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Joe90
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24 Nov 2018, 5:11 pm

Arganger wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
Why are NT kids harder to raise?


For me personally, because a lot of NT behavior is hard to wrap my head around, and autistic kids make more sense to me and tend to be in many ways more mature than their peers.

Also, NT kids seem to be more prone to dumb pre-teen to teenage phases.


Whatever neurology your kid is, nobody knows what they will be like as teenagers. You can't pick your teenager's friends for them, and even teenagers on the spectrum can turn to drugs or behave like a lout to help them cope or fit in or to overcome bullying.

It's just nice to see your baby reach all his or her milestones, rather than having neurological delays that make you concerned and have to send them to doctors or child psychologists to see what is "wrong", then having the stress of sending them to a special school or not (it's not always that simple), or sending them to mainstream school and constantly worrying whether they will be bullied for being different, and what sort of help will they receive and will they make friends or not, will they have challenging behaviour at school and at home, etc etc etc.
Having NT kids means normality, if you are a decent enough parent of course. If bringing up autistic children is so easy then try looking on the Parents discussion here - there are always rather unique and challenging problems they have with their ASD children what they are crying out for help about. If NT kids display challenging behaviour when they're little, it can be fixed easier with parenting tips. But some behaviours from children with autism or ADHD or Downs or any other disabilities like that can be tougher to fix and the child can be more challenging to teach right from wrong, simply because they have this syndrome or disorder or disability that affects their brain and won't always respond to the regular techniques parents use on NT children.

Take punishment for example. You ground an NT kid, so he can't play out with his friends for a week. The kid may not like it, but you feel it's the right thing to do as a parent. But your autistic kid does something that deserves punishment, what do you do? You can't ground them because they might not have any friends anyway. You can't take away their special interest (for example, videogames) because that will lead to a meltdown that won't end until they have it back. So you feel whatever you do is torture to the autistic child, so if they get mischievous how the hell do you show them the consequences without feeling like you're "torturing" them?
And with a child with AS, you may be able to treat them like an NT kid more, but there will still be challenges bringing them up too. A lot of kids with AS or HFA crave for friends, and the more they crave the more it seems to push other kids away and the more isolated they can feel, and social isolation can emotionally damage a person. I went through it when I got to about 12-13. I played my mum up at home because I was suffering from social isolation. She was tearing her hair out not knowing what to do with me. She phoned child support services to see what they can do to get me a friend, but they just sent me to a youth club for teenagers with disabilities, but I couldn't get on with it because they were more severe than me. I just wanted friends at school but instead I was excluded and bullied. I hated myself, used to hit myself, bunked off school, and even tried to get involved with older men who wanted sex (basically paedophiles), because I so badly wanted attention and to be a normal teenager, and I thought that going about with older men would protect me and make other girls envy me (of course I was still a child so didn't understand that it was a crime on the older men's part). All I needed was a group of friends from school to hang about with, to talk to, to spend weekends with, to do homework with, to share teen problems with, to gain independence with like go shopping, and to have sleepovers and other stuff normal teenagers do. But instead I was an unhappy loner, and I used to cry alone in my room and wish I was dead, and my mum used to worry and feel that it was her fault, and she'd feel as isolated as I did.

Now do you really think having autistic/AS children is that fantastic?


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Arganger
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25 Nov 2018, 10:17 am

Joe90 wrote:
Arganger wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
Why are NT kids harder to raise?


For me personally, because a lot of NT behavior is hard to wrap my head around, and autistic kids make more sense to me and tend to be in many ways more mature than their peers.

Also, NT kids seem to be more prone to dumb pre-teen to teenage phases.


Whatever neurology your kid is, nobody knows what they will be like as teenagers. You can't pick your teenager's friends for them, and even teenagers on the spectrum can turn to drugs or behave like a lout to help them cope or fit in or to overcome bullying.

