My 11yr son often has very poor social skills with children of his own age. He can be a very kind and polite boy, and seems to have much better more meaningful conversations with adults. But when it comes to his friends I worry for the way he interacts with them. We have tried to correct this behaviour endless times. DH often finds it very frustrating and yells at him for the way he behaves. I don't agree with the way he yells and often puts him down, but that's a whole other story. I try and take a gentler approach explaining why his behaviour is inappropriate and how other perceive it, but nothing seems to work. I have suspected for a very long time that son has ADHD and potentially ASD.
Has anyone else dealt with behavioural issues like this?
A few examples:
He doesn't know how to say goodbye to his friends. He will be playing video games with them and we'll call him for dinner or something else (usually multiple times until we go in and demand he gets off so we end up witnessing the interaction between him and his friends). He will just say "I've got to go now. Bye" no politeness in kind of warning the child they need to go such as "I need to go now" wait for the other child to say something. Then for him to say "I'll talk to you later. Goodbye". He ends most conversations very abruptly and rudely which could leave the other children wondering what the hell just happened and see him as rude as well. But when we question him about it he says he doesn't realise it's rude (we have told him many times!) or he'll say how he doesn't know what to say or how to say goodbye.
He really gets in other people's personal space. Gets right up in their faces, or practically on their lap when he wants to see something such as what's ok their phone etc. He especially does this at home with DH, DD and I. He'll try and snatch the phone from us to show us something when we're in the middle of trying to do it ourselves.
He has no filter. He doesn't think before he speaks. The other day he was playing video games online with a boy he's never met, but who is acquaintances with other boys in his year. The boy asked my son if he knew "X name. He's my best friend" as they went to the same school. My son then blurts out "yeah, but he's kind of annoying" 🤦♀️ My husband lost it on him then yelling at him that he can't say that to people - especially someone who's just said they're best friends with the other boy.
He says he's joking about everything. Son doesn't really understand a joke. He will say something stupid, offensive or just a blatant lie. It's generally negative stuff. We'll get angry at him and then he'll say sarcastically "I was just joking". This could be with things like "I hate my life", "I wish my sister wasn't born", "everyone hates me", "I hate x person", or tells DD that her favourite toy was stollen, etc. Even things like I'll make him what he's asked for dinner and then call him when it's ready. He'll sit down at the table and blurt out "I don't want xxxx" and then when I get annoyed and remind him he asked me for it he'll say "just joking!" When we get cross with him his reply is always "I was just joking".
I'm getting really worried for his future friendships. He doesn't have a load of friends. He's not a bully at all and has a very kind heart. But he just doesn't know how to behave around other children. Admittedly I've not been very good about arranging play dates with other children when he was younger. I'm worried this is somehow my fault.
What can I do now to help him? I don't want him to be a loner or an outcast as he gets older. I can speak from experience that I'm also quite awkward around people and don't really maintain friendships that easily. I also have ADHD and find it hard to relate to people and keep in contact with them and align to social norms. DH is insistent that our son doesn't have a problem with being neurodiverse. I just want to help my son realise his behaviour needs to change so he doesn't push people away. 😕