Mum asks autistic boy's parents to not play with their son

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cyberdad
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13 Apr 2019, 3:48 am

Ashton doesn't have a lot of friends.

The 11-year-old is on the autism spectrum, has an intellectual disability and ADHD.

However, he does have one school mate who he dearly cherishes.

After spending a day at this pal's house during the holidays, Ashton was given a handwritten note from the parent of this dear friend to give to his mum, Lacey.
https://www.kidspot.com.au/parenting/pa ... 07ddb0761f

The note basically asked that Ashton no longer play with their son as they were worried their own son was being held back because Ashton was lower functioning and their son was picking up bad habits

My question is whether parents are entitled to do this or is it unethical and cruel (as I susepct it is)
Unfortunately I can see why the parents wrote the letter but it makes feel empty inside



mr_bigmouth_502
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13 Apr 2019, 5:12 am

I read the letter, and it pissed me off. Clearly, the parents of Ashton's friend have no sense of fun. What's wrong with watching cartoons or playing with toys? I mean, assuming he's the same age, Ashton's friend is probably growing out of that stuff on his own anyway, but he shouldn't feel pressured to "grow up". At that age I was under pressure to grow up from my parents and my peers, and I really regret giving into that pressure. I missed out on all sorts of things by trying to be more "mature".


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Jon81
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13 Apr 2019, 8:11 am

I assume those parents would be the ones most desperate for friends if it was their kid who was on the spectrum. And it's not like he's going to pick up habits of using drugs or stealing from people right?

Very selfish parents. Hope they end up in some situation where they are the vulnerable ones.


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eikonabridge
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13 Apr 2019, 8:41 am

cyberdad wrote:
... My question is whether parents are entitled to do this or is it unethical and cruel (as I susepct it is) ...

First of all, parents possess a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit. At least in the USA, this is enshrined into the whole legal system. That is also why while I think anti-vaxxers are wrong, I would still defend their right to skip vaccines. That is also why I shake my head at most parents out there (since they don't know how to raise their autistic children), but I am still friendly with them and do activities with them together. People may have different opinions, but that's OK.

Secondly, are we sure the other boy is not on the spectrum? See, there is this thing called Stockholm Syndrome, that was recently discussed here in another thread. My point is, autistic people and their families are often brainwashed by neurotypical people, to the point of adopting the same biases of neurotypical people. So, the mother of the other family is truly concerned that her son may show stronger signs of being on the spectrum. That's what happens when you look at autism as a disease/disorder/disability/defect/detriment, and not as a difference.

There is a guy that repairs eyeglass frames in the town where I live. He surely looks like someone on the spectrum. He is quite a character. He has pissed off countless number of clients. But guess what? He is good at what he does. So most of his clients go back again and again to him, and don't mind his quirkiness. Really, people line up in his shop. On one of the rating websites, I counted 85% of the clients gave him 5 stars. I personally have been there 3 times through all these years. That's the thing. You don't need to please everyone. You can see that not everyone in this world is a hater. You may be quirky, but guess what? The majority of the people would still be behind you. People learn to separate what matters from what don't. People know they go to his service for getting eyeglasses repaired, not to get friendly chat. On the rating website, people even write down tips on how to behave inside his shop, so not to tick him off. Ha ha.

If someone decides to spend their energy on the 15% of people out there, then wouldn't that be a waste of time? I mean, in the USA, 5% of the people eventually spend some time in jail. There are bad people out there, that's a given.

I generally don't look for play dates for my children. Partly because I do not view autism as a defect, and also because we hang around with families with children of the spectrum quite often, plus our own relatives (big family on my wife's side), so our children get plenty of interaction with age peers. But, besides, my daughter has a good friend from her pre-school days. The thing is, when people are your friends, they don't pay attention to whether you are on the spectrum or not. They care zero about it. The other girl's family now lives in a different state, but we still get together when they are in town. My daughter composes music often. It's funny that the other girl cried when she listened to one of my daughter's songs (I sent them a video clip). They are surely "hometown friends" and they do surely miss each other. The two girls just have such a wonderful friendship.



