lunch table politics

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My stepson started a new school about 3 weeks ago. It is a private school and there are only 15 kids in his grade level, which is 7th grade. At lunch, the 6th, 7th and 8th graders all eat together but they all have set tables they need to sit at.

Anyhow, after the 1st week, I guess the other boys at his lunch table weren't talking to him. So his mom emailed the teacher and asked if she could "buddy him up" with another boy. Well, I guess that didn't happen which didn't surprise me as it's not really the teacher's job.

Well I guess 3 weeks on and the other boys at the table still won't talk to him and he doesn't know how to initiate a conversation. So his mom has called various members of staff at the school asking them to find him a friend. Yes, I kid you not. They are ignoring her and she is pretty irate about it.

At his last school, a private elementary school, his mom could call up other moms and arrange playdates and I think she is finding that's not so easy to do with 13 yr olds.

When my husband told me the situation, I said 'well he has to learn how to initiate a conversation, it's a good thing, he needs to know how to do this'.

So I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions, like I've seen books with large pictures of a situation and captions with suggested conversations. Do you think this would help? I am worried he will get offended if I get him such a book. They have a book for high school students so it's not a book for little kids.

His mom's all mad now and she really wanted this school. I thought he should go to a school which had a FT speech therapist and classes in teaching social skills and she had a reaction that he was too good for that school, so he's not going to get any social skills help at this school.

If I give him a book like I described how do I do it without him getting offended? He has NVLD (and I suspect HFA) and I think the visuals would be very good for him. I have no doubt his mom will accuse me of traumatizing him but she's not going to be able to force other kids to be friends with him.

I would start by asking him if he would like to learn how to make conversation with the other kids. If he admits that he would like to, then he may buy into the process of learning how to. If he claims to be disinterested, then nothing you try will work. Proceed gently, ask questions, let his answers lead you.

Keep in mind, kids speak an entirely different language now then adults do, or even as we did as kids their age, mostly made up of internet memes and text speak, from what I understand. So coaching him in "how to talk to your peers" may not be so easy a thing, as "Hi, nice to meet you, may I sit down?" can get him called a prepfag as easily as anything else.

Every school has its own cliques, castes and social orders, and your son, whether he can articulate it well or not, likely knows them all. Try and find out who's who there, if he'll talk to you about it. Knowing who to approach and who not to will be a big help.

Has he been assessed yet?

Well I guess I'm jumping the gun. I know you are very concerned about this child from other posts. If he's your stepson such a decision would be up to his parents.

This rings a cord with me (mixed metaphor but whatever). I went to boarding school I avoided the refectory at all costs. Instead I survived on junk food I got from the local SPAR twice a week. I was already unpopular anyway so there was no reason to make more of a spectacle of it. In fact I spent the majority of time in my room when I wasn't in class (I skipped "general studies" and nobody noticed I didn't take it for A levels even though it was pretty much standard at the time despite being pointless drivel).

Eventually I got out of that s**thole and others. I’ve come on leaps on bounds by controlling the social enjoyment in my favour. I also no longer eat junk food and am a health freak.

Personally ASD people might be best not relying entirely on the "social network" of school, but instead on after school activities that are able to improve confidence. Then they can tell people that school is not their whole life, and they don’t get their rocks off tormenting classmates.

In any event there is a lot to build a conversation, but it can be learnt. There is the eye contact, which most people will incorrectly explain as they are not aware of what they are doing, the initiation, small talk (sort of NT communal stimming and also bonding), fielding questions, pausing to listen and rejoining, etc, etc.

A prepfag? That is hilarious, I mean it makes me realize I am totally out of the loop with regards to how teens talk nowadays.

As far as clicks, there are only 10 boys (including him) and 5 girls in the entire 7th grade, so I don't know how many clicks that would create.

Yes, I'll leave it to the parents. It is only 3-4 weeks in, no need to fret. I think the school isn't going to accommodate his mom's request and she's fuming about it but he'll mesh eventually.

I won't get the book, his dad said I could if I cut out all references to autism and I think, hey really the parents should be the ones doing something, not me, and they obviously don't even want my help. I just wish they had sent him to a school more focused on spectrum issues, they chose not to, things probably won't improve too much, but I need to quit worrying about it. To be honest, I am having a baby in 9 weeks and starting to get reeeeaaallly tired and I don't have the energy anymore!

I thought a small school sounded so nice, but then again, when you go to the public school you are more likely to meet people similar to you I guess. He's not interested in being friends with the girls, so it's just 9 boys, 9 - 13 yr old boys. Better I guess that he start on a small scale as he'll be at a 1400 student high school in 2 years!

A couple things.

