Hi all,
I have a 12 year old son who started secondary school in September. He is autistic but has always coped well in a mainstream setting with support. Tbf he isn’t coping too well lately but it’s more so over his academic ability and struggling in lessons.
He went to the same primary for the whole 7 years, the kids at the time were generally a great bunch, most of them knew each other from primary, he had some good friends. He was always quite popular but the gap has between him and his peers.
he has met some new friend at secondary, some with similar needs and interests to him which is fab.
but over the last few months he’s been saying more and more that his old primary school friends (they mostly went to the same school as him) are ignoring him, he’ll say hello but they just pretend they don’t know them! We’ve had an incident out of school at the park where a girl he used to get on well with, just ignored him, some of her friends turned up then they were all pointing and sniggering at him - ds didn’t know her friends. Another boy who he used to get on well with just ignores him, I’m friends with his mum so he sees him out of school too but the boy just pretends he doesn’t see DS.
Personally I feel like they don’t want to be seen talking to the child with additional needs.
ds is upset about being ignored more than anything.
is this just what kids turn into at secondary school?!
I am grateful that a few of the older kids from our area seem more than happy to say hello to him - he likes to say hello to people he knows. It’s just the kids his age in year 7!
anyone else experienced this?
post edited by MNHQ to remove potentially identifying details.