My whole point is: the world is big enough. There is really no need to chase after play dates. Don't look down on your own children. Children will make friends when they make friends. Let it all happen naturally. Autistic children are born to socialize, because they are human beings. There is absolutely nothing to worry in that direction. However, you do need to develop your children's brain, don't ever let your children's brain go idle. Verbalization and socialization have zero to do with brain development. All too many parents pay too much attention to the verbalization and socialization part, to the point of neglecting to develop their children in the visual-manual direction. And with that, their family life falls apart.


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MagicMeerkat
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13 Apr 2019, 3:15 pm

My best friend in first grade's mother basically did the same thing to me and refused to her her daughter interact with me towards the end of second grade. Even changed where she got on the bus so she would take a different bus so she couldn't interact with me on the bus anymore. She also wasn't allowed to interact with me at school. This sort of thing doesn't surprise me. It probably happens more often. I was semi verbal back than and couldn't express to my parents what was going on and they believed her parents that I was a "trouble maker'.


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Last edited by MagicMeerkat on 13 Apr 2019, 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BenderRodriguez
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13 Apr 2019, 3:21 pm

Of course the parents have the right to do that. Doesn't make it any less nasty and cruel to the kids though.


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cyberdad
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13 Apr 2019, 6:38 pm

I guess this touches a nerve for me.

My 13 yr old daughter has friends at school who happily play together but she has never been invited to their birthday parties or holiday outings (this despite them attending her birthday). My daughter wants to go but she told me the parents of her friends don't want her to come because some of the children invited (who are not her friends) feel uncomfortable around her.

She used to go to social skills classes after school where other girls with autism would also attend. The idea is that parents and children would network. Alas neither I or my daughter have been able to make a friend :|

While I accept other parents/kids are allowed to have their preferences its still frustrating. Anyway we have fun with our daughter as a family/community of three :D

who needs other people eh...



eikonabridge
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13 Apr 2019, 8:43 pm

cyberdad wrote:
... Anyway we have fun with our daughter as a family/community of three :D
who needs other people eh...

Yep. Autistic children are perfectly fine the way they are. They have a different route of development. There is not need to trying to fit into the neurotypical world. Autistic children will make friends when they grow up, especially after they go to college and grad school. And those friends are what really matter later in life.

The neurotypical ideal is to become a celebrity, and get paid just because you are popular. If you think about it, how is that going to increase a country's GDP? Unfortunately, that's what the majority of people chase after. They have zero desire to contribute with their honest work.

I still see so many parents out there arranging birthday parties for their children. I mean, I don't see any value in birthday parties. We view birthday as something private. For our children, we may have a cake with the bigger family, but that's about it. As for me, I stopped celebrating birthday around 18 years old. I have forgotten about my own birthday so many times, and that's no joke. This last birthday, I was on a business trip. I thought this would be finally another low-key birthday, when the phone rang. It was from my wife, she said, nobody remembered about my birthday, but that in the morning, all of a sudden my daughter asked what day it was. After my wife told her the date, my daughter then told my wife: "It's daddy' birthday!" Ha ha. My wife said having my daughter was totally worth it. Well, despite trying my best to show indifference, deep down I still had a smile. It feels good to be special to someone.

A mother recently asked me whether my son had friends in school. I said, no, he doesn't really hang around with his classmates. Then the mother asked me: "Is your son happy?" Oh my goodness, what does happiness have anything to do with having friends? I showed her some pictures and videos. My son always have this big smile on his face. Every day I pick him up, he always have this ear-to-ear smile. My wife volunteers in school, the teacher sends us pictures/videos all the time, so it's not like we don't know what's going on in school. My son is just extremely happy. Funny thing is, the mother that asked the question had a son that was nowhere close to my son in emotional development, and nowhere close in being happy. And it's not like my son doesn't have interaction with other children, he does. The other day the teacher sent me a video clip, where a boy from another class was patiently teaching my son to play basketball at recess, they had fun. I mean, those kinds of events happen without any intervention from adults. Autistic children of course socialize: they are human beings. But my point is: let it happen naturally. Parents should not spend their attention on the socialization aspects: there is nothing to worry there. Visual-manual development, connection their bad experiences to good experiences, those are the things where parents need to aim their firepower on. Doing things just to please the neurotypical folks? That, is a waste of time. I just don't understand people, why so many parents choose the path of misery for themselves? Meanwhile, my children just keep plowing forward. They are smart and happy. Look, the world just won't stop for people to catch up. If other people choose to lead a miserable life, that's not my problem, is it?

