Access to neurodiverse (ND) young adult peers to meet?
Our young adult ND kids (23,24) lament that it's been really difficult to connect with other peers in this pandemic. The most popular dating apps have not yielded meaningful connections with peers who value mutual acceptance of differences and building a friendship base before romantic involvement.
Safety has been a concern as well because our kids tend towards naive and so may miss the more subtle "red flags" from others.
Are there are apps geared towards the needs of the neurodiverse community? I've heard of Hiki but don't know anyone who has used it locally and it's very new.
Until the usual natural avenues for making social connections open up again, how young adults are meeting nowadays.
Thank you
Dec 13, 2020
Parent Replies
As a parent of an ND teen, I was glad to see your post. My son attended a high school for ND students for a while and it was wonderful to see him make friends with other ND teens. I have been trying to figure out a way to get him connected with other ND teens now that he attends public high school and everything has been a non-starter. The school and the parent group are telling me to form an affinity group but how do you do that when the student is revealing confidential health information just by joining? I don't want to give up on this, though. Our kids will live fuller and happier lives if they can connect with other ND people to form social relationships and feel understood.
My neurodiverse 16yo has maintained contact with peers through his interests in Magic the Gathering and D&D. In addition to playing the games, there are servers (like old fashioned message boards) to facilitate communication between folks with similar interests.
your kids might not have those interests but maybe they will find friends throughfollowing their areas of interest...
My son has internalized the extremely important need to NOT share personal info on the message boards unless it’s someone he has met or someone a friend has met in person, so I can breathe easy.