IMO you can't force these things, especially in the teenage years. It is uncomfortable for the kid + it's even odder for the other kids. Most teenagers just do not have the maturity or sense of kindness and understanding that an older person may have. There is that whole "herd" mentality thing going on.

Often people w/AS are loners and they like it that way. They don't always need a whole bunch of friends like NT's often do. He may not even be missing anything as far as he is concerned.

What I have noticed about my mid 20's AS stepson is that yes, it can be hard for him to fit into a group & it can be hard for him to generate "small talk" & it's pretty easy for him to spin off into some fairly long winded explanation of some complex subject that most other people will find either odd or uninteresting. That being said though, when he is with "his people", meaning, people who are interested in the same things as himself (in his case science & computers) it is very easy for him to have a good back and forth discussion & develop friendships.

That, IMO, is the key. Find out what the kid is interested in & try & help him find a group or club of people with like interests. If he likes trains find him a model railroad club. Dogs? Get him a job at one of the animal shelters. Schools often have weird little fringe groups & clubs for kids that are into something other than football or whatever. You get my point.

I totally understand your post, as I have a 13 year old who struggles with social skills. He has been lucky enough to be in a large school where there is the "geek" table, his table, where two boys are officially diagnosed, two boys could be diagnosed, and two boys are just "eccentric" and very bright. Somehow, these aspies often find each other at school.

What I have tried (and not always successfully) is to ask him daily what is being discussed at the lunch table. If he doesn't know, then I have told him to be quiet, and really TRY HARD to listen to what the other guys are talking about. Then, if there seems to be a subject -- video games, movies, teachers, etc. -- I give him examples of how he might enter into the conversation. An earlier poster brought up a very good point, in that the way teenagers talk together now is completely different than what we talked about as 13-year-olds (the word "noob" comes to mind, meaning a "noobie" or new person who is completely clueless.) So it's difficult to teach ways to enter a conversation without the current usage of words.

Does your stepson have any siblings?

Actually I just wanted say that he has NVLD not AS and although they are very similar, kids with NVLD desperately want to be social, that is one big difference between NVLD and AS. He isn't an introverted loner type. If I let him he would follow me around every moment he could get (he did this in the beginning until I finally had to say something!). Also, kids with NVLD are not the hard science/computer engineer types, I mean they are very different (I think or it is just the case with him). I think a lot of kids with AS get by with an amazing intellect, yes, he is interested in things but they are like electrical outlets and plugs or universal adapters. If I ask him to charge my cell phone he'll get very excited and spend a few minutes contemplating which outlet he should use.

I am trying to find kids like him, it's been hard but I am still trying, I mean I am not obsessed but I keep my eyes and ears open! The last post mentioned bringing up subjects at lunch...video games could work...movies and teachers not really because he never talks in terms of people. Even if I take him to a movie, he focuses on the things in the movie, not the people. He doesn't seem to notice human interaction, he can't read faces at all. As far as lingo teens use, no he wouldn't know things like that, it's like he's not interested in the teen culture at all - doesn't wear the same clothes, listen to the music and he's not into the same things.

He is obsessing lately about the show "House" but not for the drama side, he doesn't notice that, he notices the equipment on the show. So trying to find him friends like that has been difficult although maybe when he has a bigger pool (at high school) he will find kids like himself.

As far as siblings he has a stepbrother and a stepsister (my kids). My daughter doesn't like to play with him at all. My son liked to play with him a lot in the beginning but my stepson has a tendency to hit when he loses a game and my son soon lost interest in playing with him. They still play together sometimes but it seems to meltdown at some point. Usually what I hear is that my stepson isn't playing fair. I hear that a lot. He does tend to make up his own rules and if he is losing he will change the rules or quit playing. My stepson has a half sibling on the way, I will have a daughter in 9 weeks, but I doubt he will have much interest in a baby!

I haven't grilled him about school because a mother was asking him all sorts of questions on the car pool home one day and he got very upset. Maybe it will be better when he is at the HS in 2 years because it is big and they will lots of activities going on. I'm sure these boys at school will eventually warm up to him.

I think the advice about having him really listen to determine what the other boys are talking about is very good advice. I think I will tell my husband that, because then he can figure out what they are interested in and he can find some common ground.

As far as the geek squad goes, well I honestly think a group of geeks at a lunch table would reject him. He is not like that at all, wouldn't fit in, has no interest in anything like astronomy or geology, and he has been diagnosed as math disabled. I think he will probably be excused from taking the required algebra and geometry classes, he just doesn't get it. I don't know what the other kids have, some could be AS, some ADD or ADHD, but it sure doesn't seem like anyone has NVLD. I mean I don't know - I mean I suspect he is not just NVLD, I suspect he has HFA as well.