*§*AS-Parent Support Group*§*

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thanks. i shall be looking into this more as i research stuff. i will need to confront this some day

ouch - im about to try the same route myself



yes, i was in exact same position a while ago







yes, i can relate to what you say about relating and social skills at the level of a child

That's alright.

There's no poll for this at mo. If you want/feel comfortable about it you could post either here or on the thread in wp.net Discussion linked to above, expressing your opinion on the issue. If not that's ok too.

i think its fair to say there is a chance as long as both parties are still committed i guess, if anything it just gets harder to recover from over time -

not 100% sure though!

My kids were teens and I was 40 when I found out. I told them what little I knew but they don't really understand. While I think they both have aspie traits, they both vehemently deny that they do. My problems with anxiety and depression and my physical disability are more noticeable to them which may explain why the subject doesn't come up much. And when I explain away an aspie moment to them, they seem unconvinced. Honestly I think that they just don't get it - having AS that is. That might partly explain most of my family and my two friends not ever discussing it with me.

It helps me to recognize my kids' aspie traits, but I hardly mention it to them because I'm met with indifference or denial. My kids are older - it may have been better if we'd all found out earlier. I wish they were more receptive to exploring their differences, but I guess as teens it's all about fitting in and they don't want to be different in any way.

The one nice thing is that I feel more accepting of myself now that I know why I've always been so different, so I can be more honest in my relationships with them.

Yes, that was really difficult when my kids were younger. My experience was that contact with other adults decreases as the kids get older. At the beginning I socialized a lot, in part to learn from other moms, and also I thought that's what you were supposed to do with your kids. I've spent much of my life both doing what I thought I was supposed to do regardless of whether I wanted to do it or not. Anyway, elementary school is tough because there's pressure to be involved with the kids' education and therefore interactions with other parents and teachers. And stupid play dates. I was appalled and sick to my stomach the first time a mom told me she wanted to make a play date. When I was a kid, we went outside and played with the kids in the neighborhood. But now it's all about setting up a time and place for kids to get together, in a controlled environment. Then you have to reciprocate. Yuck. It gets easier in middle school, then in high school the kids can go off by themselves and the expectations of being involved in their education and social life is easier. Then there's the stage where they don't want you around at all, which is kind of where I am now. But if I do hang out with them and their friends they make it clear I'm embarrassing them.

I think school makes it much harder aswell for children to consider/accept difference.

And it also puts them off their parents.

The children in the homeschooling families that I have met don't seem to get like that, rejecting their parents, embarrrassed of them, nor are they as interested in clothes, latest style/desirable object, doing the same as everyone else, etc.

Which isn't surprising seeing as school ( public national etc) was invented by capitalist industrialists with vast financial interests , to produce unthinking and obedient workers, and unthinking obedient consumers. ( see John Taylor Gatto, his website, for more on this subject )

Yes, I totally agree; the playdate thing is .

^^^ VERY interesting theory. I think you've got a good point - kids are socialized by their friends in school to reject their parents.

similar theory here http://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/st ... 248784.htm

and you both just reminded me of kids birthday parties

Depending on age, we had McDonalds (yuk) parties, kids bowling birthday parties, pool parties, etc. We had 10-20 kids, parents dropping off and picking up, some wanting to stay. Have to try to welcome parents and make small talk, lead kid is singing happy birthday (at least at the venues we went to the staff led kids in activities).

It was horrible. I never knew what to do. Now all I have to do is buy my 17 y.o. beer and my 15 y.o. just wants to go to the pictures/cinema/theater with a few friends and be left to their own devices

I can recommend having kids birthday parties at some external venue, not at home.

PS - if any puritanical types don't approve of me buying a 17 y.o. beer, tough. Legal drinking age here is 18 and teenagers manage to get alcohol anyway. I would rather have influence in type and quantity.

I totally agree with this viewpoint. I mentioned previously that my wife limited my dealings with my childrens teachers and I think it is exactly because I see these core problems with the whole indoctrination system. On the other hand, *her* viewpoint is that school has evolved and improved such that it is currently the most enlightened means of transforming raw, inadequate human material into well balanced, fulfilled adults of the highest consciousness achievable.

She has even become a school governer to assist in the control of this pinnacle of our civilisation and make sure our kids get an even better dose! In contrast, I suspect that instead of spending 2 or 3 hours every other week in tedious governers meetings discussing the agenda of the next agenda's agenda, she'd help her kids more by just playing with them for a couple of hours. As you can imagine, this causes no end of arguments between us.

I may just start a thread on AS parents and their experience of their children at school (including home schooling as from what Ouinon is going through, you can't fully escape here, either) as there is just SO much I'd like to get out in the open.

Just a couple of things though. On the point of school turning children against their parents, I recently read a report that noted that UK children from early-teens spend much less time with their parents and more with their peers than any other Euro country. The alleged link is with an apparent surge in violent crime in teens, against a general background of falling crime in the UK.

It's not just the creation of uniform minds that school exists for. It also occupies the children so the parents can work all the hours under the sun.

Reading those links (thanks Bazza, thats a good one, too) suggests an answer to a question I've had for many years: "why are schools so bad at dealing with bullies?" To the extent that even now, for all the hot air talking, the edu system does not seem to want to deter bullies in any way.

Maybe the truth is that the bullies are actually doing the work that the hidden agenda of the system is trying to achieve. To make you terrified of being outside if the mainstream, of being different, of standing out from the crowd, of "not fitting in".

