NT Parents

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I realize that being a parent isn't easy, and being an NT parent to someone with AS can be just as difficult as someone with AS having an NT parent. I also realize there are some really great parents out there, and even if it's misplaced, most parents do their best to act in their child's best interest.

But there are some things that really annoy/bother me that some NT parents do to their children with AS, and having to endure similar things myself as a child, I'd like to share them so that parents might stop doing them.

In no particular order...

1. Making picture videos of your children with AS on youtube, putting them to cheesy music and telling everyone how "special" they are and how they are AS angels. Most people don't like others to see their baby photos let alone anything like this. Honestly it's patronizing. If you insist on making such videos, at least set them to private.

2. Fretting that your child has weird interests.
Unless the interests are something of a violent, sexual, or physically harmful nature, then what is the problem if your kid likes going to the appliance shop because they have an interest in kitchen appliances?

Why are you so insecure? Why is it such a horrible thing your child has found something that makes them happy? How would you like it if you had a benign hobby or interest you really liked and you parents prevented you from it only because they thought it was "weird" or they worried what others would think? How would it make you feel that you parents did not accept such a basic component of yourself?

Would you prefer your child be interested in violent games, sexually explicit music videos, drugs and all the "normal" things children become interested in in their teens?

3. Not listening to your children.
Children are very direct. A child with AS will tell you when something is too much for them to handle. At least 50% of melt downs are caused when the parent does not heed this because of an underlying mentality that if the child can express it verbally as opposed to hitting themselves or banging their head on the floor, then it must mean the situation is not as dire as they say it is, and they can be reasoned with, or the parent just totally disregards their children because of the parents own stubborn black and white thinking.

I cannot tell you how many times I insisted verbally to people who asked why I would not go to school, that I could not go to school because it was too stressful. In response to this, adults would say things which made me realize two things...
a) They didn't really understand. (ie. by saying "Well work is stressful to me but I still go")
b) They really did not have my best interest in mind. Their only goal was to get me to go to school because it was the law.

I may have well have said nothing, because every time I answered their questions of why I wouldn't do whatever, I was completely disregarded. They forced me to go to school and I became so stressed I would just cry for hours on end when I got home and eventually developed a severe case of stress related hives and my immune system became so weak that I developed pneumonia and almost died.

4. Underestimating your children.
Children with AS are often considered to be emotionally delayed in development because of melt downs and a tendency to cling to early childhood interests, however most of the melt downs are not due to emotional development delays, but to the fact that the AS child in the NT world is exposed to far more stressors than NT individuals, and have far more pressure on them to act in a way which is alien to them. Even if your 12 year old child had melt downs and carries around a Big Bird doll, they may actually be intellectually superior to others their age, and may also have a better sense of judgment on many life issues.
Keep in mind, since AS is largely a communication disorder, you do not know your child anywhere as near as you think you do because they are not effective in communicating the full extent of their abilities and you as an NT are not able to fully grasp how people with AS work.

As a result, many of you treat your children in a manner which actually delays their development, by over-coddling and not giving them the independence they need to develop certain coping skills and reach higher maturity levels.

You'd be surprised but a lot of behavioral problems in older children with AS can be solved by you backing off and giving them their space.

I'm glad my parents had mid life crises because they finally left me alone!


5. Medicating
Some children take medication for valid reasons. But others are medicated by parents and psychiatrists who are abusing the use of the medication to make their children act more NT and easier to do this.
Personally I think this is a form of child abuse and to those of you who do this, shame on you for not accepting your child for who they are, shame on you for not respecting them as human beings and putting chemicals in their body to change the way their brain functions because it doesn't function quite to your liking. Shame on you for subjecting your children to horrible side effects these medications have, like unusual weight gain, dry eyes and mouth which can be incredibly torturous to those with hypersensitivity, mood instability, emotional instability, depression, severe headaches, urinary incontinence, fatigue, insatible hunger, cognitive depression, anxiety, unpleasant sensations, nausea, tachycardia, nerve damage, and withdrawl to name just a few.

It is almost comparable to Rose Kennedy's lobotomy. Her family destroyed her by having her brains drilled out because they could not accept her as who she was as a human being.

You would be stupid to think these medications do not have permanent effects on the developing brain.

That's all I have to say.

Last edited by Chronos on 17 Jul 2010, 12:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

NT parent here, and I've read your points, all of which are valid to a strong degree.

