Helping my son find friends!

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Hi, I need suggestions on how to help my 10 year old soon meet friends. He is a gamer into Pokemon and Magna?, Japaneses comics. We live in Columbus, Ohio. Would love to start a social group for age 8 to 12. He's a great kid, but very lonely. Thanks

You can't help ypur son getting friends, he has to get them himself.

Encourage after school activities. Hopefully there will be something he likes and someone there will share interests in something.

Role Playing is something he could love. There was a role playing group after school when I was a child, also you can consider sports without too much social contact (like swimming).

I think Keith's and Nightsun's suggestions are excellent.

I agree with bdhkhsfgk to some extent that your son must learn how to make friends in his own environment, that is, in school or after school activities. But I also think that you can help him. Starting a socialization group is a great idea, so long as there is an educational aspect to it. I suggest that you hire a licensed therapist or someone who specializes in children with ASDs to facilitate the group. If all of the parents split the cost, the cost should be manageable (for example, $70 per hour for specialist one time a week, split between 7 families is $10 per week per family). The purpose of the group should be to teach the children socialization skills that they can take with them later in life. Another thing you can do to help is facilitate him getting together with school friends. I have driven my son to friends' houses for "play dates" when he was in elementary school. How about joining cub scouts? There is a lot you can do to help.

Hello, and welcome to Wrong Planet.

I would advise you to stick around and read the other posts. It may answer some questions, or perhaps explain some things.

That being said, it is hard to give advise since I really dont know the situation with your son. You say that he is lonely. Is that his statement, or your interpretation of his lack of friends? I dont mean to accuse you of presenting false information, but many parents look at a child with relatively few friends and come to the conclusion that the child must be sad and lonely. In reality, the child may perfectly happy with their current amount of socialization. So before you go attempting to inject more socialization into your son's life, you may want to verify that he does indeed wish to have more friends, and also that he would like some assistance from you in acquiring more friends. Trying to force your son to be more social against his will when he doesn't want more friends probably wont turn out well. My parents tried to force more friends on me by signing me up for every junior sports league possible against my objections, and that turned out disastrously.

That being said, if your son is indeed looking to make more friends, and is willing to accept your help then there is some things you could do. For starters, I would advise against setting up 'play dates'. That may be socially acceptable when the child is 6 years old. But for a 10 year old's parents to be setting up play dates is generally considered socially unacceptable. Trying to directly intervene would probably get your son labeled as a mama's boy or whatever derogatory term is used today. It is perfectly acceptable for your son to invite a friend over, and then you can provide entertainment, and stuff like that. But it is up to your son to initiate contact and extend the invite.

That being said, there are things you could encourage. For example, have a family game night. I know my friend had one of those, and he invited me over for it. Perhaps if your into role playing (D+D, battletech, etc.) you could get your son involved, and then ask him if he would like to invite friends over for a game. Even something simple like getting him a multiplayer game for a console, then suggesting he invite people over to play. It is generally easier to invite a friend over and play a game for a few hours then to just hang out with no clear objective.

Tracker you rock! I especially like the suggestion about game night.

My advice is large group can help you with social exposure but aren't good for making friends. Smaller group or just individuals are much better, focussing on one to one interaction.

Like the previous poster said it really does depend on his desire to make friends. and also how much interaction he needs. Some people need a bucket other need a thimble. Personal I am content with very few friends and spending most of my time in my own company, the ones I have are really accommodating (there is nothing wrong with being selective). The number of friends you have isn't important it is whether you are happy.

Tracker, as usual I'm impressed by your analytical mind. Really.

Err, your welcome.

Thanks for all the great ideas. He is very or was very social, and was very sad about losing friends as he grew. Worse was when they turned on him and started bullying him. He now has four friends. One good one, the others are from boy scouts. He would like to have more play time with kids and he is jealous of his sisters ease of making friends and having them over.
I am the one who sets up the play dates, but not very good at it, small business owner with no time. So what Tracker said caught my attention, so I asked him about calling his own friends, and he said he'd rather me do it. Is it nerdy for me to do this for him in 5th grade?
Also, I'm going to try and form a small group in his school if I can get the school to stop sitting on their hands and actually do something. He is in chess club, but hates it because he can beat everyone, so he forgets to go.
He is the one who wants friends, but is to scared to pro-sue it on his own for fear of rejection or being bullied.
He has been a member here for a year now, but is not active. He hates writing and typing. So cyber friends our out.
When he gets upset about it, I keep reminding him that he won't have these issues when he's at MIT.
Thanks, everyone!
P.S. Should also mention he now has FAP (functional abdominal pain) thanks to the relentless bullying causing stress. It keeps him from wanting to do things like go to the pool, because his stomach hurts. Kids don't understand it.

