Dating?!?!?!?!?!

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OMG Now he's got a girlfriend, and they mostly spend their time texting sweet nothings to each other all afternoon and evening via cell phone.

Actually I'm happy for him. My son's been dating for about two weeks, they've been to a school bonfire (pep rally) together and went to the homecoming dance. As far as I can tell, there has been hand-holding, hugging, and kissing on the lips. I've been very supportive and enabling, we've had several serious talks about appropriate versus inappropriate touching, talking, texting etc., sexual harrasment, and we've also discussed sex and birth control and pretty much every serious man-woman-relationship topic you're supposed to cover with your kids. On the outside I'm keeping it together but on the inside I'm freaking out...mostly because of the rapidity of this change...I mean I knew it would happen eventually...but so soon? This kid went from pokemon, legos, and stick-wielding sword-like to dating in a matter of a month...I just never thought this would happen so soon.

My concerns are that he will be taken advantage of by someone who is controlling, manipulative, and may want to fix him; this will become yet another distraction that keeps him from getting schoolwork done; and that he will be vulnerable to and may not understand the ridicule and teasing. As with everything in life, I realize I have very little control over the situation outside our home, and it is me that has to do the adjusting. Have any other parents on here dealt with this? Words of wisdom?

Not there yet and don't want to be

I hear you on all of the concerns.

It's actually my NT daughter that scares me most in this realm - 10 years old and totally boy obsessed. Thankfully, not with any real life boys at the moment - she finds the ones at school to be too "immature."

Sounds like my ex-wife :(I'm a 32 y.o. aspie father of two)

Also sounds like you've got his back covered :D

Apprehensively looking forward to teenage daughters :/

Carry on just as you are. My daughter had her first boyfriend last year. I couldn't stand the guy but I held my tongue and watched her very carefully. She ended it because it wasn't right for her. Turns out she's more switched on than I thought. She's now with a lovely guy, has been for 10 months and I'm very pleased. She too went from toys to boys very quickly. Being in a relationship has really helped her to mature.

You only have to read the love and dating forum to know how hard it is for these kids to have romantic relationships. I think it's wonderful that some of our children manage to find someone

I wouldn't worry too much. Most high school "relationships" are purely hormone-based. I'm more surprised to hear of an Aspie (of that age at least) having a girlfriend.

Wow, that does sound a little scary, but on some level, you must be proud that he is able to have a relationship???
Hope all goes well........

How old is your son?

Hi all, and thanks very much for the feedback and well wishes so far. My son is almost 15. I am proud and pleased that he is able to have a relationship. I think my worries are normal parent-worrying-stuff, I tend to be a worry-wart whether its founded or unfounded, and perhaps in this case my worries are heightened by the fact the my son is particularly vulnerable to being manipulated by his peers/age-group because he so badly wants to fit in. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly paralyzed with fear or anything, I'm just in un-charted territory. I agree with the advice about just carrying on and trying not to worry too much, and its good to hear it from the outside sometimes. That is why I like WP so much.

@DW; brace yourself

If they can't date and get rejected we worry, and if they do date, we worry! I believe this is just an inevitable part of parenting aspie children or children in general...lol. Nobody knows how it feels to parent until you do, I guess that's why even if you are told before-hand just how hard it is, you can't appreciate it...until you are a parent. I know that my son has not been that lucky yet. Eventually he will get there. We just have to be there for them to support, but I think with more watchfulness than nt children. Good luck.

I’m the Aspie father of four kids, all little, all NT. One of my kids is a Sowell Slow Talking Child, but otherwise a typical roly poly child.

I dated a lot as a teen. I’m a little atypical for an Aspie in that while I’m socially uncomfortable, just because something bothers me is no reason to let that get in the way of what I want. So when I figured out I liked girls, I decided to learn about them, and eventually date a few. Or a lot, as the case may be.

