How to help son make friends

Zara33

Funnily enough my son is a serious dr who fan also :j

outrageous_monkey

He can come too! The more the merrier. So long as they dont mind my son dressing up as Tom Baker (yes, he loves the old ones as much as the new ones) they should all get on just fine:D

Carmina_Piranha_3

we're sorted then, unfortunately runcorn is a couple of hours drive away so it's not feasible for them all to attend the school.

my son's into roller coasters too so if any of you fancy coming to alton towers ... we're going to camelot and gullivers in july, that's near runcorn

spud's mates are all into doctor who but the more 'mature' ones have moved on, and now they play runescape on the PC at home, and stand around talking about it at school. they tell the kids who want to run about that they're immature

outrageous_monkey

Can you imagine how brilliant it would be if they could all attend the same school! They would all have plenty of friends:D And they wouldnt appear to be odd cos they want to run round chasing after invisable cybermen, darleks, oods, judoons, etc etc:rotfl:

Gullivers isnto too far away, we usually go twice a year cos he loves rollercoasters too, but the ones at gullivers arent as big as the ones he loves to go on.

Now Alton Towers, you could be onto a winner there:rotfl:

savagevixen

I have an 8 year old, who was diagnosed with Asperger's in Nov. He has been out of school since Jan, after they excluded him for the second time and he tried to open the car door and run into the main road as he said he would rather be dead than go to school.
It is heartbreaking. He has no friends and desperately wants to be 'normal' and like other kids. His words not mine.
We tried to get him a placement at a school with an autistic cluster, but it is full for at least 18 months. So we will have to send him back to mainstream, home link education was refused as he is 'physically' fit for school. He has at least now been statmented, 80%. But whats that when they are so unhappy?
Poor kid stares out of our window at the kids playing in the playground and wishes he was with them.
We call him tiggerific cos he's so bouncy!

AnnieH

My daughter probably has Asperger's but has yet to be formally diagnosed. She has a lot of trouble making friends. I take her to Brownies and St John Ambulance children's groups. They earn badges and it's not competitive in any way (although they an go in for competitions in St John Amb if they want). I know that they are a bit too little for your son (and Brownies wouldn't be ideal LOL), but I was think more Adventure Scouts, or St John Ambulace cadets. They will help boost confidence and self esteem, and when they can see a reward for their hard work, it makes it all the more enjoyable.

Zara33

savagevixen wrote: »

It is heartbreaking. He has no friends and desperately wants to be 'normal' and like other kids. His words not mine.

I totally know how you feel it is heartbreaking, but you know something i wouldn't change my son for nothing! (i'm sure you will say the same)

My son wants to go to another school because he hates the one he goes to at the moment, he has been bullied for the last 3 years. He wants to go to another school where there are other kids with Autism.

Fingers crossed this hopefully won't be long away.

Ellie2758

Please join your local support group. I am sure they would welcome you - we have people at ours who do not have a formal diagnosis yet. Through your local group you will hopefully find out more about what is available locally. My daughter did not last long at Brownies. We did go to a local sports centre that had a club for special needs kids of all kinds - that was really good,till she decided she was too old for it anymore. She tried taekwondo, but gave up after about 6 months (after I'd spent a fortune on the blessed kit - grrrrr). She has left school now and her main hobby is voluntary work.
Does your son have any obsessions? If so, can you link the obsession to any kind of hobby? e.g. if he likes trains, is there a local train-spotting type group he could join?
I'm afraid that if you have one of the quiet, non-trouble-causing Aspies you wont get a lot of help from school - precisely because he isnt causing them any grief. Sad but true.
Does your son like music? Could he learn an instrument (electric guitar maybe?)What about something like fencing, where he could wear a fencing mask - would he feel happier socially if he could be "disguised", so to speak?
Thinking about it, I have a friend who lives in London and she has mentioned a local group - I'll ask her and PM you.

savagevixen

I have the Child Psychiatric Nurse coming next week, she has details of all the local groups and support available so hopefully that will help.
There are no school in the area, so that is a shame, we are trying to move. We do know one other kid, he's a bit older, but he is Aspergers/Semantic Pragmatric disorder, ds loves him.
And he's a whizz at Bmxing and Skateboarding which is quite good for his low self-esteem, as he's better than other kids his age. He sometimes does Judo, but he gets so overexcited to be with other kids, that it is very difficult (and upsetting) We got him a drum kit for Christmas (for the musical side and an outlet for his hitting the walls!!) He is brilliant, really talented, the family fund man came yesterday and was really impressed at his drumming!
My son is certainly not a quiet timid aspie, he's a noisy tornado of a child (bless him) He wouldn't want to be anyone else but he'd like to go to school and play with the other kids. (He can't get his head around why boys would want to play Army...and when he tries he takes it way too far!)
His main obsession is ... foxgloves. He loves them. Other obsession are more transient, mobile phones are pretty much ongoing.

outrageous_monkey

Savage, I cant be a 100% of this for your area, but if you have a statement than you can go outside your borough for specialist autistic schools if you dont have one in your borough, this includes private autistic schools - but like I said I cant be 100% sure for your are. I know I can do that here, its getting the statement that is causing the problem for me (apparantly,my local LEA had the highest number of statmented children in the country and was told to cut back, last year 27 children went for statementing, only 2 got it?!? How p*** poor is that???).

I really would recommend looking for a local autistic support group, contacting children services and NAS.

When my son was 8 he was talking about killing himself too. I know how distressing and heartbreaking it is to hear your lovely child talking like that. I'm sure you are doing/saying all the right things to him, but I just wanted to emphise with you on that.

Best of luck, but please, have a look for a local autistic support group, ask anyone a Health Visitor, Headteacher, Citizens Advice, Sure Start??? They might know of a local one to you.