Help. Son feeling "hated" at school...lots of tear

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Yesterday, thought it was going to be a regular after school pickup when my son started telling me how he had accidentally started a rumor at school about two other classmates (girls). It got around the school and now he has been given 3 days of detention (I have no problem with that part) but now the few tenuous friendships he had have completely imploded. He just called me sobbing, noone will even stand next to him he says. He just wants to crawl under a rock. His self esteem was shaky but now its pretty much shot. Last night we called the 2 girls parents to apologize. He just has such poor social judgement and it is heartbreaking to watch. He so wants to be included and so he told these 2 girls he had found "fan mail" about them on a piece of paper. he said the paper said they were kissing. So everyone at school was trying to find out who had written this mysterious letter. I feel like I'm going to throw up

Hi, I'm not a parent, but I am a person who lives my life on the Spectrum and I try and help out where I can.

I also kind of like making up stories. Now, over the years I have gotten a lot better at good-natured stories and stories likely to be received well. And it just can't be the only thing your son does, maybe just one part of a broader social repertoire.

It sounds like you have done the right thing by apologizing to the girls' parents.

So, maybe give it three days, see how it goes. And then maybe another week.

Yup-- I made that mistake as a kid. I'm still embarrassed enough about it that I decline to repeat the stories. I don't recall it ever blowing up enough for parents to get involved, but around the time I went through that phase my mom was actively dying and my folks had bigger fish to fry.

At some point, I recall deciding that it was a silly, childish, nasty, stupid thing to do. So I quit doing it and took up writing stories that I acknowledged were fiction instead. Much better outlet.

Other parents have had it too, and they also seem to be at a loss for exactly what to do about it. Doggone ASD kid crap. Sheesh-- isn't this why we strive for early detection and plenty of therapy???? To prevent crap like this???? And it turns out to be a painful process of trial and error anyway...

I think you did a pretty good job. No need to shame the kid-- clearly he's already shaming the living heck out of himself, and the mechanism of social reprecussions is functioning as it is meant to.

Give him a hug. Tell him he's not the first ASD kid-- not the first kid, period-- to make that mistake and won't be the last. Tell him that, in a few days, some other kid will make some other mistake and he and his screw-up will be old news. Ask him to think about what he learned, and try to make sure he gets the right lesson.

Tell him that if he learns from just this one experience not to do that, he's ahead of the ASD Kid Curve.

This. Right. Here. This sounds perfect to me.

As a child I did the same things, too. Understand that losing the friends will seem permanent to him--it's on par with death; he likely thinks they're lost forever--but explain that it is not a permanent condition. As BuyerBeware notes, another event will come along soon enough to distract the class socialites.

They won't forget his social slip, but there will be differing levels of acceptance and forgiveness for it. His true friends will come to forgive the transgression soon enough.

i can only say that they really, really, really, really, really, really helped.

will follow the advice

god bless