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My 20 year old son has mild Autism - how can i help him build friendships?

Barrettd

Hi my my 20 year old has mild autism and finds it hard to socialise with people his own age , what can I do to encourage a friendships?

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Pippa_Alumni

Hi @Barrettd, and a warm welcome to the community! Great to have you here.

Hopefully our members will be able to offer some advice. I also thought I'd tag in @janemtrohear, who has also recently shared a similar query about her daughter. It might be good for the two of you to chat!

Barrettd

I'd you think it may be of help

janemtrohear

Hi,

thanks for tagging me in ?.
my daughter is 20 also & struggles with friendships.
she plays Nintendo games & has a few online friends via playing online. Does your son play at all ?
jane x

chockies

Hi @janemtrohear and @Barrettd ??

This may help you both, though one of you mentioned abput playing Nintendo games online and I wonder if you know about Roblox?

It is a large online social games and coding / building platform with a vast user base.

I would of course recommended looking into it first and of also monitoring contacts, as it is open to anyone and there are always risks with these things.

Worth looking in to if you have not seen it already ?.

Chockies.

janemtrohear

Thanks I haven’t heard of that - I’ll look into it.

Barrettd

Thank you

chockies

Hi @janemtrohear and @Barrettd

You are both very welcome.

I hope that they might enjoy it there.

Chockies.

vysvader

Barrettd said:

Hi my my 20 year old has mild autism and finds it hard to socialise with people his own age , what can I do to encourage a friendships?

If he's 20 years old (an adult person) then the smallest things from you mean the most. First, you should consult with him. Not even in a wild dream, he'll never socialize and get a normal life if his mother will appear on the scene, in any way at all, that's his scene. If it's not about courage then you can't encourage. Don't take it badly that's it.

To compare, imagine:
1. I've got 40.000 people on social networks, 7K just on LinkedIn and you? I don't know you but I expect that maybe you would like a new boyfriend and friends. Will you feel ridiculed, embraced, and will the people perceive you with a lower social status when I start the search for you? I guess, the conversion rate will be small (I've to ask 100 people to find 1, 99 of them will laugh on you) and even if I found you some people then you don't have to like them (it would be my choice, not yours), you'll break with them and they're never gonna be in good relationships with you, any more, it will make only harm. In the aftermath, in the mismatch much greater than a match, it would make your new enemies...
2. that I'm an employee of company X and I think that my CEO need help. So, I don't bother to ask him and take his responsibility for the directing. For the start, I contact all potential clients and say that he's not very good at the role, the company will go down, etc. I think it can get me up but I'm not sure about the CEO.

Barrettd

This is just a question and it's a confident thing but I'm sure he will findo his way!

vysvader

Well, so then I'm happy that this case is different than 1/2 others... So that's nice to read from you.

Without any comparison to you, for example, in an extreme, when my mother found out that I had been dating, she stole my mobile phone (to get her phone number without my awareness, to call her) and there were uncountable other breaches those could be meant either in bad and good intentions, but I've encountered a lot of opportunities to pick up the evidence about how it finishes. Perhaps, my case is extreme but projects an obvious image. The purpose isn't important, it's important where it leads to, the results, the results those tend to be always the same. The parents will finish the only ones well-socialized (even without any intention, will overtake all including the potential contacts because start to speak on behalf of their sons suddenly considered with a lower rank, strength, and friendly communicative behavior than the parents, exchange social statuses, make old allies to search for a stronger ally, get new sympathies because of the search, and everything else will be positive for the parents, but...).

Barrettd

Sometimes you just to want to ensure Internet safety as the Internet can be a dangerous place, but can be invasive of privacy.

vysvader

Well, it is. I just try to improve my CV because as a Linux network sysadmin, involuntary, I have to learn about cybersecurity (just needed it for my CV), if I want or not. In each one of the exams, there was a question about "helpful colleges, family, friends, or close in general...". Anyone who learns cybersecurity learns that in paradox, the most dangerous threats are the "helpful people" (if they just pretend that they wanna help or they really want, either way). The thing is that when I read the stats, it's still around about the same that almost all of the real-life damages (personal or business) are done non-technically and in cooperation with people those are very close, the closest people (trusted colleges or family members) and, usually, rather of the time, they often just wanna help. Usually, people just try to help and that's why they provide a space for an attack or info. There are also many people who don't like us for any reason and would like to make some damages, but... they can't (cause big damages and without a defensive reaction). There can be 1, 10, or 100... and it doesn't really matter how many because they can't do it so easily as one close or with one close person (there's no defensive reaction by anyone, zero and damages are greatest).

Barrettd

Well you sound very knowledgeable.

vysvader

Thanks, one can see it as a compliment. Someone can know from the first hand how it's when people change their behavior, you walk from a job in a corridor which consists of 150 people watching directly at you (almost with lifted fingers) and you see them in a very unusual gestures and suddenly noisy as a crowd of laughing and shouting sea dogs which you pass between, opening you the corridor, laughing directly into your face, some of them talking about illnesses, after a few days starting with vulgar swearing but refusing to answer on a direct question, you don't speak and in general don't have anything with any one of them so don't have any idea what they laugh about straightaway into your face and why (but your close person, no idea... doesn't have any idea what you talk about...). Then, you get an interest in criminology, criminological psychology, and forensic. Cybersecurity, not really very high but it is a part of my university study of computer science, any or all IT guys study cybersecurity but the irony is that the main causality comes from the non-technical social engineering (which you can see in any non-technical daily life, anywhere and by anyone, in usual lives) and Cybrary is an extra because there, employers search for employees (at the same like on cv-library, just with a specialization) so I have to slowly start to make their own certs, perhaps, I'll need proper (extremely financially expensive, meantime, these were free) certs from elsewhere as another addition, I'll see later.

vysvader

P.s.: To be a bit more particular, here's an example of how things evolve when people start to make fun from the disabled which go viral... It's good if confidential info stays confidential because you wouldn't like your son as a target of mocking (imitating, etc), funny scams, identity frauds (in the photo is an example of what I receive in messages... The same things come about disabled and go viral. This one is about Zuckerberg that people like to resend, the message tells to resend it, thousands of people already resent the scam signed with his name despite the fact that it's obvious he didn't write it, they just don't mind... That's not done by a spyware, people manually resend it and know it's an identity fraud) and it's nothing extraordinary, I also received emails from people those wanted me to verify my identity for a form, etc (just, it wasn't by me), mocking caricatures painting him as a small aspie kid (I masked the face, in the attachment is a photoshopped politic called "glutton in powder", remade as a disabled child, a small retarded kid and speaking: "I will eat up it all"... Yet years ahead before I saw it in the politic campaigns, I used to receive exactly the same comments as they used in the slogans, politic slogans used years later, word by word exactly the same). This is an example of what I'm receiving, all the time but it's more than just naive, you shouldn't count that what people push viral as e.g. about the politic on the picture below or about real disabled will be anyhow precise or truth at all. This is what people like and the vast majority of people would say you: