looking to find a pen pal for 8 year old aspie-any age :)

[smadams11]

my young son, oliver, would like a pen pal, and who better than someone on this site who can understand how he sees the world and he can speak candidly to. we have attempted to locate a pen pal before but most people are on the internet now and don't use 'snail mail' any more but my child is not allowed on the computer. with this in mind, a written letter would be the first you/your child would hear from him.

 

a little information about my son (i'm not sure what to write so i shall just write whatever comes to mind):

*he is a lover of chess, cluedo and monopoly-these are his favourites but any board game is thrilling for him. he usually plays these games alone, being both players himself (he always wins!).

*he enjoys dancing although he isn't terribly good at it due to his poor coordination and general clumsiness, but he enjoys it immensely and is slowly becoming less robotic.

*he has gone through phases of loving volcanoes, nature and survival (bear grylls was a favourite) and space among many other things. although these phases of obsession are over, he will still have passionate conversations on these topics if prompted.

*he enjoys reading, adores harry potter and david walliams books. his favourites are, i think, a rather silly book called 'danger is everywhere' and 'the curious incident of the dog in the night-time'.

*he is home educated and is doing very well in his maths and english averaging 2 years above his peers.

*when he is stressed, tired or excited he rubs his face similar to a hamster and 'rocks and rolls' which involves constant almost tipple-tails for hours on end.

*he sits like a monkey, which is fitting as he is very monkey like in general, and loves to climb and swing from things.

*he is a clever boy and has many interesting facts stored in his mind along with memories he should long have forgotten!

*he has a 6 year old brother, a 4 year old sister, a cat and 2 hamsters. there is also obviously me (mamma) and his daddy. *as previously stated, he is not allowed to use a computer, has no newfangled gadgets in fact, so plays with actual toys (a rarity these days, i believe). so he will be absolutely useless at discussing the latest computer/video games etc.

*he would rather eat fruit than crisps and recently became a vegetarian; it has been 1 month so far. his favourite meal is meat free hotdogs.

*he loves hugs and touching in general, to the point of making the other person uncomfortable sometimes.

*he prefers long hair which i trim occasionally to keep it out of his eyes; he HATES this but it must be done.

 

that's is about all i can think of right now. we are looking for any pen pal, regardless of age or sex. if you are older than him and are interested in being his pen pal, please bear in mind that he is only 8 and will, at times, ramble on about childish things. also remember that, at just 8, he may become 'bored' with a pen pal after a length of time; i would happily continue this correspondence in that situation, if wanted. however i believe that he will enjoy speaking to another asd person.

 

okay, thank you for reading and if you are interested please let us know. if you would like to know a little more about him, please get in touch and we are happy to answers any questions you may have. thank you again.

[Waterboatman]

A pen pal of any age and any sex, are you sure?

 

My handwriting is illegible after any prolonged use, also as my hands are not in a very good state, I must admit I prefer the typed word to the written. At school I was allowed to use a typewriter to write my english essays, indeed I became faster at typing than I could speak, a touch typist, a good start for my computer programming in later years. The school had a teletype console to the Open University computer at the time, I was privileged to see it in use. I also have a problem reading hand written text, even making strange mistakes with typed text!

 

A good solution to long hair is too just tie it back, although I never did, in my secondary school my hair reached down to the middle of my back, I actually started to tie it back when I started to be able to grow a decent beard, a really pretty colourful cravat. At six foot three, long hair and light weight "Jesus Boots" as they were called, I must have looked a sight. Odd sexuality is fairly common amongst those on the spectrum, and the best artists, engineers, and world leaders are generally a bit weird in some way.

 

The internet is very recent thing, and I grew up playing with Meccano, Lego and Plasticine, and actually got into the local papers for my prolific generation of clay figures when I was 10 or 11.

 

A none computer/internet obsessed correspondent really means communicating with a person of about my age, having worked with computers for much of my later life, I really do not want to have much to do with them now, its a bit like photography, when it was film based it was fun, when it became digital it died for me. I was a UNIX techie, Linux while it resembled unix was good, I owned several ".COM" domain names, the internet has changed so much and become such drivel that I rarely do much with it now. This is the only ASD site I visit.

 

Be careful, I wish you good fortune.

