Did you get standard or personalized relating at home?

Post Reply New Topic

When you were a child, did your parents have a standard about what a child needs and treated you according to it, or did they relate to you according to your unique traits?

Eg: My parents always complained of being overworked, so they had a standard way of fulfilling our needs, whether our needs were those or different ones from those. There were no resources (energy, money, time) and therefore no room for individualized attention to needs. Therefore, to give a couple examples, if I couldn't stand the sound of the vacuum cleaner, I was told to shut up and not make a fuss about it, as it's done with any other kid. My difficulties relating in the outside world were left for me to solve, as any other kid would've been able to solve them alone. When it became obvious I was a special child with special strengths and weaknesses, I was beaten and yelled at and punished in hopes that'd keep my "differentness" in check enough that they could continue treating me like a standard child.

If my question is not clear, please let me know. I'm adding a poll for those who don't feel like writing but do want to voice their personal experience.

Not exactly. It was more of a game of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose.
If a standard treatment would have been to my advantage, then I was an individual.
If a standard treatment would have been to my disadvantage, then that was the way to go. Unacceptable people don't deserve any better. I always blamed it on being the "neglected middle child." I can see now that it wasn't the case, but it was the only way I had of making sense of it all.

I don't really know on that one, as the childhood I had from the very early years was very much different from the way fom my siblings were treated. It was not very nice to be treated as though you have AIDS or cancer and be put into a special needs system and pushed around in there and and by 1977 I noever knew whether I was coming or going there was an atmosphere of what is now called aspiphobia. Even if people did not know that I had Asperger syndrome. My mum and dad had no wishes for me like they did for my 2 brothers and sister. My dad always throwing his weight around beatng me for something or another my mum yelling at me and don't look at me like that. The sort of stupidity which can make an Aspie hate neurotypicals. I don't think that I had a very good childhood at all.

I would have said standard, but I know that when Mom passed, we 4 kids sat together and remembered - and guess what, we each had a different Mom. The same mother, but she became a different Mom to each of us according to our needs. Moms are geniuses that way, I think.

I too always blamed their choice of me as a scapegoat on being the middle child, till I discovered AS.

sorry, wrong thread.

Last edited by Greentea on 31 Aug 2009, 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was so clueless.

My BA was in special ed, back in the stone age. (1983 or so?) We had a course called "Learning Disabilities," which the teacher said was a very new and "a very mushy science." We were told to expect everything in the field to be constantly changing. Among other things, she mentioned a phrase that was common in the informal, teacher's room talk: When a kid had problems that no one could name, they tested for everything they knew and, when they ran out of tests and ideas, they just shrugged and declared the kid "FLK," or "funny-looking-kid."

Even then, it didn't enter my mind that she was talking about me.

My ego was pretty much bullet proof for most of my life. I knew that I was fine, and that the rest of the world was crazy. It's only been in the past few years that it's finally catching up with me. Finally sinking in. I'm totally trapped with no options. Gad, I hate this world.

====================

I only remember one time when I got pissed off enough to complain about the blatant favoritism.
I had been begging for a guinea pig for years, and the answer was always "no." I don't remember the specific excuses. Then one day, my little sister wanted a bird and, within minutes, she had a bird. It was so blatant that I couldn't let it go. I did get the pig, but... (it's hard to describe the feeling.)

Other than that, I always had the attitude of, "Why deprive her?" She didn't do anything wrong.
If I complained enough, they would take whatever it was away from her, and they still wouldn't give it to me. Now that I think of it -- if anything, I benefited from a trickle-down effect. (Or trickle-up?) She was a nice person and was always happy to share. It wasn't about a lack of resources or competition. It was about me being an unacceptable, undeserving person.

Sorry for the random stream. It makes sense to me, but explaining how it's all connected would take a book.

Last edited by Tahitiii on 31 Aug 2009, 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

I got individualized, which I think is the best way to go. It was a juggling act for my parents, given multiple kids, but still do-able. They weren't saints (neither am I) and still got exasperated at how much their kids managed to deviate from their pre-kid pre-conceptions, but they still apparently held "individualized" as a goal that they should shoot for even if they only sometimes reached it.

I think a lot of people before they have kids have some sort of idea of what they think their kids will be like. I did too, as did my husband, as did our respective parents. It is an act of will to shake those ideas off and raise the child you have rather than the child you imagine. It seems to me the difference is that some parents have "individualized" as a goal that they sometimes fall short of because it's easy to fall back on pre-conceptions and scripted responses when you are frazzled. Individualizing takes a lot of energy, much of it mental energy which would be in short supply if your parents were overworked and overstressed. Other parents have "standardized" as a goal which they and their kids fall short of and spend their entire relationship with their children trying to jam them into the preconceived categories. The categories might be "sociable" or "academically talented" or "athletic" or "heterosexual". If the kid happens to fit the category then all goes well, more or less. But having a kid who fits all the preconceived categories that a parent has is more due to coincidence than parenting.

what Janissy said.

"DON'T MOURN FOR US," by Jim Sinclair
http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html

Tahitii

I'm curious about what happened next. If the child couldn't be given a label, which presumably came with a teaching strategy attached, what did they recommend you do?

Nothing.

Oh. Wow. Yikes. I must now give thanks for my daughter's teachers who are taking the "spaghetti on the wall" approach to teaching her. That's the one where you throw a bunch of stuff out there and see what sticks and what falls away. Was this before the invention of IEPs? IEPs seem to foster a more persistent approach on the part of teachers rather than an "I give up because I don't get this kid" approach.

Nope.
IEPs became federal law around 1975. Earlier in some states.
But they understood actual, academic learning disabilities. Sort-of.

From what I gather, a lot of 'em still use the "I give up because I don't get this kid" approach. And a lot of others probably should.

Last edited by Tahitiii on 31 Aug 2009, 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Janissy, I totally disagree with you.

If there's someone who is a saint, it's YOU. I've said it before.

Aspiewordsmith, I can identify with what you say.

thanks, you are sweet