Pls tell me about autistic teens and their friendships

[embracingfox]

Context:
DS's neurodiversity (asd/adhd) flew under the radar all through primary, where he apparently had friends. In retrospect many of the relationships were quite toxic with low level bullying from his 'friends'. He's by nature quite sociable - chatty etc, but as he and peer group hitting puberty he's finding it harder to keep up/fit in etc, and he's in the middle of a full blown mental health crisis now, with depression and anxiety so bad his Psychiatrist thinking of swapping his adhd meds with something for anxiety. He's stopped communicating with his friends, and none of them really try to keep in touch with him.

My question is what is normal for an asd teen? I guess i need to stop thinking about normal so is it healthy from an autistic teenager to be so withdrawn?

I'm not sure what is a symptom of his current low mood (which hopefully he'll grow out of) and what is just fine if you're autistic.

How old is he? What the Senco support at his school like? Does he have much in place to assist him at school?

Is it anxiety that your son has or is that how his autism shows? You might find the adhd medication makes his autism difficulties more pronounced but that doesn’t mean the medication isn’t working, it’s just it isn’t designed for ASD.

People get too hung up in what kids 'should' be doing rather then what is right for them.

One of my autistic DC masked her way though high school in an awful group of friends because it was she thought was expected of her.

The other had no friends and was completely unbothered by it. He is now at Uni (living at home) and is often out at events with friends.

You can take an anxiety medication alongside the adhd meds - ds takes prozac.

DS just turned 13!

@TheSnowyOwl the anxiety and withdrawal from hobbies and friends started before ADHD meds did, the SENCO is doing everything possible in the intense academy he's in (we're trying to get him somewhere more appropriate but its a long battle). Not sure the ADHD meds are giving him anything very useful atm.

@depre yes, i think better to have no friends than toxic friends, tbh I wish i'd learned that lesson when i was 12!

The thing that helped my autistic teen the most was making autistic friends. They get each other in a way that neurotypical teens don't. She doesn't have a massive amount of friends but has a small group at school. She doesn't do much with them outside of school at the moment but she often needs the weekends to recharge so I don't think that's a problem.

One of my DC has autism and didn't have friends at school, they are a twin though so did have their sister for company. They have made a group of friends at university who are mostly on the spectrum too. They find it easier to socialize with people who understand autism and don't need or want eye contact and aren't phased by things like verbal info-dumping or stimming.

When they did socialize at school they found it easier to do so while doing an activity such as playing dungeons and dragons. There is a structure which makes the interactions easier to understand. There was an organization not too far from us (not in the UK) that ran groups for autistic teens to practice social skills on each other, is there anything similar near you? Are there other autistic students at your DS's school who he might feel comfortable socializing with?

My autistic teen gets on better with other autistic young people and slightly older young people - early 20s. Ds is 18 now. He likes to play online computer games and Airsoft. Some of the people at Airsoft are autistic as well.

My advice would be to help him widen his horizons and seek friends through activities as autistic people like to do activities rather than sit around chatting.

DS13 is autistic. It took him a long time to make one friend at primary, who went to another secondary. Secondary was a game changer for him as he met other autistic children and also joined the D&D club (there is a fair amount of cross over). He’s still not over run with friends and he doesn’t really seem to care about hanging out with them at the weekends. He enjoys/needs the downtime at home, I think.

IME, most parents of NT kids think their child is kind and inclusive. Most of them actually aren’t and a reasonable number of them are actively unkind. Seeking out other ND kids really helps.

Mine is currently trying to set up some D&D playing at school. I sense a theme here!

What counts as kind amongst nt people - banter, taking the piss out of each other, competitiveness and social game playing - will be experienced as cruelty and bullying by nd people.

Autistic people also get along well with introverts and quirky, non conformist types who are probably undiagnosed nd.

My nearly 13yr old ds doesn't have many friends. Maybe 2 at any one time. He seems to have a friend, he gets intense, they break it off and then he moves onto the next friend. He seems OK with this set up. I think it makes me more sad than him

Oh and a d&d enthusiast here too!

Right, i'm beginning to think not liking D&D is my son's real problem.
He is a recent convert to chess though, so maybe it will come.

@autumnboys yes i hear you! I like to think that NT teenagers are perhaps perhaps less inclusive than the general population but actually they probably reflect their parents pretty well

@embracingfox basically anything he is interested in is a good basis for trying to find some friendships around. If he likes chess, the chess club at school or any local chess groups might be good. And it is worth looking for any local social groups for autistic teens. There might be a charity who do youth groups of some sort.

Is he into drama or anything like that? A martial art? I think the slightly organised activity can be beneficial as you have that to build a friendship around.

I do suggest joining groups - on a good day. If i catch him at the wrong moment he'll explode and thump something (quite likely his own head unfortunately) if I make any suggestions or ask any questions (I am starting to think he may have PDA).

He actually finds teenagers behaviour really challenging. Since joining his crazily strict secondary school he become really rule bound. eg. he used to be quite good a appropriate swearing but now flinches if he hears it. He gets distressed at any rule breaking, or even if there's some loose interpretation of rules. His peer group are now experimenting with vaping, shop lifting, flirting which he would find overwhelmingly stressful to be around.

I guess it will only be a few years before he can join adult groups

He needs to find other autistic teens. Maybe school could facilitate something?

DS2 is nearly 13 and has ASD. He does have a group of friends at school but rarely socialises outwith school. He also has a PDA profile so resists options of groups etc.
Most of the time he is ok but he is slipping more and more into depression and I'm worried about him.

Impossible to say op. I have one who's regularly goes out with friends and is on video calls, texts etc and one who barely leaves the house but does have peers at school.

My son tends to have single friends he shares a common interest with, rather than a group. They tend to meet for a specific purpose rather than just hang out. They are nearly all neurodiverse as well.