Parents Asking For Help

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i've gotten some great advice from "childless aspies". the only issues i see with any people posting here, is that sometimes tone of voice within a text message can be confusing....sometimes people post things in an accusatory tone, or don't post enough info and people jump to conclusions.

i still maintain, at least IMO, that most parents who react "in a huff", are really just feeling like they have failed yet agian as a parent. that they're really coming her to be validated. to feel that someone on earth just *might* undertstand what they're going through. many of us have come here with less than stellar reactions from our own families. the last thing we want is to be judged by people we don't even know.

*sigh*... A lot of people think that becoming parents automatically makes them wiser. A lot of NT people think autistic people don't know which way is up. So why would NT parents take advice from an Aspie with no kids?

After all, it's not like we've lived our whole lives with autism. How could we possibly know better than someone just introduced to "our world" through their children?

Sorry, I'm feeling bitter today.

Not to mention there are some childless aspies here who have studies autism/asperger's at the collegiate level and getting advice from them is really no different than getting advide from a beginning professional who has no autistic/aspergerian child. Actually it would probably be better to get advice from them as they have first hand experience that the parent has never been privy to, and from comments I've seen on here will likely never be privy to from their own child.

Nts frequently completely distort the reason an aspie does or does not do something and then they stick to that distortion as the reason out all of the child's actions, usually making them seem quite negative. I don't see my brother enough to say he has asperger's but from what i remember of him he likely does. My older sister will go on and on about hows he not greateful, appreciative, doesn't care for what she does, etc. But her reasons for saying that are just plain ridiculous. Like he can't feel bad about asking her for money because he doesn't do that "Well I know its really expensive so I shouldn't let you get me ths but I reall want it. is there some way i could earn the money back" blah etc that my younger sister does. However when she describes his actions they are exactly what i would do if someone was planning on buying me something that I felt was to expensive for them to be buying. Like just saying "ok" if your asked if you want it, "yeah" if your asked a second time, not commenting on it, etc. Sort of being kind of "cold" while its all going on because you know they shouldn't be buying it do to its price, and your thinking that at the time and you feel bad about letting them, but they're standing right there saying they are buying it and its something you want.

I totally understand venting but that's not the point I had in mind. Ster, I believe, is an NT and is incredibly open-minded. And there are a lot of defensive Aspie parents. I think it's more of a defensive parental issue rather than an NT vs Aspie/autistic.

You're absolutely right about collegiate level brains. There are autism clinic teachers with less education than some of us.

thank you KimJ......I didn't really take the others' comments to heart. Again, I feel Aspies are more than welcome to post here. I've gotten tons of advice from Aspies~haven't really paid that much attention to whether they have kids or not. Getting back to the main concern of this thread, though, we really do need to figure out some sort of posting etiquette when it comes to new members. ( old members should be used to the way things are ).

This is the first AS-related forum that I joined after discovering my son's diagnosis, so I don't see any of the posters here as less important than others.

I do tend to listen to advice from non-parent Aspies when I'm asking about how to meet the specific needs of my Aspie, more than when I'm trying to figure out how to fit him into my family as a whole. It isn't a judgement against any particular kind of person; more a narrowing of the advice I need.

I love the idea of an instructional thread for new posters. I am occasionally confused on this forum, and I'd welcome the guidance.

I'm surprised by this thread. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I came to WP BECAUSE of all the adult aspies. As a mother of a child on the spectrum, I'm so hungry to see images of who my child might be. There are pretty much NO images of autistic adults in our culture that aren't skewed by the notion of "tragedy." I feel like WP gives me a realistic view of autism that is helpful for me as I make choices for my child while he's young.

I also came here assuming most people know there's a pro-neurodiversity bend.

I guess I'm confused - why else would parents come here except for these things?

Etiquette is a funny thing, some people undestand it instinctively, some have to be taught the rules, some just never comprehend it completely. I fall into all three categories depending on the situation. Perhaps the best rule is the simplest. Try to treat others as you would like to be treated, with patience, understanding, support and a helpful attitude and (in my case at least) with the expectation that they will make mistakes.

