Dos and Don'ts, what worked for you as a kid and what didn't

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Every opinion counts! No matter how weird or wacky.

If you could have spoken up and had people listen to you when you were a kid, what would you have told them ??

a) what did you want people to do more of
b) what did you want people not to do anymore

I'm writing a list of 'Dos and Don'ts' for parents and carers, so the more specifics the better!! !!
Thank you for all contributions and suggestions.

The only thing I wanted as a kid was for teachers to stop trying to force me into being social. I had as much contact with peers as I wanted, and that was hard for them to understand. So my rule for them would be to respect a different boundary than theirs, and let the kid in question have the childhood they want.
It's okay to be different and have a different life. Conforming does not constitute happiness.

Also, trying to push gender norms on me has only made me mentally allergic to them. Let people be individuals and be who they are play how they want as long as they're not endangering anyone else.

Dismissing my reactions only led to resentment.

What worked for me? Much the same as now: Be met with understanding. Validating my feelings as legit, even if they are feelings I can't/shouldn't act on. Again, I do not mean that kids should be allowed to do anything they want, but the feelings behind it should be understood and validated. For me at least, that made me far more willing to listen to the rest they had to say.

Explain thoroughly if there is an issue.

That's all I can think of right now.

I wish I knew more about ADHD when I was a kid, because when I struggled to pay attention, the teachers got angry with me and punished me. I don't know why they couldn't have just figured out that I just found it hard to pay attention in class, instead they thought I was intentionally not doing my work.

- Like Skilpadde, I didn't want people to force me into being social.
- I wanted (and still want) people to be understanding of my meltdowns and not get mad at me for them.
- I didn't want to be treated differently from other kids - to be in a different reading group or anything.
- I just wanted to be left alone to pursue my interests.

Getting lectured and yelled at for going on about my special interests didn't help.

Being constantly reminded of my physical gender defiantly didn't help. Thank god I can identify as my preferred gender now.

Having the threat or actually having my favourite things taken away has never helped and it still doesn't. It just causes me a lot of anxiety and than I have a hard time sleeping.

Being belittled by my mum for crying didn't work and it still doesn't.

Being called on to help people helps, especially if it involves heavy lifting.

Being valued for my intelligence helps.

As a kid, all the rules had to be enforced on everyone around me, no special rules, no exceptions, something couldn't be be okay for other kids but not for me. Trying to enforce rules on me only but not on the other kids didn't work, that just got me frustrated and made me fight more and it didn't break me. I don't think it's right to enforce rules only on the special ed kids and not enforce them on "normal" kids. I hated that as a child and all it did was it made it harder for me to listen and follow rules. I honestly felt like a black person being segregated because I was Beth. Instead of skin color, it was because I was me so I was fighting it like how black people fought back in the days like what Rosa Parks did. I wouldn't stop until I got what I wanted just like how black people wouldn't stop until they got what they wanted. I was basically protesting. My mother did agree with me this is all unfair what they do with special ed kids. Even my therapist agreed it was all unfair and said this was not a me problem, this was a school problem, a problem with their system. Well I finally got someone to listen which took me two years.


I wish people really explained every reason behind the rules for me because as a child I just thought the adults made rules for control and they enjoyed punishing kids to make them suffer and I also thought they punished you to get back at you because you had made them mad. Pus if a punishment didn't fit the crime, I just thought it was revenge the adult was doing. So it taught me to be controlling and seek out revenge on my brothers because I also wanted control so whenever they made me mad, I would look for a way to punish them to get back at them and I would do the same to my parents too. I even impregnated our female cat because I was mad at them about something so I punished them with kittens by putting a male cat in our garage with our female cat.

Beware of empty threats, while they may have worked with me because I would take them so seriously, it sure backfired a few times. My mom used to pretend she was tossing our toys out whenever she would be sweeping so us children would be rushing around picking up our stuff. I decided I wanted to break my family into keep stuff put away and staying clean so I started to toss stuff out that was out of place. I actually thought my mom would have tossed out stuff out for not picking it up and I was actually doing it so my parents always had to dig in the trash. I did this for years until high school. No matter how much they got mad at me and telling me I was out of control, I thought they were the ones who were out of control being pigs and slobs so I was trying to break them like how mom broke me. But I was never giving up. Oh and pretending to leave your kid on the side of the road, if they are aware of hitch hiking, they know that option. I couldn't understand the anger my mom had for me when I waved bye to her and she ordered me to get back in the car so I figured she changed her mind but couldn't understand why she was so angry about it.


Taking away my obsessions/interests also didn't make my obsessions go away, they just stayed inside my head. You can't stop an obsession or interest whatever you want to call it.


Getting mad at me for my anxiety only makes it worse, it doesn't make it go away or my feelings. They just get worse because I get more anxiety from you getting mad at me.

