Happy with no friends?

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I'd recommend taking him to museums that work with his interests. It's a generally quiet place outside of the house with other people, in which he is surrounded by the topics that interest him.

As a child, going to museums were always my favorite outings, by far.

Perhaps in some cases, but not in mine. I have a large group of acquaintances that I interact with every day at work and I have a group of guys that I go to lunch with a couple of times a week. During the 50 - 60 hours a week I spend at work I get all the social interaction I can comfortably handle. When I go home I completely change gears and I have my wife and my son who I enjoy spending all my free time with. I like having my life sub-divided in this way.

As for WP, this is just another large group of acquaintances. I am much more comfortable with acquaintances than with friends as there is less expected of me and I expect less from them yet I still take away several hours a day of social interaction which is enough to leave that part of my humanity sated. Nobody is disappointed in the end and there is very little pressure. Also, few people get close enough to realize that there is something not quite right about me.

Not picking here, but I guess it all lies in one's definition of "friend" vs. "acquaintance". If I got together with anyone on a weekly basis, I enjoyed being with them and they (presumably) enjoyed being with me, I would consider them to be a friend.

Happy friend-free topic

Perhaps like many here, I find socializing as an adult tiresome. As child I had more energy. Balancing social life, work and family is like multitasking, and for me this does not work.

But being on WP is great due to control of the text. Writing to people is easier because it is slower and can be edited before being sent.

To me a friend is someone you spend time with one on one and outside of business hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-xQKjjm ... r_embedded

One of the most tragic videos I have seen in a long while.... Tragic because the Mother is so focused on "main streaming" this poor child. My hope/wish is that every earthling interfacing with an autistic child spend as much time celebrating his specialness as they do forcing them to fit into something that is "normal". I mean HOW is this 25 minutes of chaos considered xmas celebration???

BTW: I spent xmas day 100% alone (except for a brief visit from a neighbor) It was my gift to myself and one of the best days I have had this year. It is okay for some of us to be alone.

I'm far from an expert, but I'm happy to share my own experiences because your son sounds so much like I was as a child.

So about me: In my 30s now. Probably an aspie. That diagnosis didn't exist when I was a kid so never got it, but I've done as thorough a diagnosis as possible without paying for an actual psych doctor. I also was put in the gifted programs at school in case that makes a difference. I never have much in the way of friends. Acquaintances, yes; friends, no. To address your concern about happiness with no friends, I do believe that I can be happy with no social interactions at all, even excluding Internet forum discussions, except one: my wife. But that's a totally different type of relationship than friends. I'd expect things to become more difficult for your son once he becomes interested in girls.

For anything related to the mind (acedemics, socialization, etc.) I do believe it's best to train kids earlier than later. The difficulty is in HOW to do that. The worst thing my mom did was force me to come home with a quota of classmate phone numbers, thinking that's how I'd make friends, or force me to attend a birthday party at a nearby stranger's house so that I'd get to know the neighborhood kids. All that did was embarrass me and make me mad at my mom. Never did learn anything social from that!

I think these are two competing forces going in opposite directions:

1) I am and always have been happier with little to no friends.
2) Social skills are important for adults! If I did not have them then I would not have a job.

Here are some things that I think helped me with #2.

Scouts was nice. (Helped that my dad was the scout master during Cub Scouts.) I can't really explain why, but it was very different than school. Maybe because it was once a week rather than 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Make's it easy to deal with the other kids, being so infrequent. And since PARENTS run scouts rather than teachers then there is much less room for bullies. Scouts is very fluid, especially at the Boy Scouts level with the merit badge system. Makes it easy for kids to pursue whatever interest they have. If there is anyone whom I'd call "'friend" from that time then it would certain ones be my fellow scouts. Campouts were also fun. I could go running around the woods on my own much of the day with fun, easy social activities and social meals mixed in between. So I highly highly highly recommend scouts.