Let us all understand that all of us, NT or Aspie, are human and deserve to be treated as such. If being human is a good thing or a bad thing can be debated at a later date. That would be fun

I think the burden also falls partly on the new members not to be insulting.

Parent's (thinly veiled) opinion "I have a family/job/life, you have a disability".

Aspie's thoughts "I have a much higher IQ than you, not to mention a very good understanding of A.S., so relatively speaking you're a ret*d. I don't have a family/job/life because of ret*ds like you, who make stupid decisions based on the limited knowledge of other people who don't have A.S.".

I guess a lot of us are sick of just being considered disabled, and want our different abilities acknowledged instead. Adults didn't really listen to our needs when we were children, because we were children, and now we're adults we still get no respect. A lot of us know far more about ASDs than say 90% of doctors, both through experience and having studied it to a much greater extent.

Don't expect etiquette from someone you're insulting.

The problem with that is what an NT will take extreme offense at is something that an aspie won't even consider having the possibilty to be offensive and sometimes vice versa, due to the completely different communication styles that the majority of each group prefer to use

i think misunderstandings will happen just because of the mode of communication we're using~i often misunderstand the written word's intention. it's not uncommon around here for people to get terribly upset ( myself included) over someting they've read and misinterpreted.

I am "Childless Aspie" that reads this forum and posts from time to time when appropriate.

I have two suggestions:

1. Remind incoming parents that what they envision when they read about AS' distinctive differences in communication is probably not a great reflection of what they are eventually going to confront. If they have no previous experience with AS, other than their direct descendant, then they might not have a full grasp on the way AS adults think or approach subjects and how they relate and formulate for transmission the product of such thought.

2. Remind Aspies that it might be an idea to practice a little forbearance. That this might be the perfect place to practice AS/NT communication. I role play with my psych all the time about how to interact with people. And this can be the perfect time, albeit in text, to learn to frame one's information in a more NT friendly fashion.

I think this is the main problem with communication between NT's and Aspies. I was really shocked to discover that my son's pov was driven by vastly different motivations/intentions than mine so our interactions were constantly being misinterpreted both ways. Once I understood that, I was able to ask about his intentions before I made any judgements about motive.

We're all mind blind. An NT has no more innate ability to understand an aspie pov than an aspie has of understanding an NT pov. It goes both ways. I get the feeling sometimes that it's assumed an NT can do this easily and that the reason it's not done is for some selfish motivation to make their kids life miserable. Most parents really want to do the right thing if only they knew what that was. Aspies are equally guilty of assigning motivation to an NT as the other way around.

We can really help each other out if we come into the discussion with more questions than answers.

Last edited by Goku on 18 Jan 2008, 9:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

While that is true, its been my experience that aspies are more willing to see that they have misinterpreted an NT's actions while NTs hold tried and true to their misinterpretation, and refuse to consider any other reason for it, even when someone is right there explaining the behavior to them. Of course I'm referring to real life examples for this, and nothing i've seen in particular on Wp


One of the few times i've managed to say something that my bf's dad was completely unable to respond to was to point out how he was assigning motivation for bf's reasons and that coupled with bf doing the same to him, is the reason they don't get along. In that case they're both aspies, but his mom was also listening in and later told me I was exactly right about it


His dad is good at knowing when to backtrack, take a different approach with me, but if I right about the clues that tell him that, than it can't be translated to written communication. His mom who is NT, would have trouble saying something more wrong when I'm upset. She has a tendency to highlight the thing thats bothering me, in the way thats bothering me, not because she wants to bother me, but because she's trying to be nice.

**And just to clarify, though responders are definately right about aspies intensely studying aspergers, when I wrote my post I was referring to those who had actually studied it for different classes at college, as some of us here have.

I've seen other threads being posted in other threads. Were they not supposed to do that?
Sometimes people post their own thread they started in their other post or they post a thread to show their reply.

spokane girl- yes, people can do this.....we're just trying to not bring up old hurt. it's not really constructive in this case. the bottom line is that sometimes people come on too strong, too opinionated, too blunt and lots of newbies get offended pretty easily