It all comes back to this. NT parents read about the high percentage of AS people on this forum who are lonely. Much of the loneliness comes from not having people to do things with or not fitting in. Usually, an NT parent doesn't want to be a pain in the butt, we actually just want to see our AS child happy and in good relationships that are fruitful for them. This would include friends, work, or possibly a significant "other." If some of the AS behaviors' end results are loneliness, than of course as parents we will tend to discourage those behaviors. We may be totally misguided in those efforts, but that's the explanation. In a nutshell.

I'll add to this, some bits from a personal perspective, some more general:

Don't make your AS kid scared of you by hitting them when they're crying and saying 'I don't understand, I don't know what I did wrong.' Don't make them hide their fears, their meltdowns, their head-banging from you because they know you'll only beat them for doing it.

Don't assume that everyone except your child is telling the truth.

Don't make it clear you're frantically trying to have another child because the one you already have is broken.

Don't have a wall of photos of every family member - except your child. I know your child's awkward existence may be something you want to forget, but don't add public disregard to private indifference.

Don't tell your child that you frequently dream that you have another family with a blond-haired, blue eyed daughter who laughs a lot.

If your child spends every evening alone in their bedroom, let the thought cross your mind that it might be because they're too scared to come out.

On group occasions don't make it clear you're far happier chatting with any child except your own.

When you find out your child is AS, don't paint yourself to all your friends as the saintly, long-suffering parent who put up with more than anyone should have to. Don't use their AS to reinforce your superiority over them. Don't talk about curing them; you've made it clear already that everything is conditional on standards they have no hope of living up to.

Maybe accept that if they've left home at 18, fed, housed, clothed themselves, completed university and been financially stable ever since, perhaps they might have finally achieved enough for you to say you're proud of them?

And maybe ask your 15 year old daughter why she has large elastoplasts on both wrists, instead of ignoring it. Yes, she's easy to ignore because she doesn't know how to ask for what she needs. Stop pretending everything's fine, just because it makes your life easier to build a wall around your child, in addition to the one they're building around themselves.

Start working at it now, because your child only gets one childhood, and you can't go back and try again.

Yeah, you're so misguided its heartbreaking. YOU CANNOT CHANGE SOMEONE'S BRAIN CHEMISTRY BY FORCE. Being shoved into a room full of strangers doesn't teach us to get over our shyness, because WE ARE NOT SUFFERING FROM SHYNESS. We are suffering from neural processing deficiencies which make too much incoming stimuli overwhelming, thus appropriate reaction to it impossible.

You want to help an Autistic get past their inimical loneliness? Don't force them into social situations thinking its some sort of 'behavioral therapy', because its not - its torture. Introduce them to a few genuinely friendly, caring people, one at a time, and they'll find their own way.

I just spent about 45 minutes yesterday trying to get this across to an NT parent....

~Kate

Whoa. Where in whatever I wrote did it say that I'm trying to change someone's brain chemistry at all, let alone by FORCE??? When I said "totally misguided" in those efforts, I meant we may be trying to do something that won't work very well. Saying that we are "discouraging certain behaviors" doesn't mean we are forcing OTHER behaviors. I agree with almost all of Chronos [OP} points. Willard, I've read a lot of your posts and usually agreed with what you've had to say, and it has helped me in understanding my son's outlook. Try reading what I've written with a grain of salt without jumping down my throat based on assumptions you've made about my parenting and my son. You don't even know me or my son. With my son, I often have the OPPOSITE situation -- my son is often an extravert. Don't assume that I'm trying to force a change in my son's brain chemistry -- not every NT parent is trying to do that. If you would read again what I said, ALL MY PARAGRAPH SAID WAS THAT WE NT PARENTS SOMETIMES MAKE ATTEMPTS TO DISCOURAGE SOME BEHAVIORS BECAUSE WE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT LONELINESS IN OUR AS CHILDREN. That's all. Nothing sinister in that. I didn't say I'm forcing my son into a room full of strangers so that he will get over his shyness. Now, I have TRIED some things based on his interests, but as soon as I saw that he didn't like it/wasn't interested/has lost interest/whatever the activity was wasn't beneficial to him, we stopped. No questions asked.

So, you tell me. If you can believe at all that there are NT parents out there who actually LOVE their children, are trying to UNDERSTAND their children and NOT force them into some kind of social skills situations that said child doesn't want to be in -- if you can believe that as a premise, what would you have a parent do that would be beneficial for someone on the spectrum?

