise or take turns (which my son learned largely from this child). And this other child is fascinated by my son's unique ideas and really listens to them. They do both like things like Legos, so there is some common ground, but it wouldn't be obvious. The friendship is based on compatible personalities much more than interests, and the fact that this other boy is simply a great, socially talented child who knows how to handle my son and respect him all in the same breath.

So how did they ever become friends? Because they got thrown together in a carpool. Without that, I think my son would have had quite a few lonely years.

Point being, it's really important for kids to be open to children who do seem different from them, but are willing to reach back in return.

A friend is someone who wants to spend time with you in a way that makes both of you happy.

Oh wow, I didn't think of pointing out respect to my son because it isn't something I think about in detail, I just do it.

Very helpful. Thank you Dw!

I am so thankful for this sight. These teen years are a path in any light ...and it's adds a dimension of wellness to the whole process to have support for my son and myself. Thank you all so much!

mmm I mostly attracted other people with 'problems' as friends so a lot of those rules don't apply. If I didn't have 'bad company' it would have been 'no company' so it's often more a matter of which type of 'bad company' you're prepared to put up with.

AS people often attract sociopaths as 'friends' too, and this is one kind of 'friend' you seriously don't want in your life, so it can be a good idea to familiarise yourself with the characteristics of sociopaths, so you can avoid them.

I think as long as people are tolerant of your differences and keep your secrets/confidances, that's pretty good.