DS (aspergers) sees many other children as bullies or enemies

[mistbecomingrain]

DS has aspergers. He's age 6

The most worrying thing about him is his lack of social skills

We were at a soft play centre yesterday and a little boy recognised him from school. The boy is is another class. The boy came over and said hi to DS in a friendly way. DS just scowled and looked away

He didn't interact with the boy at all in the soft play centre - even though the boy seemed very friendly and was seeking DS out. Eventually the boy left DS alone.

DS does like some children in his class because he is familiar with them. Initially they were his enemies but he's got more familiar with them and thinks more positively of most of them now.

By acting so grumpy and negative he seems to attract the type of children who like to tease him a bit to get a rise out of him. I've noticed this a little bit when I've collected DS from his after school club.

So sometimes it's hard to know if he just thinks the other children are bullies or if they really are teasing him.

Do I just have to accept this is the way it is. Is there any hope if this improving? We've tried social skills classes but they don't seem to address DS's negative perception of other children .

Mine was the same at that age, and to be fair, he did have good reason because a lot of the other children were mean to him, winding him up for a reaction and teasing him. After a while he adopted what we called 'proactive revenge', which meant going in to school determined to get them 'back' before they had a chance to get him first . As you can imagine, it didn't go down well with staff.

But it did get better. We used tools like 5-point scales to show the range between friends and enemies, loads of friendship-based social stories, praise and encouragement for reciprocating well if approached socially, and discussion about what made a good friend. We were lucky that ds likes people and wants to be liked by them - not every child with autism does and some actually want to drive people away so they can stay in their self-imposed bubble.

Ds is great now, at 16, with lots of friends and is often described as 'popular', which I'd never have thought possible when he was your son's age.