Why is everything about children?

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Every time I hear about autism the word children precedes it 99% of the time. "Children with autism", services for "children with autism"....rarely anything about the struggles adults face or an adult getting diagnosed with autism. No one takes into consideration that these children are going to become adults which makes me wonder if the media or charities really care about the person and not just when they're little and cute. I understand the mindset that early treatment and therapies is most beneficial and may help the child to "outgrow" some symptoms, but that doesn't change the fact that there are still adults who struggle just as much.

For instance, if a parent wants to get their 3 year old evaluated insurance is going to cover it. For me, because I'm an adult, I have to pay for an official diagnosis, then what for? No one in the real world cares if I have autism. The media does not help. They feature stories about families and children only, nothing about adults. Low functioning people get placed in abusive care homes; if anyone treated a child the way some adults are treated {including NT senior citizens in nursing homes}everyone would sob over it and demand something be done.

I think it's mostly that people are more willing to donate for kids than for adults.

There is no point in investing in services for adults on the spectrum because we're a write off. The next generations will have been caught in childhood and presumably won't need any services when they reach adulthood. [sarcasm]

^ Children are (potentially) cute and might trigger mother instincts in some individuals. They appeal to people far more than adults.

I was dx as a child at about 4-5 yrs old and got little to no support, they kept saying things will get better later on in life when you are grown up, everything will be easier to understand, but it never did, and I have to do most things myself, theres no support councillors to help me like I did at school. Probably because I don't know what support im entitled to, but I now know that i'm not entitled to disability benefits because my condition is supposedly a childs disability and as an adult I can think for myself.

I feel like everything in the world is about children, not just autism concerns, and yes, it does feel like any adult with issues needing help too is just a "write-off." I feel like a write-off even in matters of my doctor helping me with some physical concerns nobody seems interested in getting to the bottom of. But if I were a child I'd already be under a battery of tests and help. And this is just for a physical disorder of mine, not even autism related issues.

In one sense I can see why children's needs are put first in everything in life -- "they're the future blah blah."

But I was the future once too and now I'm just a lost cause.

The older I get the more I feel disenfranchised from being anybody's priority.

It's the modern alternative to kicking weaklings out of the tribe so they die alone, rather than being a liability to the rest. With children, there's still hope to get them to outgrow their quirks, but just because we've become too squeamish to admit it very openly doesn't mean people are actually happy to dump resources on us which could be better spent helping someone healthier, stronger and younger succeed.

Most likely, it's because adults who are autistic seem to be "doing just fine." The fact is that we have to act in order to appear that way, we usually learn how we're supposed to appear because other people, usually relatives and teachers, beat it into us (like the whole "eye contact" thing) and nobody knows how much turmoil is inside of us. The world has to change, but that can only happen if we educate those who are ignorant about the subject of autism. This is why it's important that autistics are allowed to participate in autism advocacy.

Kids are seen as cute and innocent and seen as helpless so everyone wants to help them so they get a better chance at living a normal life as an adult and being independent. I don't see much attention for disabled adults. It's always about children. Sure I have seen some cancer awareness for everyone. So it's like when you become an adult, people then forget about you. It's like you are an adult now, you are now very unlikely to get better so there is no point in helping you. It's a lot easier to teach a child than it is to teach an adult which is why we have early intervention for children and doctors are trying to spot autism early at 6 months so a diagnoses can be made sooner and so the kid can start intervention sooner because their brains are developing fast and they want to install the normal behavior in the autistic child to make it be natural for them so they won't have that issue when they are older. Rather the kid grows out of it or not is a debate and rather if they ever had it to begin with or not.

We're supposed to have "grown out of it" or figured out how to cope or learned to present as "normal" by the time we're grown up. I seem to recall a cartoon that was either drawn or linked somewhere on the site with an Invisible Aspie Girl talking to a young Aspie Guy, and when Aspie Guy reached the age of 18, *pouf* he disappeared. The girl welcomed him to the ranks of invisible Autistic people. I'm pretty sure the point was that the same people who believe it's a thing boys get but girls don't also see Autism as a childhood disorder.

The way you feel about all the links and information and books and support groups and community service programs being geared toward children with Autism and parents of Autistic children is roughly equivalent to the way Autistic females feel about being told "but you can't have Asperger's Disorder, you're not a boy."

I'd rather sum it up as, "You're no longer anyone else's responsibility, so fend for yourself or die---it's only your business".

There was a news story in my area-a 9 year old boy with autism and down syndrome was in an apple store with his mother buying a new iPad. Apparently he was experiencing sensory overload because he tried to run away and instead ran into a glass wall and fell over. Everyone in the store stopped and wanted to make sure he was okay, which is understandable. But then an employee, out of sympathy, decides to BUY the iPad. Everyone on the news was "awww'ing" about it, but I'm probably the only person shaking my head.

For one thing, the mother was already going to buy it, so it was more of compensation to her than the boy. Sort of like, "look how horrible it is that you have to deal with this child, this one's on me". Secondly, as highlighted in this thread, had he been 20 years older [perhaps minus the down syndrome physical features] the idea of a disability would have never entered anyone's mind, they probably would've assumed he was drunk and called security. Third, a fancy gadget doesn't change the fact that this young man is going to have a very difficult life, be misunderstood by those around him and probably end of in an institution after his parents pass away. Instead of "how can we fix this very real problem in front of us to make life easier for those who struggle", we put a "band-aid" on issues.

The other major problem is the idea that children are easy to teach. Meaning NTs are only interested in teaching us to live their way of life rather than helping us to improve and meet OUR goals OUR way or advocating for us so that other NTs can earn to accept us and realize that people are different and live different lives for whatever reason-the world does not revolve around the NT. It's strange how, [ie autism speaks] the whole way we are represented by those around us is different from the way we see it.

I find that those aspies who wish to be cured are the most unhappy-because they have been taught since childhood that they aren't good enough being that they they aren't neurotypical. The only goal many people have is to be able to say
"I cured autism- look at me !" I suppose children with their developing brains are a perfect subject for that. I for one think that children feel the same way as we do; they want to be accepted how they are. But they can't yet express that..... I remember as a child I hated when people patronized me or called me cute, but I never said anything.

Why?

Because being honest and saying "Give us all your cash, or you are a bad parent!" doesn't work as well, even though the result is the same.