AS DS 11 losing friends - what can I do to help?

[BlogOnTheTyne]

DS, aged 11, with high functioning Asperger's, was extremely lucky to have had a good group of friends at junior school. This group of similarly eccentric boys got on well and DS had a very best friend, who he'd known since age 5.

He joined a class at senior school with this best friend and another of the boys from the same friendship group.

His best friend and the other friend have now formed an exclusive twosome (both find it hard, like DS, to make new friends). DS is now on his own. He initially gravitated towards some of the other friends who were now dispersed to other classes and spent breaktimes with them, usually at various lunchtime clubs that the school runs.

Now these other friends are forming new friendships with some of the other children and also developing interests that aren't at all what DS likes to do.

DS is drifting away from the clubs he joined, purely to meet up with his old friends. even though he wasn't interested in the club's focus. He doesn't mix at all with children from his own class and is clearly really upset about his best friend and other friend forming a twosome that excludes him.

I've also found out that some of the old friends are now sneering at DS behind his back about him having no friends.

He is trying to befriend another new boy from yet another class but is very lonely and has lost the sense of security he had since starting school, at always being able to hang out with and talk to his best friend.

Is there anything I can do other than just keep loving him and hoping, from afar, that he'll find another friend?

I wasn't sure what section to post this in, as it's probably typical of any child when they go to senior school, to have past friendships broken up and traumas trying to make new friends. But there are particular problems for DS because of his Asperger's that mean he can't easily use social skills to make or sustain a new friendship.

He isn't good at subtle social skills at all and can alienate friends by silly things like coming up to them and poking them, as a way of saying hello. I've talked to him about using other ways of interacting but as many people here will know, it's an uphill struggle to get him to understand what comes naturally to most.

Any advice, ideas or shared experiences much appreciated.

Bless him, how difficult for him (and you), does the school have a safe haven for lunchtimes for children with social issues? My local secondary does and lots of the dc's with Asd go there to get away from the playground/football pitch. I guess this would be a good place for making some new friends.

They also run social skills grouos for targetted children. I think you need to speak to the SENCO.

Good luck

Thanks. The school is full of 'geeky/eccentric' children with loads of lunchtime clubs for them - but the big problem is that DS has never been maths/science/technology geek. He's into literature/history/politics. He gave up the history club as no boys went - only girls - and no one he knows/likes.

His old friends were universally the maths/science/technology/chess type and inevitably, they've gravitated more and more towards like-minded friends - hence the best friend and other friend now a firm twosome.

The new friend he's been talking about is in a different class in the same year and DS has played hockey at lunchtimes with him - but that's only to 'get to know' the new boy. DS is hopeless at sports, very unfit and dyspraxic! I already have a feeling that once this boy feels more confident, he's going to incline away from DS towards the more sporty children and apparently the only thing DS knows about him so far is that he loves cricket - which DS hates and is really bad at!

He just wants someone he can walk round with and talk to, in his typical 'lecturing-mini-professor' way! His best friend filled that role happily, in the past - but not anymore.

The learning support teacher (presumably the SENCO person?) is aware of DS's difficulties but as this is a school packed with 'geeky/eccentric/socially unskilled' children, alongside more socially skilled ones - the school's approach has been to offer loads of lunchtime clubs as the answer. DS isn't the 'worst' at social skills in any case but having lots of other children who aren't that skilled, actually sometimes makes it harder for DS.

His friendship group was composed of socially challenged, 'geeky' children who have bluntly - and without malice (most of the time) simply decided they want more and more to be with likeminded children who share their love of maths or computer programming, for example - and won't see the potential impact on DS.

Offering lots of lunchtime clubs works very well if the children are into the club's focus and there are other children attending who they are familiar with - but DS is dropping out of a lot of the clubs he joined, as he clearly only joined them to be with people he considered his friends. As these friends are v enthusiastic about the activity but DS isn't, DS is fed up with tagging along and finds they no longer interact with him anyway.

He's at that point in life when he's wanting to follow his own interests more, rather than tagging along with others, just to maintain friends - yet not finding - yet - likeminded people to be with.

The safe haven isnt a lunchtime club though, it is just a room where the dc's who dont cope or have a social group can go and be with others who dont cope or have a social group.

Either that or could he go to the library? He might find some history lovers in there.