I'm not sure how much more clearer I could have been with my use of the word "forced". And yes, my parents did think signing me up for the soccer team was a terrific idea since it would help me overcome my "issues" and learn to be part of a team. It was a form of "treatment". This experience made me not want to be part of a team or socialize and made me very resentful toward my parents and teachers who thought team sports were wonderful, especially for helping to "normalize" kids like me. I was always the worst player on the team. I can still remember the euphoria I felt all the times a soccer game was canceled due to the rain.
In this day and age, I am not sure why society pushes this on kids who so obviously feel extreme discomfort(in my case, to the point of vomiting and extreme anxiety and resentment), when there are plenty of "normal" kids who love team sports - let's leave team sports to those who love it and get something out of it. Parents also trying to force their kid to be friends with some other kid is also ridiculous and counterproductive.
Maybe I also didn't make it clear that whether or not aspergers is problematic is very context dependent. This often makes it very tricky, especially if selective mutism is involved. Society's overvaluation of certain social skills puts too many aspergers children into situations in which they look like they need "treatment". And there are all too many do-gooders out there who love "fixing" others.
And sure I have problems, but who doesn't? It seems the gifts I have are part of the same complex that explains my social ineptness and extreme sensitivity. And we are not in need of "special" treatment, just different treatment, we need to be understood on our own terms and shouldn't be expected to conform to society's expectations when we are not harming ourselves or others.
I believe aspergers children should generally be left alone, so long as they can communicate their most basic needs with those they trust, especially the gifted ones. They will most likely learn to cope and to socialize on their own when the opportunity arises. Their talents should be nurtured. It is because I believe that extreme withdrawal from society and extreme shyness/poor social skills are bad things, that doing things like forcing aspergers children into distressing social situations that make them feel very uncomfortable that they withdraw even more, are bad things. It's all about finding the proper balance to fit an individual's unique situation. Let's stop the foolish expectations and conformity.
Besides just leaving them alone, I offer no solutions except to try to view high functioning autistic spectrum children as being just "different" and not diseased or deserving of treatment(unless they have comorbid conditions, which ultimately may be due to forced socialization attempts which failed). I prefer optimizing them within the confines of what they are, to "normalizing" them, which is based on a flawed model of "normalcy"(if sports are good for kids then all kids should play sports and if they don't like it then something is very "wrong" with them). I am not a parent or a psychologist, but this is my opinion based on my experiences and the experiences of others.