When teaching me to apologize when I was a child, I wished apologies were explained to me and I wished I was told why I was apologizing because lot of times it was only a word that adults sometimes wanted you to say. Then I figured out sorry was something you say when you do something on accident or when you get someone mad at you or when they don't like something you did. But I didn't understand how can one not be sorry after saying it. I was an adult when I learned the real meaning of apologies so all the apologies I had been doing over the years might have been fake apologies because no one ever really taught me and they had just assumed and I had assumed I understood. To this day I still have a hard time with apologies because I have no idea if mine are genuine or fake and I don't really know what a fake apology is. I only know of apologies for amends but I don't know if they are real or not. So I guess it's up for others to decide if mine are genuine or not.

I sometimes wished I got in trouble less because all it did was it taught me to lie about stuff I did to avoid punishments. To me if I was honest about it, I would still be in trouble so what was the point in telling the truth if you will be punished anyway so I always denied denied. Plus I would get anxiety and to this day I fear making mistakes because I don't want to suffer any consequences and get punished for it. I can remember trying to cover my tracks as a child due to anxiety about being in trouble. Plus I didn't like being yelled at so more anxiety there. I wish someone had perhaps explained to me as a child about if you are honest, you get a less severe consequence and I wished I had known the real reason why I was in trouble was for lying about it and telling me the punishment would have been less if I had told the truth. So I would have known then telling the truth gets you into less trouble and give you a less severe consequence. I was an adult when I realized all this and telling the truth keeps you out of trouble is not meant to be taken literal. So if you want to teach someone like me to be honest, be clear and specific with them and do not tell them that telling the truth what they do wrong keeps them out of trouble or otherwise they will interpret that as they can do anything they want just as long as they say they did it and there won't be any consequences. Have them know there will still be a consequence but it won't be as bad just as long as they are honest about it. And sometimes mistakes happen so if they tell the truth, they might not be in trouble at all depending on what it is. Also if they are dishonest so you punish them for it, make sure to tell them they are in trouble for lying about it so they know and let them know what their consequence would have been instead of they had not lied.


I also wish my feelings were validated when I was a child than being told to stop crying like a two year old or telling me to stop or giving me excuses for other kids behavior like "He is only two" and getting mad at me for getting upset. All that did was teach me feeling are wrong, I am to hold them in and not express them. I was an adult when I was told for the first time everyone was entitled to their feelings and feelings are not wrong. This was so alien because my whole life I had always been treated as my feelings are wrong. Also being told how this girl in my high school did not insult me so that was invalidating my feelings. So it taught me feelings are wrong if it was no the other person's intention or if you read them wrong. I even wonder if this is why my feelings are all screwed up. My therapist I saw in high school said it was just a coincidence.

Telling me in third grade that they are just second graders when I would tell my mother how they make fun of me for how I talked just told me it was okay for them to do that so I had to toughen up and deal with it because it's okay for them to do it. All that did was give me social anxiety whenever I had to be neat those kids because I always thought they were going to be mean to me again and I would even be afraid to talk around them thinking they will laugh at me and make fun of me. I did not feel safe around them unless my mom was there. She even had to come to my school after school to work with me on culture fair because there were kids there who were once mean to me and I would have hidden and cried due to anxiety thinking they are going to watch me and make fun of me. So never give other kids excuses for how they treat us.

What I wished for in middle school, before giving me a "play mate" I wished I was consulted about it and asked about it instead of just having these high school kids come to the resource room and work with me putting letters together or coloring pictures for head start and then putting on craft sticks for little kids to use for their eyes when doing a eye test and making me think I was getting along with these kids and were friends with them without knowing this was all a set up. When I found out, I was upset because I then felt this was all fake and those girls were not my real friends and they were only doing it just because and all of it felt fake like the social interactions and stuff when I found out.

I wished my middle school didn't exclude me from school activities. They did it by not telling me about them like the spelling bee and stuff because they assumed I wouldn't want to do it so why tell me. I just felt worse.

In high school I just wish they let me explore my choices instead of trying to set limitations for me by saying I can't do this or that because of this and that. I had to fight to take drama because they thought it would be too much for me to handle. They were also trying to tell me what job I should have and not have. All it did was it made me anxious talking about career choices and having a harder time deciding what to do. So don't use any diagnoses to limit someone's elective choices or career.

One thing that NEVER worked was trying to "take" my special interests/obsessions away from me. I was homeschooled since the fifth grade but my mother was against incorporating my special interests/obsessions into the lesson plans because "it wasn't going to be like that when I went to college" (my mother didn't even think I would be able to go to college) and she eventually gave up homeschooling me. Telling me that if I wanted an education, I would have to get it myself....but I was never told where or how to. I also wasn't allowed to learn to drive and we lived in a VERY rural area with no public transit systems. I was also told it was my fault my mother stopped working with me. She refused to look into homeschooling autistic kids and pushed me to the point I would have a meltdown...then punish me for the meltdown.

Wow, I'm not sure where to start! I've just got the lids to sleep, and can finally go back online..though nervous as there's just been another quite big earthquake here (Italy).

Your answers are just brilliant!! I'm going to need to answer them oneby one, which i'll do next. Sorry about puncuation, i'm hopeless on the ipad but i'm not leaving the kids alone sleeping if there are earthquakes about

Magic Meerkat, this one's on my list already, thanks for confirming it's an issue
I'm already teaching my son to drive, on our track. He's 7. But I may get into trouble if I put that down as a 'Do' ...sitting on my knee, i should add, before you guys report me ! !