1. Leave them completely alone?
2. Never guide them in any way?

I hate to break it to you, but I actually LIKE my AS son. I have two of them. The NT daughter feels left out at times. With my youngest, I share his interests. I encourage his interests. I play video games with him. I don't force him to socialize EVER. I may suggest that he have someone over [because he often just forgets to think about it] and if he says no, then I forget about it. As far as certain neural processing difficulties that a person on the spectrum can't stand, you think I purposely SHOVE my son into a situation like that so that I can enjoy watching him suffer? Wow, you've obviously never been a parent. Usually, a parent does whatever they have to in order to avoid painful experiences for their children. Not every parent, but a good chunk of them. It may come as a shock to you, but I actually like to watch my child BE HAPPY. So no, I don't put him into a position where he's going to feel horrible, uncomfortable, abused, taken advantage of, or not understood. At this stage, he's 14 -- he makes his own choices. We consult him in everything, and don't override his decisions unless they are life-threatening to him.

An example of my kind of parenting: my son was going to a boating/waterskiing activity with the young men ages 14-18 at our chruch. It was HIS idea to go. I brought along his RipStick (for those who don't know, it's a whacky sort of skateboard) because I knew we would have down time waiting for all the boys to arrive, and the parking lot is nice and flat and a good space to skateboard. I brought the RipStick along because I know that my son can sometimes feel uncomfortable in a large group where it's all just talking and joking around. He's great at the RipStick, and he just never thinks of bringing this thing along for situations like this. We get there, and as boys arrive, he is RipSticking. It gives him something to do, he's excellent at it, and he can socialize when he wants to, and then when he's uncomfortable, he can just RipStick. It was also a conversation starter, and so a good chunk of the boys interacted in a very natural way with my son, and he showed some of them how to use the RipStick. A good time was had by all -- no FORCE, no MANIPULATION, no sinister act by an NT parent to make their kid on the spectrum uncomfortable. Oh, and by the way, he didn't try the waterskiing, and nobody made him try. He just swam in the river with the other guys. And that was perfectly fine with me.

I don't know what precipitated this whole thread for you. I'm sorry if certain situations have been difficult, and if someone has shoved you into situations that were painful. That should never happen. Have I made mistakes with my son? Sure. Are there things I've done that I wish that I hadn't. Yep. But remember -- this was my first child that I knew was on the spectrum (with the older son, I didn't know anything about Asperger's), and so I'm on a learning curve just like anyone is. Give us NT parents just the tiniest of a break. We are not all out to get you.

I agree. Quality over quantity. Much more productive in the long run, I say.

I agree with all of your points.

I agree with everything you said, Chronos, and I'm happy to report that my mom never did any of them.

What she did do was: explain to me in an adult fashion that the (majority of the) world works in a certain way, acknowledge that a lot of the time it sucks ( ) and show me (in small steps) how to learn to cope by pretending to be what "they" wanted while I was in public. (All this, mind you, before AS had a name.)

Granted, it took a long time--for years, going to school made me physically ill every morning--but I eventually learned how to navigate through the NT world. I knew that home would always be my "haven."

Any NT parents reading this: that is the most important thing--let your child know that home is always a safe place, no matter how "oddly" he/she seems to act, and treat him/her like the valued/valuable human being he/she is.

conundrum, thanks for your advice. I've been trying to phrase things this way to my son -- that he probably shouldn't do certain behaviors out in public, but he can do whatever he wants at home. Everybody does that to some degree -- we all do crazy stuff at home (singing in the shower is one example) that we would never do out in public.

I agree. My mother is overbearing and I can't take it sometimes. She had me on ritalin when I was three years old because I wasn't focusing on my speech therapy. 16 years later, I'm now pumped up on Adderall for ADHD and Celexa for depression. She could have let me attain a good attention span and focus on my own over the years, but no. I wasn't doing good enough for her. Now I have difficulty doing anything intricate when I'm not medicated.

You're welcome, and I applaud you. I think this would help many kids on the spectrum be more comfortable with themselves in the long run.

I sympathize.

Think she'd be willing to read this thread?

Hell no. If she had an account on here, she'd find a way to monitor what I post here too. She tries to control every little thing I do. I try explaining to her that I'm an addict to these pills now and she doesn't believe me. Not all addicts are like Lindsay Lohan. D:

That's why I love college, I am with people who understand me and don't care about my oddities. When I graduate next spring, I'll really miss it. I fear that I'll never see these people again and I'll be stuck at home forever. D:

Erisad,

Think that maybe you could find someone to live with after graduation--get an apartment with someone you get along with? Now would be the time to start thinking about it and asking around.

That may be a good idea. Although my mother wouldn't be very happy with it and may cut off all financial support. So until I get a job, I wouldn't be able to pay my part of the rent. I'm graduating next spring so my time's limited I guess. D:

My old roommate who graduated this year would be willing to move out of her house but she would probably rather live with her boyfriend without me being an awkward third wheel. :/