To wonder how I approach my neighbour about her nude son

[Meanswell]

So i feel quite awkward in posting this but i am wondering the best approach as I don’t want to upset anyone but i need to protect my child.

A neighbour who lives near me has a teenage son with non verbal autism. He sometimes like to stand outside the front of the houses. Today my daughter was taking the dog out for a walk. He was outside naked with everything on display. My daughter stood in one spot and he kind of ran towards her. She came straight back in and locked the doo. I genuinely don’t think he meant anything by it but he was left alone for a couple of minutes.

I genuinely don’t want to upset his mum and I know he doesn’t understand why he cannot do that. My daughter feels quite shocked and said she will never go out the front again. I am now worried if he acts inappropriately again, how do I approach this situation gently.

'Went for her'. OP said he 'kind of ran towards her'

I deal with young non verbal autistic men quite regularly, and someone naked running towards me, is not an unusual situation, nor a worrying one.

Someone just needs to be reminded again that we put our clothes back on after going to the toilet, that is the routine

he’s clearly interested in nudity and in teenage girls, and this situation needs intervention and help or one day he’ll be arrested for rape. The autism won’t prevent him growing into a strong man who can physically overpower girls. You’re very naive if you can’t see where this situation is headed.

There's no 'clearly' about any of this. My brother is profoundly disabled and went through a long (and for me very embarrassing!) nudity phase but it was part of a wider set of sensory issues that he ultimately grew out of. He had an extremely restricted diet around that same time and was hyper sensitive to sound.

There was nothing sexual about it whatsoever, and he's never presented with any sexually challenging behaviours even now into adulthood - he just couldn't tolerate the feel of clothing for a full day and they would start to come off on the school bus home (where he had a carer supervising him), usually the underwear would come off as soon as he stepped foot in our house. It started when he was only about 9 so not a big deal but did continue as he got older so needed some management for a few years.

My Mum would DEFINITELY have wanted to know if he had got outside or into our front porch like that, not just out of care for her neighbours but to safeguard him too. Have a gentle word with her OP, I'm sure she is used to having many a awkward conversation if she's parented a child with a disability for 16 years. Good luck.

I can't believe how lax you are about it. Sort your priorities out ffs. Who gives a fuck about you neighbour's feelings? Your daughter is possibly traumatised she said she won't want to leave her own house and all you care is how to be tactful? what a weird way to look at it. I'm infuriated on your daughter's behalf. Do you always put others feelings above your own daughter's?

I'm not even going to debate with the posters trying to minimise your daughters feelings.

But I will say that you should talk to the mum. We don't know if there was intent or not. But if you don't talk to her it might happen again to someone else, someone unknown to this boy and his disability, and who will report it. I'm sure his mum would rather hear it from you than from an officer knocking on the door because a passer by reported him to the police.

Some of these replies, effectively #BeKind to the 16 year old naked male who ran at her. Please don't ask your daughter to ignore her natural instinct to be afraid. We're supposed to fear naked adult sized males who run at us. We don't assess them for autism etc. we get away from them.
Also his mother, who is overprotective, has already done a good job on you if you are in any way questioning whether you should speak to her. She may not like it but she should be expecting it. Presumably if a naked male ran at her child, she would remain "overprotective ".

Ridiculous comment.

“DD you’re saying a 16 year old ran at you naked and you were shocked and scared …. Oh well, you need to be more understanding, your feelings don’t matter I’m afraid”

All of this.
I don't particularly care if he is autistic. This needs to stop before some meathead decides to take it onto his own hands anyway.
#bekind can fucking do one. She was intimidated, that's enough for this to be utterly wrong. For everyone.

I see the #bekind brigade as usual putting the feelings of women and young girls firmly at the bottom of the pile.

I didnt walk him in because i could see out the window his mum came back from over the neighbours not long afterwards.

I’m not putting anyone before my daughter. I think the situation is difficult and i wanted to approach it sensitively. However I absolutely will talk to his mum, I will be making it clear its not okay.