Move on to something else... If someone shared one of my interests then we'd interact. Such interactions were more about the activity (video game, cheesy kung-fu movie, whatever) than the other person. I think that's opposite most other people: it's more about the other person and the activity is secondary for NTs?

So for example I loved Magic: the Gathering and happily played that with anyone who was willing. Even though playing the game was more about the playing than the social interaction and about 100% of the conversation was about the game ("Did you see my new deck? Have you heard about the new set coming next month?") , there was nonetheless some social interaction.

Or take computer programming. If I could find someone who enjoyed talking about programming and I could learn from then I'd hang out with him to to learn more about computers, ask him questions. And vice versa: if someone wanted to sit and listen to me go on and on about programming then I'd hang out. It's not the best socialization, but it's something. I'd have happily gone to some Commodore 64 special interest group if they existed back then and been exposed to a whole bunch of people who shared my passion for the Commodore 64 computer.

One more thing, though maybe a stretch, is music. My parents made me do music. I actually did enjoy it and was pretty good at it. I didn't like being on the stage, especially a solo act, but that was the only way in which I could play in the school band. I believe that being on stage has helped me tremendously as an adult to do scary things like giving a presentation to managers or presenting a thesis to my college professors.

Reflecting back, I think that I really matured my social skills in college. I was away from the grade school bullies, allowed to live very independently (control my own life, live on my own terms), and pursue my passion for computers. Yes, I my weekends often consisted of staying up all night until sunrise writing computer code for fun. But I also I discovered classmates with similar passions and pastime interests. Sometimes we played Magic: the Gathering all day, had LAN parties, etc. Really was a good experience for me.

I wish that I could have had that experience at an earlier age. Perhaps there's a way to adapt that experience to the circumstance of a 7 year old. Best I can think of is home schooling combined with specific planned social activities that the kid would enjoy. Like having something setup in advance with a museum where he could meet a resident archeologist or whatever a dino-scientist is called and have the archeologist give a tour, interact with the kid, talk about dinosaurs. Even if you have to pay extra, might be worth it. The thing I'm having trouble with is how to keep similar events like that going regularly, not just a one day event and it's all over with.

I also had a brief interest in dinosaurs. I remember my dad once threw the First Annual Dinosaur Party, mostly with kids I knew from scouts coming over, maybe also a couple kids of his co-workers. Cake with a dinosaur on it, dinosaur decorations everywhere, probably some dinosaur-related games I don't remember anymore. (Pin the tail on the brontosaurus anyone?) I lost interest in dinosaurs so there was never a second annual dino party, but I have good memories of that.


kfisherx - My Christmas was Chinese takeout for lunch alone, painting a house alone, and then home with my wife for some Indian food she prepared for dinner. One of the best ever.

That was sad. I know this sounds extreme, but this is where typical social thinking can become dangerous. That is, the drive to fit in with the group, no matter the cost, can be stronger than the drive to respect what kids can handle, or what is prudent. It's like people who follow the doctor's orders, just because there is a Dr. in front of his or her last name, even if the orders seem very sketchy.

There have been times when I've kept my son out of school to save him from things like that. I suppose the staff thinks I'm overprotective because he "does so well" there, but the truth is that he really only vents his stress at home and if they think I am crazy, so be it. Their perception of me is not more valuable than his well-being.

At the same time:



I think this is important too. One of the best ways to learn, no matter how the brain is wired, is moving a little outside of our comfort zone until we can acclimate there, then moving a little farther out, etc. Scaffolding. That's how therapy works for anxiety, right? We do the thing we are afraid of with support so we know that we can do it an nothing bad will happen.



That's what we were thinking when we signed him up, and he seems to like it so far. It puts him around other kids, and from most of the answers I've gotten in this thread, that seems to be enough. He isn't completely devoid of social skills. Really, for having his diagnosis his social skills are phenomenal, when I think about it. The hardest part is thinking about him suffering some day for the lackthereof. I think one thing that makes it hard is that my b-i-l is an Aspie and seems so unhappy with his life all of the time. He really always wanted to be married and isn't, has a hard time holding down a job, often seems depressed, and is forever perseverting on disappointing things that happened to him---even though they happened years ago and there is no way to change them. It's kind of like I have this living example of how it could be for my son and I never want to see him that miserable.

