We’ve navigated friendships to now really well, but teen social interaction is completely eluding my nearly 12yo DS, especially banter and teasing (which can so easily tip into more in any case). How do you help your autistic DS understand that shouting at his friends and speaking angrily if he doesn’t like what they are doing, while being ultra sensitive to the slightest whiff of what he thinks is insult, is the quickest way of driving them away?
In part the sensitivity is driven by the horrific verbal and emotional bullying he endured at primary school from both pupils and frankly staff until a fantastic Y6 teacher helped iron things out, although not completely. So it’s not just that he isn’t reading the room, he’s wired to be afraid. We’re trying to persuade him towards counselling but again, he had such a bad experience with this last time (a truly sadistic counsellor who spent her time “catching him out” then labelling him psychopathic - we saw the notes) so this is hard to put in place too. I’m so sad for him though as he is just going to isolate himself, and he’s actually pretty gregarious and outgoing.
So in the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions/advice/books I would be really really grateful!