Some games programmed by my son in Scratch (scratch.mit.edu). I especially liked the way how he implemented the "explosion effect" at the end. (I have no idea why the ping-pong-like game was called "Campbell Game.")


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cyberdad
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14 Apr 2019, 2:01 am

Thanks for your positive input eikonbridge (I also enjoyed your daughter's concert performance :) )

I agree 100% on letting your child find their own happiness instead of forcing them to enjoy something they don't want to do.

We do a lot of traveling and take holidays with our daughter so she enjoys the planning part and gets really involved. Travel is great, new experiences are good for the child :)



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14 Apr 2019, 3:16 am

It is a nasty and cruel letter and I would hate to have had to explain my 11 year old why he can't see his friend anymore :(

There's not much she can do though, parents still have almost proprietary rights over their children. Forcing or shaming these people into behaving differently will only make them more resentful and prejudiced.


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cyberdad
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14 Apr 2019, 6:24 am

it's a real dilemma.

In public playgrounds I've witnessed parents use more subtle cues to condition their young children to avoid disabled or ethnic kids. Usually like "ok Johnny lets move over here (away from the different kid to another part of the playground) or Ok Johnny lets go home now.

If it's a kid in a wheelchair or with cerebral palsy the common response is "Johnny you know it's rude to stare". The child learns from their parents that certain children are not to be engaged with. Children are very perceptive at observing their parent's demeanour, smiling mum starts to frown when a severely disabled kid arrives at the playground. It triggers instinct (no words necessary) that somehow the situation is no longer safe (despite no probable threat). Then all it takes is for mommy to say "johnnie come here" and little Johnny begins his pathway to developing negative attitudes and stigma toward kids like little Ashton.

If the mother of Ashton's friend could walk a mile in Ashton's parent's life perhaps she might not have written the letter. But there again it's not her problem, it's Ashton mum's problem to explain why his only friend can't play with him.



fluffysaurus
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14 Apr 2019, 7:38 am

My parents were on the strict side but would never of attempted to dictate who my friends should be. I remember

when I was eight my Mum hinting that one of my friends was common and then at 11 that a girl in my village that

I didn't play with had a swimming pool. Neither hint had any impact. Obviously that was a while ago, is it normal

now for parents to attempt to dictate who their children's friends are.



BenderRodriguez
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14 Apr 2019, 7:46 am

cyberdad wrote:
it's a real dilemma.

In public playgrounds I've witnessed parents use more subtle cues to condition their young children to avoid disabled or ethnic kids. Usually like "ok Johnny lets move over here (away from the different kid to another part of the playground) or Ok Johnny lets go home now.

If it's a kid in a wheelchair or with cerebral palsy the common response is "Johnny you know it's rude to stare". The child learns from their parents that certain children are not to be engaged with. Children are very perceptive at observing their parent's demeanour, smiling mum starts to frown when a severely disabled kid arrives at the playground. It triggers instinct (no words necessary) that somehow the situation is no longer safe (despite no probable threat). Then all it takes is for mommy to say "johnnie come here" and little Johnny begins his pathway to developing negative attitudes and stigma toward kids like little Ashton.

If the mother of Ashton's friend could walk a mile in Ashton's parent's life perhaps she might not have written the letter. But there again it's not her problem, it's Ashton mum's problem to explain why his only friend can't play with him.


It is ironic that we call this "childish playground behaviour" but kids learn it from adults, in the indirect, non-explicit manner you describe.