Hard to predict the future. I'm happier not having friends as an adult, so no regrets / suffering there. I had a rough school experience, but I kind of am glad for it. Maybe I read too much Nietzsche: I think that the bullying helped toughen me up for the real world. The whole "That which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger" thing. But I know another (whom I suspect is NT with more aspie traits than normal) who doesn't agree with that and resents her bullies 20 years later.

One thing that helped me deal with depression in school was getting good grades and believing that my academic success would translate to personal success after school. I know this sounds arrogant, but it really helped: I was confident that my good academic abilities would help me find a better life than all the bullies after school. My "revenge" was envisioning myself as a successful computer guy years later while my bullies were still flipping burgers. I attribute this to my parents convincing me of the long term value of doing well in school. It didn't make the depression go away, but it made it overcomable while being stuck in school.

Yes. I remember when I was getting ready for preschool or kindergarden and I remember telling my mother I did not want friends. She said I did and that everyone wants them, "even mean ol' boys". My stuffed animals served my need for friendship but my parents thought that was a bad thing. I knew they weren't alive but that's what I liked about them. When I got older I thought I wanted friends but what I really wanted were people to lecture to about my special intrests. I had so called "best friends" but instead of protecting me from bullies, they joined the bullies and ganged up on me. Eventualy their parents would convince them I was a bad example and wouldn't let them play with me anymore, only issolating me further and when I tried to play with them they would bully me. I've found a best friend today in the neighbor girl but I wonder how long it will before she backstabs me or pretends I don't exhist. She knows about my autism but has never teased or harassed me about it. When I told her I had it she did not believer me and confessed she thought I was some kind of genius. For years I wondered what all the hubabaloo about friendship was and even as an adult I don't really have the need for friendship. The Invader Zim eppisode, "Bestest Friend" hits home with me. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2prGdsc0RF8[/youtube]

[quote="jonahsmomThis is exactly why I laugh to myself when parents suggest homeschooling their autistic kids and they are told that wouldn't be good for them. They act as if simply throwing the autistic kids into a large room of NT kids all day, every day will teach the autistic kid to act more typically. While I do agree school might be a good place to practice social skills, obviously autistic kids aren't going to absorb those social skills through the process of osmosis; someone has got to be supporing them in that effort. [/quote]

I do get what you mean. In Australia we still have those terrible things called "specail schools". However parents have the full choice as to where and HOW they want to educate their child. A child is assessed on their needs and funding is allocated to the individaul child for the parents in conjunction with their preferred school to decide how to use. That could be aide time, it could be a special school, or it could be a specail education class in a mainstream school. All of the specail schools are designed for specific disabilities. We do have autism specific schools with specialist teachers trained in Autism. Schools for the blind, schools for the deaf, etc. The special education classes in mainstream schools are the same. There are specialist autism ones, etc.