Most of my dating was a search to find somebody who could understand me, somebody who got it. Fortunately, most young girls are not manipulative spider weavers, looking for prey to play with. They are almost as confused as I was at that age. My parents were separated and emotionally distant from me – which was fine. But I had nobody to give me advice about how to treat other people or observe how to act in a relationship. So I fell into a pattern of serial-monogamy, where I would date a girl until she dumped me, but then immediately take up with one of my “back-ups”. I was a little wild and crazy as a teen, because I over compensated for my shyness by taking on outlandish persona’s. Teenage girls really dig a fearless guy in a denim jacket and a mullet and “Electric Funeral” blaring from his tricked out Pontiac, but can also quote Poe’s The Raven, word for word. Well, maybe not all teenage girls. Ok, maybe just a few teenage girls, and not high quality ones at that. And maybe times have changed…

So it really depends on your son. I was an intellectually gifted Aspie who used my intelligence, years or obsessive puzzle-solving and coupled with a lack of maturity, to over come my short comings like saying the wrong thing or being emotionally distant. I would treat girlfriends like a project, I’d personally fall hard and fast, obsessing on her, figuring her out, what did she like, who was she, how did she think, did she “get it” – or understand me in any way. Girls were a puzzle box, somebody new who I could analyze. Some would dump me fast because of my “too fast” clingyiness. I really didn’t care though, if she wasn’t into me, so what – there’s 3 billion other women on Earth AND now I could play that rebound card with her friends. It’s not manipulation if you do it instinctively, right? But emotionally broken girls, mostly with weak father figures or other issues, liked having the attention of a 6’3”, very smart boy who asked questions about THEM, as I was not just interested in one thing. As the saying goes.

I’m glad I grew out of all of that! I finally found a woman at college who did get it. She’s smarter than me and from a family full of literal minded, pragmatic engineers. Not saying they are Aspies, but smart math people are cousins to the Aspie world. The get some of it, enough for me at least. Twenty years later, we’re the “nerd friends” to a few other parents of the children our kids run around with. So life is never, ever normal for Aspies. But you can have relationships. Keep an eyeball on the depression with your son, having relationships means having emotions he’s not familiar with. Other than that, if a person can put up with an Aspie, well, that was good enough for me.

lol!

Zedition, thank you so much for sharing...your post was both insightful and comforting. I guess I had forgotten the first thing quoted above, and you offer really good advice about keeping an eye on the depression. Also, welcome to WP! I hope to see you around here more.

No I have not, as I am not a parent. I think the best think you could do is to instill in him the concept that a relationship should be about equal respect, and equal give and take. He has a right and responsibility to define his boundaries in a relationship. He needs to know there are times when it is not unreasonable to say "No" to your partner, and he needs to perceive himself as an asset to another person as much as he perceives the other person as an asset to himself.

Those are some pretty difficult concepts for teenagers to grasp but you can start him in the right direction by encouraging leadership skills and other things that might boost his self confidence.

Good advice! Thanks Chronos

Update: The girlfriend lasted about two weeks. They went to the homecoming dance and then she dumped him via text message. She refused to tell him why she broke up with him, but gave him the "I just want to be friends" line. Then he spent a week grieving the loss. He needed a lot of coaching and support (and patience) during this time. I helped him with the grieving process, and explained the stages of denial and anger etc. He finally reached a state of acceptance. I think she used him as a way to go to the dance so she could brag to her friends. He didn't get any school work turned in during this time, and we watched the grades plummet.

So this dating thing amounted to a major setback in academics, and now he's behind and had to work all weekend trying to get caught up, which he isn't, but he made a dent. So in a way, this has been a far more teenage version of what's been going on all through school: Smart kid that gets completely disctracted by awkward and sometimes disastrous social situations, to the detriment of grades. I'm happy for him and sad for him at the same time, and is overall mood has improved. He's a pretty resilient kid. But now we're behind and trying to get up, as usual. Fortunately there's still time before the end of the semester to get caught up, and also fortunatley he still seems pretty serious about his grades.

Grades can be recovered. I'm glad he had the experience, there are a lot of auties in their thirties yet to have had a date. Next time he'll be less head over heals, I'm guessing, and remember to keep his attention on his school work too.