 

Ian

[Mihaela]

Home-educated? Vegetarian? Intelligent? Playing with proper toys rather than the internet? I wholeheartedly approve!

I was an intellectually-gifted child with autistic traits, and at Oliver's age my most inspiring friend was our interesting, well-educated, next-door neighbour - ten times my own age! This man brought out my talents, treated me as an equal and gave me books intended for adult readers - books on insects, geology, architecture, maps, etc. He inspired my love of learning that has never left me, something that school did it's best to squash. The experience of school can damage people on the spectrum for life - especially those of us who are gifted in various ways. Years ago I was very active in the home education movement.

I can well understand Oliver's need to write to people like us who can better understand him.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Mihaela

[Waterboatman]

Safety

 

There is a rather basic requirement to maintain anonymity for users on this site, mostly to maintain personal safety, it is not wise to handout to unknown individuals the contact details of anyone who could be regarded as vulnerable, its not just your young sons safety it is also mine. For that end this system has "PM" private messages, that in turn can be relayed onward securely to the end user.

 

To that end, transcribe your young sons letter into the PM system, and print out the replies.

 

I personally prefer to keep all communication completely in the open, so use a topic to that end, then you can have replies from several of us. I am quite happy to communicate on this basis, or via PM.

 

Vegetarianism

 

I am a third generation vegetarian, my grand mother being the guilty one, it was a new crazy fashion of her time, a terrible fudge/compromise between being a Vegan and having an unlimited diet. More care has to be taken to ensure the body consumes what is needed, too often vegetarians are malnourished and suffer the consequences.

 

Home Education and wishful thinking

 

I suspect if I had been home educated, I would have acquired useful qualifications, and missed the dreadful boredom of the secondary school system. As it is I left school with three O'Levels, Maths, Physics and Chemistry, acquiring in later years a C&G Cobol qualification and later still a C&G Electrical qualification.

 

However home education needs individuals who are interested and wealthy enough to do it, I would have failed on that point, for some reason I did not learn to read until I was nine years old! It would have worked if my father had been the teacher, my mother though intelligent, seemed not to be interested in teaching her young son anything. My father and elder sister joined forces and taught me to read, the "Cat in the Hat" books come to my mind. Maybe my mother thought the school would teach me to read?

 

ASD is largely inherited

 

My ASD comes down to me from my mothers family, the flexible joints being the most obvious markers. My grand mother could do the splits in her seventies!

 

The First and Third Ages

 

It seems that the young get on better with people that are of the generation that begat their parents, its not just those on the ASD spectrum.

[smadams11]

just to clear a few things up:

*a pen pal would need an address to send the letters to, so i cannot avoid giving that information out, although i would of course do this through a private message rather than tell the world where we lived. i simply will not allow my children to use a computer regardless of their age, 'modern times', them feeling left out etc....they are perfectly happy with this-you can't miss what you never had and they understand my reasons for the ban; they absolutely do not want to end up as brain dead, unimaginative zombies like most kids (and some adults) nowadays. so, to be clear, there is zero chance of an online pen pal.

*i take a massive interest in my kids education and love the bond we share through it. i have the time to dedicate to their education thanks to my amazing partner working full time to support us. we are certainly not wealthy though. we can't complain and rarely need to double check before we buy something (unless its something as expensive as a car for example!), but we know we will never manage to afford a mortgage or go to disney world, so we are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. home education can be very affordable-there are loads of books to buy from as little as 75p which support the national curriculum, and there are millions of free printables online for all sorts of subjects, plus many creative projects you can do to make educational stuff, using old egg boxes and loo rolls etc.

*you have done very well Waterboatman. i left school 10 years ago with just a fail in english (this was the only GCSE i sat as i hadn't attended the other subjects enough to sit the exams). i then redid english and sat my maths exam with the help of a support worker and passed with an A. i hope to study psychology (perhaps criminal) when the children are older and if we have the money.

*i asked for a pen pal of any age as oliver has never gravitated towards those his own age, preferring people older (their is no limit) and younger (down to the tiniest babies). but any one within 2 years of his own age is pretty much a no-no. i think he would prefer a teenager or an adult.

*i didn't know ASD was largely inherited. i have wondered about myself since olivers diagnosis, but i get on perfectly well in life (at least at the minute) so there is no need to act on suspicions at this stage.