While I am all for children being able to be included in the real world, the fact is not all needs can be met in the mainstream classroom. I know of a child who is profoundly low functioning autism, head banging, self harming, etc. In an Autism specialist school the kid is fine. He does not need to be medicated, restrained, etc. The school and teachers know EXACTLY what to do for him, so he can learn. The aim is for him to join the community and a mainstream school, but the fact is at present he would never cope. An aide alone would never be enough for that child. He is learning the skills that he needs to be able to cope as much as possible in the mainstream world, but it needs to happen on his level and at his pace. To place him in a mainstream school would result in him having "behavour problems' and then being placed in a behaviour modification school where he would still not get the support he needs, as his autism would not be acknowledged!!!And personally I love the fact that these kids get the specialist help they need. We do have what is termed visiting teachers, so kids who are fully mainstreamed, will have a specailist teacher of their primary disability come and see them at least once a week to give the classroom teacher advice and support, the aide, and the child, etc. For the blind this visiting teacher is able to read braille. Sure we have the letters over the words for the aide or classroom teacher to listen to them read, but they cannot tell them WHY that group of dots is an "a", etc. I do not and nor would I ever expect every single to teacher to understand every disability, and nor can a special education teacher understand every disability. They know them all a little which is great and necessary and all of ours have a common course before specialising as many children do have multiple problems, but we all need people who can understand us as for the multiple individual ways that we are different. I should add that all of our special schools do have regular weekly contact with mainstream schools, parents in most cases do have the child attending a mainstream school at least part time, unless the disability is so severe they feel it is not needed. BUT the fact is funding is there for the individaul child and parents choose the type of education they want. Not everyone can be included in the sense of mainstreaming, and if we were a truly inclusive society we would allow people to be different.

That video was so sad. You are very right, there is a need for children and people to learn to be in the real world to learn that things will not kill them, etc and that "should" be the aim for therapy with anxiety related phobia's, fear's, etc, to progressively learn that something will be OK. But it has to be at the child's own pace, where he can cope. I also really hate how the other kids are taught that he has special needs, we need to feel sorry for him, help him, etc. It makes them think that all disabled people are the same, that none of them can think for themselves, or do anything for themselves, that they have to look after him. It is not a child's job to look after another child. I do expect all children not to bully them, to respect them, etc, but I not expect them to take turns looking after him, be his best friend, etc. That is not real friendship it is forced and does nothing to allow the child to learn the skills needed to make friends, and nor does it teach the other children that this kid is actually OK, you may have something in common with him that you like, etc. The kids respecting a child's drawings are an example. They have learnt what the kid can do, not what he can't do. They do not need to see him having a meltdown or whatever else, it is not going to help them to understand him or see him as an equal and capable person who is just different and does things differently. A person who is blind or deaf does things differently, they may need some help for some things, but we all do, but they are still equal people and I see myself like that. I am capable of doing many things, I may do them differently, but I still do them and I do not want pitty, just support if I need it, like everybody does at times.

I have as I have become an adult learned to cope with most places and situations, and I will act normally not cover my ears, behave, etc. I am a robot at those times, but I suffer afterwards. Put me in a situation like that video and I will spend the next day in bed recovering. Put me in major crowds, huge shopping malls and the like and I will spend a few days in bed. There are times it is approparite/necessary for me to do those things, but most of the time I simply choose not to do those things as they are not compulsory or necesary.

I did spend christmas totally alone, but that is also standard for me, but it is something I am coming to enjoy and to not feel guilty or ashamed about. It was the best christmas I have ever had, because for the first time ever I was not ashamed of it, and knew I could do what was best for me. I had a person to catch up the day afterward and the day before, only for short periods, but it helped me to know I was not totally alone in the world. The hard part for me is that the whole world does close in Australia for few weeks after christmas, and given that I have no family and not really any friends I am very reliant on professional supports and services which are all closed for weeks not a day or two!! !

My son is the same way. He will ask and even [ibeg[/i] to go to large, crowded and noisy places (he loves the State Fair, for example, because he knows there's a reptile exhibit and he likes the animal barns too) but by the end of the day he ends up non-responsive and looking rather like a zombie, then goes straight to his room to recover.

How interesting to hear about how the special education system works in Australia! Here in the U.S. our education system varies so much state to state, but in our state it's a little ridiculous (in my own opinion). Special education teachers are not specifically trained in specific disabilities. Even the people within the school system who carry the title "Autism specialist" do not necessarily have much specific training pertaining to autism at all. When the diagnosis rates went up, I guess the schools thought it would be a good idea to have employees with that title, so they just took whichever teacher had the most exerience or training in that area (sometimes very little) and slapped that title on them. Granted, some are very knowledgeable and good at what they do, but some didn't ask for or want the title and make very little effort to seek out education in that area.