Help with socially awkward son

WantToBeSE

I am definitely NOT one of those posters who automatically jump to the "oh there is something wrong with him" or "he has autism" response.

However, you have just described my son to a T and he has just been diagnosed with Aspergers as well as Social Anxiety, GAD and Severe Depression.

Madmel

Hi Emma

I taught someone very similar to your DS from the age of 10 to 18. He was a very bright lad, but had the capacity to drive me nuts! I taught him individually and also later on within a class setting.

Our Headteacher was a very experienced chap and his advice was that this lad was emotionally quite immature. His exact words were: "persevere with X because by the time he leaves here, everyone will see the good in him." He was spot on. Yes, X was around 3 years behind his peers emotionally, and as teachers all we did was set firm boundaries and calmly reinforce good habits. After many little slips along the road, he turned into the most caring, kind and sweet young man, albeit with odd moments of thoughtlessness, but there was never any malice. He is now studying at Oxford Uni having aced his A levels. By the time he reached 6th form, he was really popular with his peers, so it can be done.

As far as the Aspergers label goes, it is entirely up to you whether or not you get your DS tested. I think that the young man I described had/has some traits, but as others have written, it is a spectrum and we are all on it somewhere. Best of luck and keep us posted.

RAS

hi

One technique you might want to introduce, even with your youngest, is taking a turn in talking at meals.

Each person (children and adults) sitting at the table has 2 minutes uninterrupted time telling the others about their day. The experience of having undivided attention is powerful, as it the experience of giving undivided attention. You might want to have short breaks between shares.

If any of the parties starts to interrupts one of the adults reminds them that they need to give the others a fair share.

theoretica

thriftyemma wrote: »

He has had lots of opportunity to 'learn to share', he just hasn't picked it up.

He hasn't picked it up, but perhaps he can be taught it explicitly. You will know how much should be a game, how much a frequent reminder, and how much formatted as a lesson or serious talk. Google teaching conversation social skills and lots of ideas come up.

Wellyboots6

Maybe try being more obvious about teaching social skills if he isn't just picking it up?
For example, if he is talking to an adult you know, pointing out the social cues he may be missing:
'You've talked to Aunty Sue for 2 minutes now about your football lesson but haven't given her chance to ask any questions. Maybe you would like to pause and see if she wants to ask anything?'
'You've now told Aunty Sue all about it and can you see that she might be wanting to talk to someone else now? What might make you think that? Is she shuffling her feet? Looking around? Has she made eye contact with someone else?'
Etc etc.

pandora205

This is a useful book full of ideas for developing social skills. I've recommended it frequently to teachers but it is useful for parents too, as there are suggestions for individual 'sessions' on a variety of topics related to social awareness.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Awareness-Skills-Children-Marianna/dp/1843100037/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438745233&sr=1-1&keywords=social+awareness+skills+for+children

-taff

My partner is Aspie, apparently so am I, but wer'e both quite gregarious, we both have a lot fo friends, he taught himself how to fit in with people and how to 'get' social cues, myself, I had friends who taught me.
We're both very creative, and sociable.
It does sound like either he's aspie too, or as another poster has pointed out, just very immature.
It's up to you how you want to play it, either by doing the talking for a few minutes at a time, or by getting an appointment with a doctor and seeing if he does fall on the spectrum.
Not every autistic person is a shut in....some of us appear quite normal...eventually

audigex

Your son is very definitely somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum

The important thing to note is that EVERYONE is on the spectrum somewhere. It's not an on/off thing. It's probably more accurate to call it a "Social Spectrum". Everyone is on the spectrum, most people somewhere in the middle in the "Socially acceptable" area and at each end are "socially awkward" people.

Somewhere along that scale is a rough point after which we start labelling people "Awkward". Further along is "Aspergers" and even further is "Autistic".... they're just different degrees of behaviour which is/isn't within "social norms". At the other end of the scale is possibly the range labeled ADHD (although there may be crossover)

It's possible to have some parts of your personality or behavior which are much further up the scale than others, which is why some people are considered autistic without having other traits which would normally be associated with it. For example one of my friends is very normally adjusted, socially, in many ways... but just physically cannot understand when he's about to say something that will upset people. Other than that he's very good at listening, knowing when to break conversations etc, makes friends easily.

If you think about yourself you can probably think of some areas of your personality where you're "more autistic" (or rather, closer on the spectrum to what would be considered autistic).

The more you think of it as a scale, and probably actually several scales (attention span and focus, social interaction etc), the easier it is to understand, in my opinion.

It sounds like your son is mostly within the "regular" range on his ability to make friends and attention span/focus aspects, but is a little further up on his direct social interaction.

nomoneytoday

audigex wrote: »

Somewhere along that scale is a rough point after which we start labelling people "Awkward". Further along is "Aspergers" and even further is "Autistic".... they're just different degrees of behaviour which is/isn't within "social norms".

AFAIK the "experts" have reclassified Aspergers, so it's now called autism. In my personal experience, this means they have another way to fail to get the assistance to the required children using another metric

LandyAndy

nomoneytoday wrote: »

AFAIK the "experts" have reclassified Aspergers, so it's now called autism. In my personal experience, this means they have another way to fail to get the assistance to the required children using another metric

Then you don't know much. Asperger's is and always has been identified as an area of the autistic spectrum.