 

thank you for your replies and if there is anything else please leave a comment and i will reply when i can. also, no pen pal offers yet

[Mr Salvador]

I agree with the point about annonymty. People, especially a young boy, need to have privacy protected.

 

This site gives autistic folk a place to be themselves without labels of discrimination.

 

Swapping addresses therefore is not suggested. If adults were to meet up we would meet somewhere safe with caters or family to mind things.

 

I would therefore suggest you allow him use of the computer to chat on here under supervision if you wish

 

many people here will be available for him to talk to

 

Further to that I would suggest you are careful of limiting his development. Freedom on this site is safe enough. I'm sure many aspie's like me are dyslexic and hate pen and paper

[Livelife]

just to clear a few things up:

*a pen pal would need an address to send the letters to, so i cannot avoid giving that information out, although i would of course do this through a private message rather than tell the world where we lived. i simply will not allow my children to use a computer regardless of their age, 'modern times', them feeling left out etc....they are perfectly happy with this-you can't miss what you never had and they understand my reasons for the ban; they absolutely do not want to end up as brain dead, unimaginative zombies like most kids (and some adults) nowadays. so, to be clear, there is zero chance of an online pen pal.

*i take a massive interest in my kids education and love the bond we share through it. i have the time to dedicate to their education thanks to my amazing partner working full time to support us. we are certainly not wealthy though. we can't complain and rarely need to double check before we buy something (unless its something as expensive as a car for example!), but we know we will never manage to afford a mortgage or go to disney world, so we are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. home education can be very affordable-there are loads of books to buy from as little as 75p which support the national curriculum, and there are millions of free printables online for all sorts of subjects, plus many creative projects you can do to make educational stuff, using old egg boxes and loo rolls etc.

*you have done very well Waterboatman. i left school 10 years ago with just a fail in english (this was the only GCSE i sat as i hadn't attended the other subjects enough to sit the exams). i then redid english and sat my maths exam with the help of a support worker and passed with an A. i hope to study psychology (perhaps criminal) when the children are older and if we have the money.

*i asked for a pen pal of any age as oliver has never gravitated towards those his own age, preferri people older (their is no limit) and younger (down to the tiniest babies). but any one within 2 years of his own age is pretty much a no-no. i think he would prefer a teenager or an adult.

*i didn't know ASD was largely inherited. i have wondered about myself since olivers diagnosis, but i get on perfectly well in life (at least at the minute) so there is no need to act on suspicions at this stage.

 

thank you for your replies and if there is anything else please leave a comment and i will reply when i can. also, no pen pal offers yet

You have a very good family unit and manage well from your description of life and it's good to see how much an interest you take in your children lives and protect them as much as you can from a sometimes cruel and aggressive world.

As a personal opinion only I found not having much experience of the world a severe disadvantage when I left education because even though I had not changed the world and my environment had.

I was always supported by my parents but when I needed to attend interviews claim benefits or start work things were so much harder because my parents could help to a certain point but they could not actually be with me every moment of the day.

I didn't understand what the world or people were like and coming from a secure environment being excepted by people was very difficult because I was inexperienced and immature not having any practical experience of anything other than family life.

It took many years to begin to cope I was depressed and anxious every time I had to go to work go to shops any activity my parents couldn't actually come with me to help.

There was one instance in work that I couldn't cope with and my father needed to intervene but even then the bullying didn't stop it was even worse because I had to call daddy.

I've developed well I am not as unknowing as I was have developed a process for dealing with these kinds of people and can use the mind I do have around my limitations that are still with me forty years later.

I communicate mainly by the written word but it is very effective and the very fact that I can for the lack of a better word defend myself has proven that it also creates discrimination.

Some people think because I have Aspergers I should be stupid and resent the fact that they can't just say and do what they please like they used to.

Again a personal opinion and not a criticism in any way in today's world it is vital to understand technology if you don't have the technical ability using information technology unless you intend to be a manual worker or enter a profession where computers are not used you will be at a distinct disadvantage when seeking employment or indeed going to university.

I have basic knowledge of computers now but at one stage I couldn't do a internet search and when job requirements state a certain amount of experience or a qualification on computers there was a lot of jobs I couldn't apply for and finding work was so much harder.