any tips to help son make friends and not be bullied.

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Hi! I have a son with AS. Are there any tips I can use to help him make friends? Also any tips on how to help him keep from getting ran over by the other kids? Thanks!

Security is more important than friendship.

No one become popular by being push-over. Take him to karate course. Most important thing is he must learn to not interact with others except when asking questions or they have begun talking first.

Keep him busy. Put him in activities & groups that make him interact. That's the best for AS people to find acceptance.

If someone wants to bully him, just tell him to ignore them. It may seem right to tell kids to stick up for themselves, but in school, I've found that to be ineffective. Bullies are 90% of the time just bored, feed on the misery of others for their own entertainment, & will continue bothering anyone they get a rise out of. If you don't make picking on you fun or interesting for them, they'll move on.

We thought about karate but someone told us it was not good for AS children! We might give that a try! I do not force him to be friends with anyone. Normally even at family events he just goes off to do his own thing. I just feel so bad for him! I just wanna help him so much!

Does your son like music? If so, get him involved in a school music program as soon as possible. My life was quite difficult - lots of teasing & bullying - until I discovered music. Then I found a home with all the band geeks. It totally changed my life! (I went on to get a degree in music education & played in the Army band for 7 years.)

My son has been learning about bullying and teasing in his social skills class.

I agree with the suggestions of finding activities for him to get involved with. I am not sure of the age of your son, but a couple of activities like swimming, boy scouts, or martial arts may help. It would also help if you made plans with other families so he can interact with other kids in a safe environment. My wife volunteered at my son's school during recess and lunch to help nudge him to play with friends. If she didn't, he would have spent his days walking around alone.

I am sorry my son is 7! I guess I should have put more info on here! He is 7 and is into reptiles and art. Mostly draws pictures of reptiles. We tryed baseball once too but he just kind of stood on the field looking for lizards. He ended up quiting after a few weeks. In the town we live in they do not have much to offer as far as activities for children. I think they do have boy scouts though.

The activities suggestions are a positive, but be prepared to try dozens before you hit one that will click with an Aspie obssesion. Only then will he follow up on it. Keep in mind that water finds its own level - freak and geeks generally get along best with each other, probably because we experience the world slightly askew from everyone else's viewpoint.

As for bullying, don't kid yourself or him. Bullies are not confined to playgrounds, nor will avoidance keep them away. You can't hold a job without encountering them. I turn 50 in a month and I'm in litigation at this moment with a garden-variety redneck bully. The best defense against a bully is a competent attorney and a Big Brother, like the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Hmmm...I both agree and disagree with the advice here. I was your son, and spent almost every recess of my school life either being bullied or standing in a corner away from everyone else. I was lizard and art boy, more at home looking for rock samples in the rendering on my parent's house than going out with a bunch of people who seemed almost irrational in their actions.

But to some extent my isolation became self-imposed. I would dearly have liked somebody to talk to at first, but other friendships had not worked out in part because I realised that I didn't want to be around the people that I knew - and of course, they just weren't into lizards and art:) Alternatively, others dropped me because I didn't have any interest in sport and not the slightest bit of skill in it either.

The trouble is, even at your son's early age, his friends may have already tagged him with the 'nerd' label, and it's going to take something the other kids (thankfully easily impressed:) will find cool. Karate's good, but he himself might just not be into it, and would maybe prefer something like archery or rifle shooting, or something where there isn't a chance of getting his teeth kicked in. The bullying can easily cross over into martial arts dojo's, so coperative sports are better.

BUT - sorry this is long - if you were to ask him what he wants then all he reallllly, REALLY wants I'm sure is to be interested and stimulated. To be shown how to make things out of card and circuit boards, to be given the skills to create the kinds of projects he wants to try. To be given access to people with information: something like talking to a zoo-keeper about lizards would probably make his day.

My point is that yes you can make him cooler with the other kids, teach him a martial art and all the rest of it, but it just may be better to get him into an environment where he wont be bullied; where his (allegedly dammit!:) 'geeky' behaviour is normal and the kind of thing that normal, intelligent kids everywhere are into. A place where those around him are naturally more accepting of his behaviour. His difference should perhaps be nurtured rather than redirected. You can't stop him being bullied - but you can give him some safe time away from the bullies so he has a chance to let his confidence and personality grow and be able to face them better.

If he ends up thinking (like I did) that there is only one kind of person and that he's the odd one out for thinking like he does and he must 'fit in' to survive...I can't begin to tell you how lonely it makes you feel.

