ASD/PDA friendships

[B0bdylan]

My son has a friend with a boy with ASD and a potential new diagnosis of PDA. They are in the same class at secondary school. I am looking for support/ideas in how to help my son maintain a healthy friendship - we are struggling. In the past we have had meetings with the SENCO (primary school) and I've been in touch with the NAS. This was a few years ago. Since the start of this academic year my son's friend has been demonstrating increasingly challenging behaviour both generally and to my son (including threats of violence). The school do know and are being helpful, but I wondered if anyone else had advice/experiences that may help, if they have been in a similar position, or have a child with ASD/PDA and can advise on how to approach challenging situations in a classroom environment. At the moment my son is asking for some space, following an incident last week. In the short term I believe I have to respect this, but we also talk at length about the challenges this lad faces and what we can do to help. I hope my intentions come across as I intend - I know how tough it is for my son's friend - we have been family friends since babyhood and have a good dialogue between the adults. I think my son's mum and I have reached a dead end though. Thank you so much in advance :-)

[Runningtokeepstill]

Beyond needing some space what does your ds think? My 3 ds's didn't really keep the same friends when they went to secondary school. Ds1 did remain close friends with one person and they're still in touch now in their early 20's but other than that it was a fresh start. It's not unusual for young friends to grow apart as they mature.

Does your ds value the friendship with this boy still? I think it's right to have an understanding of the difficulties others may have but it may not be possible or desirable to have a friend who threatens him or (unclear from your post) may have carried out acts of violence against him.