It's just nice to see your baby reach all his or her milestones, rather than having neurological delays that make you concerned and have to send them to doctors or child psychologists to see what is "wrong", then having the stress of sending them to a special school or not (it's not always that simple), or sending them to mainstream school and constantly worrying whether they will be bullied for being different, and what sort of help will they receive and will they make friends or not, will they have challenging behaviour at school and at home, etc etc etc.
Having NT kids means normality, if you are a decent enough parent of course. If bringing up autistic children is so easy then try looking on the Parents discussion here - there are always rather unique and challenging problems they have with their ASD children what they are crying out for help about. If NT kids display challenging behaviour when they're little, it can be fixed easier with parenting tips. But some behaviours from children with autism or ADHD or Downs or any other disabilities like that can be tougher to fix and the child can be more challenging to teach right from wrong, simply because they have this syndrome or disorder or disability that affects their brain and won't always respond to the regular techniques parents use on NT children.

Take punishment for example. You ground an NT kid, so he can't play out with his friends for a week. The kid may not like it, but you feel it's the right thing to do as a parent. But your autistic kid does something that deserves punishment, what do you do? You can't ground them because they might not have any friends anyway. You can't take away their special interest (for example, videogames) because that will lead to a meltdown that won't end until they have it back. So you feel whatever you do is torture to the autistic child, so if they get mischievous how the hell do you show them the consequences without feeling like you're "torturing" them?
And with a child with AS, you may be able to treat them like an NT kid more, but there will still be challenges bringing them up too. A lot of kids with AS or HFA crave for friends, and the more they crave the more it seems to push other kids away and the more isolated they can feel, and social isolation can emotionally damage a person. I went through it when I got to about 12-13. I played my mum up at home because I was suffering from social isolation. She was tearing her hair out not knowing what to do with me. She phoned child support services to see what they can do to get me a friend, but they just sent me to a youth club for teenagers with disabilities, but I couldn't get on with it because they were more severe than me. I just wanted friends at school but instead I was excluded and bullied. I hated myself, used to hit myself, bunked off school, and even tried to get involved with older men who wanted sex (basically paedophiles), because I so badly wanted attention and to be a normal teenager, and I thought that going about with older men would protect me and make other girls envy me (of course I was still a child so didn't understand that it was a crime on the older men's part). All I needed was a group of friends from school to hang about with, to talk to, to spend weekends with, to do homework with, to share teen problems with, to gain independence with like go shopping, and to have sleepovers and other stuff normal teenagers do. But instead I was an unhappy loner, and I used to cry alone in my room and wish I was dead, and my mum used to worry and feel that it was her fault, and she'd feel as isolated as I did.

Now do you really think having autistic/AS children is that fantastic?


For me, yes. Because I have lived with the as experience, I know what it is like, I even had a potty training delay and motor delays, and bad sensory issues. I'm not scared of those things.

Even with a NT kiddo I'm not going to use traditional parenting because I remember what it was like for me until my parents realized it wasn't working.

I'll likely use The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children as a model for my parenting.

Throughout my life I have had many experiences best suited to being applied to parenting autistic and ODD kids. And of those, I know the ODD was harder on my mother.

An autistic child doesn't HAVE to grow up alone, and doesn't HAVE to grow up misunderstood.


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Diagnosed autistic level 2, ODD, anxiety, dyspraxic, essential tremors, depression (Doubted), CAPD, hyper mobility syndrome
Suspected; PTSD (Treated, as my counselor did notice), possible PCOS, PMDD, Learning disabilities (Sure of it, unknown what they are), possibly something wrong with immune system (Sick about as much as I'm not) Possible EDS- hyper mobility type (Will be getting tested, suggested by doctor) dysautonomia


IstominFan
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25 Nov 2018, 10:23 am

I sadly had to give up on the prospect of ever having children when it became obvious nobody even wanted me. I was too weird and different from day one in school. The painful decision was made for me in my 20s, because I had things I wouldn't want a child to have. I thought I had a lot of love and understanding to give and might have made a good mother if I had been a more normal adult woman.



clay5
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25 Nov 2018, 4:03 pm

that's why I'm never going to have a baby. I won't even take the risk.



IstominFan
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25 Nov 2018, 8:30 pm

Even though I never had children of my own, all may not be lost. I am seriously thinking I would like to help children with disabilities or those who feel different in any way. That is the path I would have chosen in school had I been able to do more for myself at a younger age.