How would you handle this?

[streakybacon]

Ds was playing Xbox live with some friends last night, while I was in the room with him. He is 15, friends are 13 and 17. He doesn't realise how much I can hear when they're chatting on headphones.

I overheard 17 yo tell a disablist joke. He and the 13 year old laughed but ds went quiet and said nothing. They continued playing for a bit longer then ds had to stop to come and eat.

I wasn't sure whether to mention it as it would mean admitting that his gaming conversations aren't private, but I didn't want to let it go. He acknowledged that the joke had been told but pointed out that he hadn't laughed (I think he thought he was in trouble for being part of the conversation). I said it was hard to challenge that sort of thing when it's from a good friend, which ds agreed, then I just left it at that because we had to go and make food.

I'm not sure what else (if anything) I should do or say to him. He doesn't have a lot of friendships and I don't want to put any strain on these ones, but part of me feels like we should be having more discussion about it, because I don't want him to think it's acceptable to go along with this kind of humour just because his friends think it's funny. What do you think?

Thanks Polter. I suppose I don't want to make a specific point about this one incidence, and would prefer to stick with our general discussions on 'isms' because I don't want him to think badly of his friend.

Ds's big thing is comedy - we use it for loads of social stuff because it's all about boundaries and how far you can go and still be funny, and why disablist humour from the likes of Ricky Gervais and Frankie Boyle isn't funny because it's crossed a line. So yes, he does get that it's wrong but it's a difficult subject to tackle with an autistic teen whose social skills aren't great generally, and whose instinct would be to side with a good friend over a disability group that means nothing to him personally. I expect I shall have to tread carefully around this one .