My son

I just could not be any prouder of my son. I burst with pride and joy just looking at him.

He is a great boy growing into a fine young man.

He has a kind heart and wants nothing more than to be liked by his peers.

You see, Boy has never really had a friend.

I take that back he had a friend once, back when he was in cub scouts, so they must have been 7or8ish.

They were good pals but then his buddy dropped him.

So, before that and for the past 7+ years he hasn’t been invited over to a friend’s house, he hasn’t been invited to spend the night, he doesn’t get phone calls, text messages, emails or even facebook pokes, he hasn’t even been asked to “come out to play”. All of his requests for the same have all been turned down as well. He continually reaches out to his peers to try and gets some sort of acceptance from them and gets nothing back. Sometimes he gets hated on but mostly it is just nothing, which can be so much worse. He has a couple of…I would call them acquaintances but nothing more beyond that.

So day after day he sits in his room and plays on his computer.

You see, Boy has a number of strikes against him .

He has a speech impediment; he didn’t start talking until he was 4 or 5 and has been working very hard to make his speech intelligible.

He also has ADHD

And a learning disability

But he also has this huge caring heart. For instance: He was once suspended from elementary school because he stood up to a bully that was picking on a little kid. He has a great imagination and just loves to laugh.

The other day he posted on facebook that “it was his first soccer game of the year and he would really appreciate it if someone/anyone would come out to watch him play”

He didn’t even get a response.

It just breaks my heart on a daily basis.

Here is this wonderful kid (not just being biased here, his teachers see it and members of our church see it) and all he wants to do is be accepted. I just want to go to his school and violently shake each kid and scream at them how wonderful he is.

I try to be a friend to him/for him but there is only so much I can do.

I have to be a parent first.

He really just needs to have someone his own age to pal around with.

To laugh and experience life as a kid with. Even to get in trouble with.

I am also afraid that his desire to be accepted will lead him to a bad place where he will do anything to just get attention from his peers. He has already shown signs of this including lending his iPod to a girl he had just met.

I just have no clue what to do.