Do you ever think that your DC with autism doesn't actually WANT any friends...

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... and that all the blood, sweat, and tears, all the books on social skills you bought on Amazon, the careful networking with the other mums, the thoughtfully laid-out playdates, all the fricking cookies you had to decorate at those playdates, the hours spent training your little asocial one to pretend play and take turns, the muscle you sprained playing football in the hope that your little not-so-sporty one would get into the beautiful game, are all just one big attempt to force a square peg into a round hole?
Many experts on autism say that children like my DS actually want friends, they just don't know how, and we the parents have to work our ass off teaching them. What if it's not true? Sometimes I feel like a despot doing violence to my child's personality in the name of knowing what's best for him.
Am I just trying too hard?? Sorry about the rant...

my ds2 will happily play with other children but couldnt care less if he never has a friend.
I suppose we try all these things to equip them with the skills not naturally aquired should they chose to make friends.

God ... I know ds (15) doesn't ! Well, not a ' friend' how we would think of a friend anyway. He does not really know what one of those is.
He is interested in people who have the same interests as him. He is interested in talking to them. He shares a close bond with his sibling... And with us .He likes it when people are funny or kind.
He goes to a social skills group for teenagers with asd. He does like it ... Because the conversations are interesting and their interests are similar . However he is quite scathing about the conversations at his ms school and rarely speaks to nt kids i think as he says that the conversation is unintelligent and all the boys talk about is music and girls. (lol)
His 'friends' at school are also on the spectrum. They do not see each other outside school... It would not occur. It was weird how they slowly gravitated towards each other at secondary ( basically through interests)
But he has no desire to have a BFF ( lol the idea would make him shudder!)
Essentially he is very happy in his own self contained way. Very happy in his own skin. He dips into social situations when something or the conversation grabs his attention.
I gave up that pushing for a proper friend ages ago.. When I realised it was ME who wanted it ...because we assume a person is unhappy without them don't we? We are needy little things us NT people aren't we?
Ds is fine.

DS2 is 12 and falls in the second category! I'm much more concerned about him having friends than he is. It makes me sad that he's missing out on so much, but , TBH, he's perfectly happy playing on his computer. He does have 2 brothers, though, which helps.

Interesting. I think it is me troutpout, I am very sociable and I find it very difficult to understand that someone could really be happy without friends.
I also realize that, come secondary school, DS is pretty much on his own and will do his own thing anyway.

DD has AS and she couldn't care less about having friends. She's friendly and increasingly sociable and is actually popular with her peers, but she has no interest in meeting up with friends at all. However, she has a small group of girls who could be described as friends, but she keeps them on the outskirts of her life.

She's 11 now, but even as a young child she didn't want playdates;etc.
She is really happy being with her sister and close family. Occasionally, she will meet up with old friends, but tbh it's usually at their request or because I've 'engineered' it.

She has zero interest in phoning or texting her 'friends' -she just doesn't see the point.
I have worried and fretted loads over the years, but I've come to realise that she's perfectly happy at the minute and that she will seek out friendships in her own way and time.

I still have wobbles and I still feel a pang when I see girls of her age going out and about in groups. Then I have to look for the positives - we don't have to suffer the dramas and traumas associated with pre-teen friendships (although there are many, many other dramas )

I have one of each. Dd1 couldn't really care less if she has friends or not very happy on her own.
Dd2 loves people but struggles with the ability to understand why people won't do what she wants, tells them to do or pushes them to do

DS2 seems to look at other children as "toys" or "additional props" to his playtime. If they are there, great, he'll play. If they are not, great, he'll play.

He is switching from MS to SS in September, and it just hasn't occurred to him at all about "missing his friends."

Absolutely. Ds's paediatrician, when told that ds didn't have any friends and didn't go out anywhere, asked if it was a problem for him or for me. Since secondary school he has found a group of people that he enjoys meeting with. I suspect several of them are on the spectrum. He has also had a girl friend. It is still always others that initiate any meet up or outing he's not really that bothered.

Mine don't really care. There have been a few boys that DS1 has formed some sort of attachment with in school, but they're just part of the furniture to him. He's had a bit of a stalkerish fascination with one particular boy, but this boy has sensory and social difficulties of his own and can't deal with how overbearing DS1 is with him. DS1 will happily go to parties, but he won't mix and he'll leave as soon as he's had food. If he meets a child he knows in the street, he won't even acknowledge them and will often run away.

my DS is happy and secure at home in his sanctuary...he rarely expresses any desire to see anyone and barely interacts with family friends or anyone coming into the house.
He plays his xbox or on laptop and occasionally will play on-line xbox games with other people but it doesn't last long and he seems not to be able to deal with this either...
I think as a mother I constantly struggle with feeling we are dysfunctional in many ways, isolated in lots of ways but changing what seems to be best for my DS seems wrong too....he is happiest in his bubble and I tend to go along with what works best for him...

it's very difficult though...I am isolated by this and find it very hard to deal with...that just existing feeling is quite prominent for me.
I'm pinning a lot on HS making some improvements for both of us...

I struggle with this as well. My DC don't have any friends, and refuse point blank to see anyone from school outside of it to the point of walking in the other direction if they see them in town (people in the wrong place ). They will not come out of their rooms if we have visitors.

It really worries me, but they are not bothered at all.....

Dd3 is really only friends with people who will do what she wants.

She is just as happy playing by herself as with others.

She has a group of "friends" at school who all have various SN's but apart from one that we go out with regularly she never asks to see them outside school.

She avoids contact with other children when we are in playgrounds or on campsites.

She has no idea why some children wont do things her way and just gets frustrated with them.

We tend to do short visits to friends with children or relatives because it usually ends up with her getting stressy.

DS2(8) has Aspergers and has only just become interested in having friends this year. I remember from the first week in nursery at 3 years old, me asking him if he'd made any friends yet and he just said "I don't need friends I've got DS1". I did all the playdates etc for a while but he wasn't interested and it just stressed me out so I just figured there was no point! We pottered along find for a while, he is a happy chap and plays well with his brother and other family members.

Now that he DOES finally want friends I'm stressing again because he's very socially immature, gets v.overexcited etc and all his friends are girls (not at all sporty or boyish) and I can't help worrying that he's going to end up heartbroken when the girls lose interest in him or he has a falling out because he's accidentally said something that upsets them. Sometimes I do secretly think it's easier not having any!!

Any updates on how your children are now when it comes to friendships?

Did they develop friendships as they got older?

This is something that is eating away at me as a mother but my son is quite content.

My DS waxes and wanes. Today I took him to the park and he played happily by himself and didn't care at all about other kids. But at the start of the summer he made a friend in our holiday resort and sobbed his heart out when they parted ways at the airport...

He can be completely oblivious or adore someone with all his heart. There seems to be no in-between.

My DS is now 23 and is perfectly content with online acquaintances who follow his obsession rather than RL friends. I’ve come to accept that’s how he is. 😍