LIZARDS ROCK!! !!:)

STF

For bullying, martial arts would help. Bullies pick on easy target; if he fights back that makes him a tougher target, therefore more respected. The playground is the law of the jungle and, among males at least, the willingness to physically fight if provoked is vital.

For socialising, I agree that activities might help, but it has to be the right kind. Team sports are unlikely to help, but sports such as hiking (hikers tend to be good oddballs) or swimming might be better. For an aspie kid, an activity that is highly competitive is probably a bad one: if he is bad at it, he will be an outcast; if he is good, everyone will think he's arrogant and standoffish. I think probably the most important thing is an activity that he is genuinely willing to try, the exact type of activity is probably not that important.

I took up taekwondo when I was 19 and it was the best thing I ever did as far as learning proper social skills and being more confident and assertive. Little did I know at the time I had Aspergers. A number of the kids at the school behaved in such a way I would now suspect they were Aspies. There was never any bullying at the school and it would have to be one sorry excuse of a martial arts school for bullying to happen. A number of Cub Scouts I've met seem to be on the Aspie, geeky, nerdy side.

The thing is in school once you make an impression as the kid nobody wants to be friends with you are pretty much stuck with that label until you go into middle or high school going into a different school where there may be kids that don't know you. Its like starting fresh if you can change schools. Though doesn't work if the exact same people you went to elementary school with show up at the same middle school. As someone else said he needs to learn not to butt into conversation, don't talk like a "know it all" and don't ever start a conversation about his favorite hobby or obsession because we always seem to have the weirdest hobbies that no one else is interested in. I really find still even as an adult with AS I'm weird, people mostly don't enjoy my company because I'm a bore and I'm not good at conversation because I don't have an interesting life nor do interesting things that I can talk about. As an Aspie you have to learn to keep to yourself because honestly people don't like us and you can't make people like you. Just learn to be invisible.

Unfortunately Dakota will fight with his brothers all the time! Mostly if they touch him, look at him, or touch his stuff. At school though he just different. He talks to two boys but they seem to get him in trouble all the time. He trys to play but doesn't understand that not everyone is into lizards or snakes. He also collects rocks too. I think these kids run him over but he just wants to be included but does not know how to do it!

But he will never know how to fit in with the other kids. Hello that is what Aspergers is. Even at 40 I still can't fit in with normal people. There is no way to change him so that others accept him especially not as a kid. Once adulthood hits, say over 25 people do become slightly more accepting of weirdos the older they get and then you stand a chance of making a few friends.

I know this sounds really cruel and I'm not trying to be cruel or ugly. Just being honest. The best thing he can do is quit chasing after the other kids because they will never like him because he is different. Learn to be your own best friend. People don't like Aspies its that simple. As an older adult I now see what few people in school I thought were my friends, never were. I just followed them around like a puppy wanting attention and they tolerated me, but I was never included, was still made fun of by them. If a Aspie does like I did, which many Aspies do, then they are simply humiliating themselves trying to force their way into a friendship.

I understand you are not trying to be rude. You are just honest and that is what I am looking for us honest answers!

I agree - but would also like to add that he can & should learn how to get along. I have a lot of respect for the writings of Dr. Temple Grandin on this subject. She has a great perspective on how kids with ASD should be allowed to be different (because there is a lot of strength in our differences), but also given sufficient support & training about the how society works. Check out "The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships" by Grandin & Sean Barron for some very specific information on learning social skills & dealing with the disconnect in "emotional relatedness."

Ticker is absolutely right that it is extremely unproductive & possibly damaging for a kid with AS to be chasing after friendships with NT kids. True friendship is never that one-sided. That's not to say that AS kids can't be friends with NT kids - I had a couple very good friendships with NT kids as I was growing up (although at the time, no one knew the meanings of AS or NT.) I also had some false friendships, where the other kids used me - because I was asking to be used - very painful memories.

The thing is, as we grow up with AS, it's very difficult to tell which kids genuinely want your friendship & which ones are out to exploit you. (Grandin & Barron's Rule #6 - "Not Everyone Who is Nice to Me is My Friend.")

Best of luck to your son - I hope he finds his way.

That is very dumb thing to say. If he have motoric skill problems or is clumsy, karate or jiu jitsu will greatly improve balance and also create self-discipline.

It is bad idea to put him in large groups and see him to handle himself.