Another autistic child killed by a parent. "Not surpris

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Please do a little research on how disabled children fare in foster care. It's often quite a lot worse than "not wonderful". WelcometoHolland talks about abuse; that's right, many children are badly abused in foster care, and those are kids who are verbal, nonautistic, school-going. Some kids die. Finding a kind foster family willing to take an aggressive 16-year-old autistic boy...the odds are excellent he'd have been an adult before anyone would have been found. Then jail, institutionalization, with no one to advocate for him.

I don't defend murder but I can certainly understand how she got there, and why she killed herself, too.

I think when a parent kills their child and then themselves, it's obvious it was not done maliciously or out of cold blood because who kills their child and then themselves?

Also isn't there group homes to put autistic people in? I know parents have put their disabled adult children in group homes so they could be more independent and also so they (the parents) can live their free life and plus they get too old to care for their child. It doesn't mean they are forgotten when they put them there, they just put them there and they go visit them or take them out, bring them home to their family and then bring them back.

Really? That seems naive.

How about this:
Parent kills child.
Parent doesn't want to go to prison for a zillion years, but knows that there's no hope of an acquittal.
Parent prefers to live, but makes a completely rational decision that death is better than prison.

Oh sure, if you've got millions of dollars to spare, there might be some good group homes somewhere in North America...

I'm assuming that was not the case for this mother. For the most part, they're really quite terrible. I'm currently in the market for somewhere for my son to go for a couple of hours a day once he's out of high school and it's looking extremely grim. And this is with me advocating for him. I cringe to think of what would happen if he had nobody advocating for him. I don't even want to think about it, actually.

Of group homes I have visited, they all seemed good. Activities and they go out. A girl in my high school lived in one because her parents couldn't handle having a child with Down's syndrome and that is what she had. She called the lady who took care of her Grandma. I also knew another girl in that same high school and she lived in one too because she was 18 and her parents also moved to the same town to be closer to her.

I know many children are badly abused in foster car, that is why I was trying to empathize that there needs to be a lot of adjustments in the foster care system, it needs to be better regulated, children in the program should be monitered like have a social worker check in on them to make sure they are being treated well and not being abused....the system really does need a ton of improvement. Also being 16 you are somewhat right but if he ended up in psychiatric care which would have been likely he would have had access to potential treatment and help...I mean I've been in the psych ward I know its not always bad, and there is not always abuse so he might have gotten help....sadly there still would have been chances for abuse, or ending up in jail was a possibility. I still just don't see how any of this justifies killing a child though. Also the article does not really give enough information, someone already stated the violent behavior consisted of banging his head and pushing his mom away....so we don't know how violent this kid really was, how exactly he was faring in life or much about the mom so based on the information provided in the thread. I cannot assume she did this purely out of desperation with good intentions.

But perhaps improving the system so parents can feel secure in that if they cannot care for their child they aren't just abandoning them to abuse and neglect by giving them up would help matters.

So just like I thought not all are centers of horrors and abuse, some are good and actually take care of the people without abusing or harrasing them.

It would help IMMENSELY, which was the point of the media story. The mother had tried to get him into a decent institution and had been told there was nothing available. She was at the end of her rope entirely. She couldn't have "given him up" -- nobody would have taken him. The list of people waiting to foster severely autistic teens is going to be a very, very short one.

I have never heard happy things about psych wards from anyone who's spent time on them.

Given the likelihood that this boy would've bounced from terrible situation to terrible situation -- and it's worth assuming that a mother willing to care for a severely autistic son for 16 years, at least part of that time on her own, has actually investigated what's out there...well, imagine this: Suppose you were going to be burnt or harmed in some other way daily -- shouted at, crowded, left in bad conditions. Your sense of time is not very good. You have no ability to get away from the awfulness and pain. The only way it will stop is if someone else rescues you. There is no agency out there likely to do so. Even if you're rescued, it's unlikely you'll be rescued long-term; you will never be able to look after yourself, you will likely be captured and maltreated again, or simply abandoned. Your life will most likely be years of agony and fear, and it will likely be short.