I'm not surprised that the author of the letter has no empathy for Ashton and his parents, but she seems to also not care about her own son's feelings, as he probably enjoyed playing with Ashton.


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BenderRodriguez
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14 Apr 2019, 7:55 am

And btw, I don't see how she can demand the kids not to have contact at school, it's not like she has a restriction order. This might actually be worth discussing with the principal.


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eikonabridge
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14 Apr 2019, 10:38 am

BenderRodriguez wrote:
It is ironic that we call this "childish playground behaviour" but kids learn it from adults, in the indirect, non-explicit manner you describe.

Most children are neurotypical, as well as their parents. It's built into their DNA to sense the true intention the other person wants to convey. Neurotypical people have an innate ability to say one thing to mean another thing. So children learn very quickly from their parents, as to who they should look down and can bully in school. It's not that the parents explicitly teach their children to be, say, racist. It's in all the indirect messages. It's in all the wink wink nudge nudge stuff.

BenderRodriguez wrote:
And btw, I don't see how she can demand the kids not to have contact at school, it's not like she has a restriction order. This might actually be worth discussing with the principal.

Parents have a few ways to exercise control over school. School donation being one of them. Generally speaking, within reason, school would yield to parents, because otherwise the donation amount would dwindle. Classroom teachers surely have ways to separate children, just ask any of them: it's routinely done. From who sits with who, from who teams up with whom. And at the turn of each school year, children are surely separated into different classrooms by taking into account some political factors, which can easily be rephrased into social-emotional development needs. Remember, we are dealing with neurotypical people here: saying one thing to mean another thing, justifying actions taken based on fake excuses.

I find it more productive to focus instead on your own child. In my conversation or IEP with school, I don't really touch on the topic of making friends or socialization on my initiative. Schools know my position (that friends and socialization is not what I am looking for in my children's development, because I don't view autism as a defect). I know their position. I know they can't possibly not mention some of those things, otherwise they become liable in the eyes of their colleagues. Accommodations and collaboration with me is what I look for, and many of those things don't even need to be on the IEP. It's a lot on the good-will side from the school.

This is what my daughter wrote on her shamrock for St. Patrick's day. It was posted on the window of her classroom, together with other children's shamrocks. It's basically a message to all other children, parents and teachers that she is proud to be who she is, and implicitly telling all of them: hang around with me if you like, and I don't care if you don't hang around with me or have biased ideas about autism. She is talented, and has a full and happy life. She is not going to beg other people to be her friends. As I always tell her, her mission in life is not to fit in, but to stand out. To be a leader, not a follower. So she knows it's OK to be different. If you look at the example of Greta Thunberg, you know that being autistic or not has zero to do on whether people look up or down on you. It's your message what matters.

Image


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14 Apr 2019, 11:05 am

Read it, and it saddens me to see how the boy's parents wants to have to end their relationship with Ashton just because he's different.

The hand flapping? Very normal thing to do for an autistic person, since this is a form of stimming, and stimming can help a person cope.

Watching cartoons intended for younger children, such as Pokémon, Tom and Jerry, and Looney Tunes? OH, GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK!! ! I'm a grown-up, and I still enjoy cartoons for children, like Pokémon, Teen Titans (NOT Teen Titans Go!!, because it's AWFUL!), and Ben 10 (NOT Omniverse, because it's also AWFUL!).

Playing with toys intended for younger children? Like WHAT, exactly? Little Tykes? Cabbage Patch Kids (if they still make those)? I'm a grown-up, and I still enjoy playing with Legos, like Bionicle and Star Wars.

So, wait, making a child "grow up" mean dismissing things that are kid-friendly, and being to things that "adults" do that are not really moral and/or healthy, like being into drugs, porn, and scuffling over stupid reasons? What planet are those people from?

BTW, does anyone know the word "adult" came from the word "adulterate", meaning to "become corrupt, impure, and perverted"? Is that REALLY part of naturally "growing up", or is this some kind of whacked-out social norm?