League Girl, all such useful information, thank you!!

Empty threats.. well, I think that threats are a bad idea to start with, empty or not. There are a lot better ways to get collaboration and consideration, such as a mutual feeling of respect, love, and being in this (living) together. Actually with my son who's autistic, I have to take care not to take advantage of his empathy - he'd help and support me TOO MUCH, whenever i show vulnerability, and i want to see him enjoy a happy, carefree childhood!

Being treated differently from other kids, according to different rules. I'll have to think about that one and how to word it. Thanks for that!

Illogical punishments, adults' revenge. Hard that one, as on my list I actually have 'do not use punishment'. I'm afraid i go even further and add that also using rewards (see ABA and so on..) is coercive, disrespectful and in the long run counter- productive, assuming what you want the child to achieve is autonomy, self-esteem, self-motivation and the power of decision-making. If you want them to simply be obedient it can be quite effective, short-term.

On my Do list, is included enabling your child to follow up on their special interests. Very important, i agree.

yes,about valdating feelings. I reckon it has to come out sometime, somehow! it's so important to understand that feelings ALWAYS come from something, they are never without cause.. as for censuring or punishing a child for showing feelings, that sounds to me like heading for trouble someday..

About apologies, this is very interesting. I already wrote, not to force a child to say sorry ( what's the point? the only sure way to bring someone up who knows about really feeling sorry, and even more importantly, making amends, is ome who's seen it modelled by their parents and others around), and in additon to that I put to try not to lie or give mixed messages, be open about what's happening or if you feel stressed, tired etc (without blaming anyone). This gives those around the chance to help if they can, wihoit being confusing or manipulative.

Does this sound like i more or less got your points?

Cockney rebel, thank you! good points indeed.

I already put down never to get rid of treasured possessions, or indeed anything (including clothes with holes in) without asking first. Can't believe parents do this, they'd be well served if their kids went through their CD collection doing the same

Great to the helping, yes I agree. In fact even young kids really get a lot out of being actively involved in doing REAL tasks, not to mention that parents get a lot out of being helped

Threatening, belittling.. Oh no! For crying!? more of you have said that, as it makes me cry to think of it I guess you can imagine my thinking on that one.

Yes to the being valued for one's intelligence too. Being respected and valued is so very important.

TheAP, not being treated differently and being left alone to pursue interests, yes!great

about the meltdowns, I think this is such an important thing for parents to understand. Censuring the anger of your child looks to me like the high road to disaster, frankly. But i know that many find it so hard not to respond to anger with anger, or at least strong disapproval, and in our culture we like to assume that children, even very small ones, are being manipulative when they break down. The stronger the emotions, the tighter we have to screw down the lid, right?

So assuming anger isn't just a ruse to manipulate your parents.. into buying you an icecream or whatever, perhaps it comes from hurt, pain, overwhelm, feelings of powerlessness, etc.. What i'd like to say to parents is, please stop for a minute just trying to manipulate the outward behaviour, and look deeper for reasons. There you might just find some solutions

Thank you, Skilpadde. yes, i agree to all, i see the importance of all this.. and you and Cockney Rebel have also alerted me to the gender norms, which i will add.

Being forced to be social, yes, this is really an issue. When my son was having trouble at school, i tried to get him allowed to stay in by himself at breaktime, which was what he wanted. Of course this was not allowed. He was terrified, and I now know he was being bullied.. i had suspected it but the teacher not only denied it, she turned to my son and said 'is anyone being mean to you, dear?', and he sucked his lip till i thought it might come off (his tic) and looking utterly terrified, stared at the ground and shook his head vehemently. Then she told me that she had tried to 'help' him in the playground by going up to him and saying 'why don't you go and play with the other children?' (probably giving him a nudge in that direction). The ones who were tormenting him. Sorry, i've lost the subject a little, haven't i?

Anyway, yes. Conformism, and socialising. Major issues, for sure.

Understanding, and validating feelings. Well, if you do this as a parent, you may well find there is a lot less 'behaviour' to deal with! It's so ironic that the very methods we employ, make those methods seem necessary

ADHD, paying attention.. yes, good point. I should add this, and perhaps also about forgetting things. I used to get a lot of grief for forgetting things, but if people got angry with me about it or let me suffer 'consequences', i got so stressed i'd practically forget my own name!
I suppose about paying attention, it depends on the teacher. Since i was shy and well-behaved generally, instead of being punished for not attending, my hearing was regularly tested. Of course it was absolutely fine

Hello, katy_rome! I hope you're alright after those earthquakes.
I thought of something else, so I may as well post it on your thread:
Even if you are uncomfortable or upset about your child's diagnosis of ASD (or suspected ASD), don't refuse to discuss the subject. It is important that their challenges are addressed in a neutral way, and refusal to talk on the subject reinforces the idea that the child is alone in their struggles, and that having ASD is a terrible thing.

I also wish my parents had told me about my diagnosis right after I got diagnosed, instead of me finding out on my own.