Your post inspired and encouraged me so much. Sometimes I feel practically alone on here questioning how much schooling might play a role in "creating " AS problems etc. I even had exactly the same idea as you about bullies, partly because that is the effect they had on me at school; of bringing me into line.

You mention setting up a thread about AS parents and their experiences with school. Well, I sort of started one a while back. A couple in fact.

"Could Your Child Homeschool if they Wanted to?" at:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt60282.html

"Homeschooling/Anti-School Consciousness Raising Thread" at:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt60362.html

And an earlier one, "Children Working for Peanuts" at:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt53627.html

I found this site particularly awe-inspiring and illuminating/astonishing on the subject of school:

http://www.thememoryhole.org/edu/school-mission.htm

Gatto's site too, this page of which from "The Underground History of School" I found v. moving:

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/undergro ... logue5.htm

I could go on for hours about the appalling effects of school. But will stop there... for the moment.

I loved your scathing and vivid description of the abyss of understanding between your wife and yourself on this subject.

Thanks for the great post.

PS: On one of the first two threads, but i can't remember which one, I actually posted some material I had found to support the bullying thesis. Gatto suggests it too somewhere I think. Why it is not effectively suppressed? What purpose it serves?

Thanks Ouinon. I can get very emotive about this. In a very real sense, I can say that AS isn't my problem. 12 years of mass education is my problem.

At age 6 I was 2 or 3 years ahead in literacy and numeracy. I loved learning and could pretty much learn anything I tried, whether by myself with books or with an adult. However, my physical coordination was extremely poor and although a confident speaker, I was considered odd and didn't socialise in the approved way. So the teasing began - by adults as well as children.

Fast forward 10 years to age 16 and I could barely talk to anyone. Self-esteem and confidence smashed, soul destroyed you could say. No capacity left to have any academic interest as my mind was tied up just repeating the same thing over and over: "whats wrong with me?". "What must I do to not get hit?". My only social skill was avoidance of all social contact.

That's what school did to me. Destroyed 'me' and replaced it with a shadow. It took another 30 years and the AS diagnosis to began to realise that I want to try and bring 'me' back and go and grow in the way intended.

So I hope people can understand why my blood boils when I hear anti-home schoolers churn out their tired old cliches at anyone who home-schools: "but you HAVE to send them to school to learn social skills", "but they'll NEVER fit in". School does not teach social skills. My not fitting in is YOUR problem.

What's really sickening is that in many ways school (at least in the UK) is worse now. Higher levels of comformancy are expected and peer pressure is greater. Teachers must focus on getting maximum numbers over the 'average' hurdle, so the brightest have less attention. Probably more dangerous too.

BTW In the News thread, someone just posted an interesting article with lots of research about home-schooled children outperforming state-schooled.

I feel very similarly, which is why I am determined that my son should not have to go if he doesn't want to, and why I started all those threads.

The Parent's Forum on wp was just doing my head in. The amount of suffering and trouble and struggle some of these AS children are going through and which may be unnecessary was actually making me cry with grief and anger.

Thank you, I noticed. It is at:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt67288.html

Great to read.

indeed. that comes as no surprise to me. Given the cheap availability of alcohol I wonder about the connection.

i suffered with bullying for most of my school life (just by the other kids)- i don't think i've really ever come to terms with it, certainly not able to discuss much, its a corner of my life so far that i prefer not to visit

I was wondering, in the context of some AS parents' difficulties with the school system, whether one of the extra problems AS have being parents is that we , well I do anyway, always want to know "WHY", want to understand, question authority, systems, purposes.

For instance, I don't feel as if I really have the right to authority over my child. Or at least not as securely/unquestioningly as many NTs seem to.

I too abhor the parent's forum. Every single time I've peeked in there I get so angry at the parents. I learned long ago to just never even look. Don't go there.

Those few of you who know me from times gone by know that I've been advocating a special place for AS parents, but Alex's response has ALWAYS been "but there's already a parent's forum", and it has been useless explaining to him why it's not the right place for AS parents. He's just a kid - he'll only understand when he's a parent himself. But as he's on his own website looking for a girl in "Aspie Affection", we can assume that'll be a long time coming

Schooling was horrible for me and my kids and it's a huge relief to be done of it. All four of us will be in college this fall (me doing my last year of grad school, MS doing prerequisites to get into a master's program, and both of my kids freshmen) which I'm really excited about.

I thought about homeschooling and would have done it but because I was a single parent who never got a penny in child support, I had to work. I put myself through nursing school while working two jobs and raising two young ones. It was tough, and when I feel crap about my life I think back and realize there've been times I did an okay job despite tough circumstances.

Tonight was bad in our house, though. We were robbed a few weeks ago, and today when I got home from work I noticed that someone had stolen two orchids from a pot in our front yard. I was righteously pissed. I mean, come on, taking someone's plants So my daughter made a comment about how we're not living in the best neighborhood and MS got pissed off at her for being negative and they started arguing and it ended with MS calling C a "b***h" and her calling him a name and then he went stalking off to the beach. I had to deal with C being very upset and feeling like she needs to move out because she just doesn't like MS...plus my displeasure with MS getting upset and calling her a name. She told me she wished it was just the two of us living together, not knowing what she should do about continuing to live with him and me. The two of us did a jigsaw puzzle together so that was good, got us both calmed down. But neither of us is talking to MS. I don't know - he may decide he's fed up with me and her at some point, but I'm not too stressed about that. I make more than twice as much money as he does, so I doubt he'd leave. But I have no control over their relationship, and I really don't need any more stress in my life right now. I just want everybody to get along.
Okay, I'm done ranting.