It's hard for me to imagine the mother who would consign a child to that fate willingly. I can certainly see a quiet death looking merciful by comparison.

I think some people on this thread are overestimating vastly the public will to help the lifelong helpless. Even in Canada. If no one is advocating for you -- a family member, usually -- and no one will pay much to help you, then you're in a very dangerous spot.

If you have lots and lots of money, yes. If you don't, again, you're in trouble. If you can't afford a great place like that and the state won't provide one...well, you're out of luck.

My grandma's in an assisted-living facility now; she doesn't need much care, still has her marbles. That place isn't particularly nice, and it costs between $3K and $4K a month. That's the starter price. As you get older and more disabled, particularly if you lose your mind and need constant care, the price skyrockets from there.

The article was pointing out that Canada does not have adequate resources for autism care -- if you step back a moment, you'll see that was the point.

The way the article was worded sounded more like the point was how horrible it is to live with autistic people. And where does it say the mother tried to find a decent institution and couldn't and was at the end of her rope, the article just doesn't provide that many details in my opinion. Not saying its impossible but its not in the article....also foster care wouldn't have been the only option, group homes have been mentioned....also the article does not go into detail about how severe this kids condition was. Either way i am thinking he probably did not want to die as his mother was killing him.....Also though what you suggest implies desperation not mental illness.

Also I have been in the psych ward twice, first time did kind of suck....but not due to abuse from the staff/doctors, the second one was a good experience over-all and the food was amazing, there now you have heard someone say good things about being in the psych ward. Also there is no absolute proof he would have been abused or mistreated had he ended up in impatient care....that does happen, it doesn't always happen and didn't happen to me so to say it would have most certainly resulted in what you describe probably isn't entirely accurate. I still stand my opinion of at least he would have had a chance had his mother not killed him.....and the article does not give enough detail for me to determine if the mom was thinking of what was best for him, or just how miserable she was the way the article presents it it was all about her.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 02 May 2014, 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well then the obvious solution is to murder the children when they reach the age of around 16-18, just in case they might suffer abuse when the parents die

No, the obvious solution is to devote enough social resources to autism care that the burden's not left all on the shoulders of individual parents.

It may well be that he'd have stood a chance, but given that there was nothing available for him with the mom's help, the likelihood that there would've been something for him without her help, not so good. Throw in a mother who's been living an unending nightmare for years, likely isolated (it's very hard to maintain friendships and support outside other such families when you've got constant care of an autistic child; they don't understand your world at all), and with constant anxiety not just for her son's safety but how to afford life while caring for him, and seeing him grow to the point where she could no longer restrain him physically in order to keep either of them safe -- I mean he was very likely stronger than she, physically -- you have one very depressed mother, and it's difficult if not impossible to see the possibility of anything good when in that state. I don't know, but it could be that the refusal from the institution was just the last straw, and she didn't have the emotional strength anymore to go on fighting for her son and herself.

The reason the article focuses on her is that she's the one most readers will relate to most readily, also because the sympathetic portrayal points up the fact that the culprit here was societal abandonment of this woman and her disabled son, not the woman herself. In the US the story would likely have had a somewhat different spin, because we're much slower to accept social responsibility for the helpless, and much quicker to blame those in bad spots.

Also society should stop viewing autistic people as a 'burden'...but I think we are certainly in agreement that enough social resources need to be devoted to autism care.

Well I can't really not blame the mom for killing her son, since she is the one who did it......but I can see the desperation being a factor, still not entirely sure though since I don't have enough information about the story to know for sure that was the case. But its also possible she had some resentment towards him and was not thinking of his best interest when killing him. But we don't know, she is dead now to so no one can really ask her what was going through her mind.

I thought the people living there pay for it. My schizophrenic aunt lives in a group home and she pays for it that she gets from the gov for it (I think social security) and when my grandma lived in a care home, she paid for it from the money she got from the state but someone else in my family handled the money for her because she was not able to do it herself.