You keep going on about her being overprotective.
She's obviously not protective enough if her son is wandering around lunging at young women (girl?) fully naked. The mum is obviously not doing a good enough job of keeping him and others safe and neither are you frankly for worrying about the neighbour's feelings over your own daughter's safety and the safety of the community. There are often mental health issues or childhood traumas in many criminal's past, there can be some undiagnosed disabilities like autism or ADHD it doesn't stop a crime from being a crime just because a person has a diagnosis or is undiagnosed but has an illness or a serious reason to be who he is. It's not an excuse for their behaviour.

crossposted as seen your last update. Good luck with it and hope your daughter is ok.

You choose to work in that environment! This is like saying “I run into burning buildings all the time in my job, no need to be scared of a bit of fire”

I know a lot a people have kind intentions. But it is incredibly naïve not to realise that this behaviour can also sometimes be sexual. It will be incredibly difficult for your neighbour if they get to a situation where lone female support workers and therapists are not safe to work with the son. In my experience you can't even discount the influence of porn on the attitude towards women that a young person with additional needs has; there's often an awful lot of unsupervised internet acces, for understandable reasons.

And of course no girl should be screening every instance of indecent exposure to check the mental capacity behind the male body. It's just not safe to teach girls that sometimes boundaries should be ignored, we have so few ways of knowing which males will attack us.

Its astounding considering that a high proportiion of the trans demographic are on the spectrum

So thats ok then, they can come into womens spaces because they have ASD

This thread is shocking, not only delusional and dangerous but with a clear lack of understanding of safeguarding issues.

I think the dismissive comments are from men who would love to have a woman run naked towards them they just don't understand our perspective they simply flip whatever scenario to their equivalent without having the empathy or understanding of what it would be like as a woman experiencing this. I really dislike this latest invasion of more and more incel types on here and they keep gaslighting us you just see the hatred to women in their comments. I'm hiding this as it's making me very angry.

I think faces face is better. Just relay the facts what happened in a concerned way but without too much emotion. Say you understand it’s difficult but obviously your dd was upset and is worried it will happen again and of course if it happens to other people then they might immediately involve the police. Could she be aware and try to stop it happening again?

Im sure the mum will be mortified

No it's not OK. My poor neighbour has chased her severe learning needs asd teen back into the house when he escape in the buff. She was mortified. Luckily she has discovered a blanket type thing that he loves feeling of.
Must have been a huge shock for your teen

There are some completely bonkers replies to this thread. No way should anyone have to be understanding and kind if they being chased by a naked male. I'd have reported to the police without a second thought. If the mother can't adequately ensure her son isn't scaring people then police and SS do need to be involved.

WTF? There is every need to be scared of a naked male running at her, how absurd to suggest otherwise.

I will add for the many people minimising this on this thread...

I went to secondary school with a lad who had severe ASD. He was not in classes with any of us and really should have been at a SEN school. By 16 he was a big, strong lad, who meant well.

By 20, he had been arrested for sexual assault after taking his clothes off around 2 younger girls in the woods. He is now a registered sex offender. I don't know what his motivations were but ASD off the table, he committed sexual assault.

Sorry but ASD isn't an excuse for this here.

I had a relative that lived in a residential setting for learning difficulties. My relative wasn't sexually motivated and it hadn't occurred to me that other residents could be. As a teen we went to a party which I dressed up for and one of the residents made a suggestive comment. DM dropped the ball on that one as she was aware that he was not supposed to be in the presence of the care workers alone as he had poor impulse control.

Whether in this case it is "just" a sensory indulgence or this young man is affected by his hormones, I would address it with the mother first and in the future escalate through social services then the police if this behaviour is repeated. Being naked in public and approaching others is a safeguarding concern for him as well as the others involved. Females aren't responsible for managing the behaviour of their naked neighbours. The mum could probably do with additional support, and he is potentially in danger from other members of the public either sexually or if they respond physically to him being a threat.

I just want to add that your daughter should be praised for such a speedy response in getting herself somewhere safe and telling you.

This message is appalling.

Why should a teenage girl be taught that if she gets on well with a boy when he is clothed, nothing bad has happened if he is naked and chasing her.

The OP does sound like she is being very sensitive with the situation. The boy could easily get attacked if he approached someone in this way who has a family who are not understanding.

Why would you post this in Aibu?
clearly to.get today reactions in reporting this thread .