I guess the question is why he wants more friends, if it is purely down to jealousy then you need to deal with that. Kids can want what they don't have. Grass is alway greener. My NT sister was jealous that I was taken of my school (because I hated it), even though she absolutely loved her school. She now realises that my childhood wasn’t a walk in a park, it was just that I was treated differently that caused her to react.

Tbh honest he has more regular friends than me and I only made true reciprocal friends at 23/4. it is all about being contented. Does he understand reciprocation?

Well, your son definitely has more friends then I did at his age. I just had 1 friend whom I ate lunch with, and visited at his house maybe once a month. Any more then that would have been over-socialization for me. As I said before my parents did attempt to make me socialize more to poor results, but I guess your son may be more interested in socializing then I was.

You should be fine setting up 'play dates' with your son's current friends. If you call up your son's good friend and say something like, 'Hey, my son just got a new game, and wants somebody to play with. Are you interested in coming over and hanging out?' That is fine. In 5th grade, I wouldnt have considered it odd if my friend's mother called to invite me over. What I was referring to was the initial contact and invite. For example, you shouldn't pick your son up from school and then walk over to another boy in his class and say, 'Hello there, your in my son's class right? Would you like to come over to our house and play with my son?' That would typically be seen as interfering a bit too much. Scheduling social event's with your son's good friends should work out fine, but it is up to your son to make the initial invitation.

And as I said last time, you may want to help out by providing something for your son and friend to do. I.E. give him a reason to invite somebody over. You need another player for a table top game, or you are starting a club for RTS players, or whatever. If he is physically coordinated, he may want to try out for sports. I didn't like sports, but then again your son seems to want more socialization then I did. Perhaps it would be easier to offer ideas if you said what your son did for entertainment. Is there any activities he is interested in?

Also, 0=true is correct in that if the only reason your son want's more friends is because he is jealous then you need to resolve that first. If your son really doesn't want any more friends, but thinks he does because he is jealous of his sister, and hurt by his old friends then he needs to re-evaluate his goals. Being popular for the sake of boosting your self esteem is a poor position to be in. You base your self worth in the opinion of others, and you have to project a false image of who you are in order to remain popular. Have a conversation with your son and explain to him that what he should focus on is being content with what he wants. Trying to get more then you need just to spite somebody else is only going to hurt in the long run.

By the way, you may want to avoid the term 'play dates' around your son and friends as that usually is used regarding younger children, and may be seen as condescending. Perhaps the better terminology would be 'get togethers' or 'parties' or 'hanging out'.

Tracker should definitely write a book. First recommendation - Autism: Information every educator should know. Bring in your personal experiences

I have been trying to convince him
Do it:)

Scouts, swim lessons, sports - classes at the community center. I have tried to help my SS with complete failure, it's a little harder when a kid is 13 but I am constantly scoping the parent magazines for any activities; it's maybe harder with a teen I dunno. I would assume your son will have better luck because his interests seem more normal. Lots of kids are into Pokemon and Japanese comics I think. It's harder with my SS because he is into things like cords and gps systems. He started a new school and has not made one friend but I do agree with one of the posts here, he's gotta make his own friends - so I would bring him places and to activities where there are other kids his age. I have an almost 9 yr old NT son, and he took a cartooning class, loved it and made friends there but most of his friends are from school and he also plays sports. I just read he's bullied? oh that's awful, I hope you can put a stop to that, he's on the verge of middle school and middle school is the worst I think. Maybe you can sign him up for karate lessons? he he...my ex-husband is 1/2 Japanese and he was the smallest boy in his class and teased relentlessly. Then in HS he started taking karate, got a black belt and shot up to 6 ft tall, suddenly he was popular...