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Maybe she declaws her cats, too and thinks that removing body parts is how to solve behavior problems.

Where do you see this? I see one person wholly disagreeing, and making it clear, but I see more people agreeing with her than not.

I feel sorry for the child.

According to grandmaC it was just a lighthearted family joke.

Pliers? Drugs? What is so bad about raising an autistic child that you resort to that? No child should EVER be threatened by their parent, it's just not right! A spanking for biting, followed by a time out in their room, maybe even going to bed a little hungry, those are appropriate punishments. It leaves a lasting impression, without scaring the child for life. Threatening to yank teeth is criminal! Drugs should be left for only the severely mentally -disturbed- children.

I've always believed that autism is being overdiagnosed. It's a disoreder that's being used to explain a wide range of behaviors, and opens the door for abuse like this. "Oh my autistic child is impossible to control, this is the only way to keep the other kids from being hurt!" Those kinds of excuses just don't work when your child is an 'NT'.

I read the thread and I didn't see anyone agreeing with Sammy. That's my point about bringing other forum fights into WP and actually speculating about what kind of abuse they heap on their kids. I think it's stooping. Now we're arguing about people we don't even know. For one, Zarathustra's link goes to the 2nd page of a thread in which I had to search for the quote, which is taken out of its original context. Are there worse people to worry about? Now Zarathustra is starting threads about people that, as far as I know, don't even post here but on the blogosphere.

I know from experience as a parent of an autistic child, that when I first heard the word, "autistic", I read and joined lists on whatever I could find. I don't doubt there are newbie parents there that don't share "Sammy's" point of view and are just there at a highly visible site to learn more about autism. I didn't hear of neurodiversity until about a year and half ago. I just don't think it's fair to attack a broad group and accuse them all of abusing their kids and pets. Representatives of Autism Speaks itself, who have gone on record? Sure. People who agree with Autism Speaks' video? Yep.

I didn't really explain why i was so uptight about it. I can understand a stressed-out parent losing it and taking extreme measures in the heat of the moment, but this woman, on reflection, thought her actions were OK and justified. I was a difficult, mute and destructive infant whose father had the same attitude to behavoir modification. And what did it do for me? Well, check out my "hating autism" thread... Looks like I learnt the lesson, doesn't it?

When so many "cure" parents think that autism stole their child and that their real child is trapped inside the autism. I think it causes some parents to hate the autistic behavior as not a part of their real child and it can lead to abuse.

I highly agree there. Pulling teeth will only cause more trouble, especially with the police, I have no idea why they aren't onto this woman. The child is going to stay like that for a LONG time (Cure Autism RIGHT NOW?! Yeah right), and the child isn't being ruined by Autism.

Considering that Autism and AS are genetic, look at the two likely scenarios that would have happened to cause this:

A) YOU are the one who carries the Autism genes
B) Your HUSBAND is the one who carries the Autism genes
bii) A relative of your or your husbands has the Autism genes.

In any case, you can hardly blame fate for sticking it to your child and then blaming the child or fate. Autism is a dominant gene by the looks of things, so it doesn't do a lot of hiding, and therefore you MUST have noticed SOMETHING in either you or your partner. Suck on that.

If I had such a selfish, evil mom I'd probably want to bite her, too.

Believe it or not, I read an article somewhere (sorry that I can't link it, because I don't remember where I read it) that a mother got the courts permission to have all of her ASD child's teeth removed. While it's slightly more human to go to a dentist, it's still really wrong.

I have a profoundly autistic child. He does bite me. I have scars where he's bitten me. Behavior is communication to those without verbal ability. When he bites, I know that something in his environment is not agreeing with him. It's my job as his mother to figure out what upset him so badly that he had a meltdown, and lashed out. Sometimes, it's not something that I can help, ie: he doesn't want to be at the doctor's office. I then have to figure out how to make this situation as comfortable as possible for him. Some of these parents don't want to do that. They'd rather blame the child, and exempt themselves from the responsibility. Of course my son does get a very small time out when he bites, because I can't let him go around biting people whenever he gets mad.

Like I said in my previous post, I won't be reading the thread that this thread is based on, because I just can't stomach it. The Autism Speaks Autism Everyday video was one of the first things that I came across when I found out that my boys have autism. I cried for days. Not because I viewed them the way that the mothers in the video viewed their children, but because I thought that's how society viewed them.

I'd like to steal her child and adopt him, or her.