I feel so bad for my son sometimes..no, all the time

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Very encouraging to read the posts here! Thanks to those who have lived thru childhood with AS for the insight and great advice!

Our soon-to-be 8 yr. old son with AS also has issues making friends in his peer group. He does well with children younger (who don't seem to care that he's different) and older (who are kinder and more understanding) than he is. Every year at school, he has one "friend" (altho I'm not sure how much of a a two-way friendship it is?) that he seems to become obsessed with and we'll hear the child's name almost every day after school...but not always in good context! Every year, it's usually just one boy and it's a very odd love/hate relationship. He really loves the kid one day and can't stand him the next; however, I don't think this is that uncommon among elementary aged children. This year we have noticed a couple of more names added in to his "friends" list at school, which is great!

We don't push our son to make friends, but he really wants to have friends and enjoys being around other kids. So, we are very active in our church where he gets a lot of interaction with other children in or around his age group. I also have four siblings who between them have 8 children so he has lots of cousin to play with who really love him. My husband and I actually started a local Asperger's Support group last year and try to plan at least two "Fellowship Meetings" a year which allow the members to bring their entire family to the meeting for food, fun and fellowship. In fact, we have our first one for the year tonight. We all bring food and drinks to share with one another and try to loosely plan some sort of entertainment, which can be challenging because of the age range of kids represented by our members. Mostly, we just want our kids to be able to socialize in a very accepting environment! Not only is this good for the parents and AS kids, it's great for the NT siblings to have others to identify with.

When we have b-day parties for our AS son, we invite all of my immediate family (including his 8 cousins) which means he is surrounded by 18-20 people who really love him and are happy to be there!

I think looking into finding a group/club/summer camp that is hobby/interest specific is a great idea! Thanks for that!

God bless you guys!

One of my boys with AS is now 18 and I wish that I had a site like this to go to. There is SO much good advice for you here. I would agree that finding your son's interest and making sure that he attends group situations with other kids with the same interests. This has always helped my son. He loves theatre. Believe it or not he is at college now on a theatre scholarship. Acting has helped him learn how to handle many social situations. Acting gives him a script and a sort of freedom that he doesn't find in every day life. He knows what he is going to say and he can practice it.

The idea of taking your son to his favorite restaurant with the family is also a great idea for a birthday. We often ask our son what he would like to do a month or so in advance. He may want to go to a science museum or an expensive Broadway type show. These have all been very special birthdays. Much better than the ones we experienced when he was younger and we didn't know any better. (too many people and too much noise)

I too am often sad about my son's exclusion from the neurotypical social scene. He has a brother without AS that makes it all seem so easy. The more that I focus on my AS son's uniqueness and the positive things about who he is , the better things are. He always keeps me on my toes.

Hope some of this helps.

As a parent of a asp. child and special education teacher my suggestion would be for you to work with your son's school. He needs help with social skills, perhaps through the guidance counselor or school social worker. Do they have friendship groups? Kids with Asp. need to be taught directly how to get along in the social arena. Hope this is useful.

Some great responses! I just want to add something that i noticed when I taught elementary school- almost ALL the children get teased at some point, just some less than others. Even the popular ones get teased for having an odd middle name, for making a fool of themselves at the talent show, or maybe just because someone else is jealous of them. If you ask any adult, they will probably have a story about something they were teased about in school.

But the difference is that some can laugh it off, laugh at themselves, and move on. Others take it soooo literally, get visibly upset, and then become easy targets for more teasing. If we can get our kids to understand this somehow??? I don't know, because my son isn't even 3 yet. But at some point, I hope that he will understand this somehow.

As a girl with a not so memorable or good experience at school, I'd say homeschooling is rather a nice option for children with AS. When parents want their children to make friends of put them in contact with other kids or stuff, it just make children uncomfortable, and even make children get more teasing. The best way to make friends is getting into a group of children who like the same stuff he likes and he's best at. That's how I made friends on my own, doesn't matter if they are NT's or aspies.

I agree with the ideas of putting kids in with groups for activities they have an interest in. He might or might not make friends--I didn't--but at least he'll be interacting in a less stressful setting, and that's good practice for later. I also agree that band might be a good idea; I'm in high school now, and I can tell you that the band geeks are usually the most relaxed, accepting, and welcoming group of kids in the school.

Also, if he likes learning at all, try to get him in enrichment or gifted classes or whatever. In elementary school, I was very lucky because I was in a gifted program that functioned to throw all the smart, bad-at-social-skills kids together into one class that stayed the same for three years, and I made three very close friends there. (Two of them, plus me, eventually were diagnosed as Aspies.) In middle school, and now in high school, I've found that the kids in honors classes tend to be a lot more accepting of AS intellect and much more inclined to be friendly to a kid that acts smart.

Middle school is the worst time. He's going to have a rough few years ahead of him, but it tends to get better as you get into high school. I wish him luck; he's going to need it.