Parents Filming Meltdowns

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If giving an account of the weather, showing only sunny days would create a false image - there are also storms, and everything in between.

I'd hazard a guess that in the West almost everyone will be familiar with the term 'autism'. Perhaps not the details, but we should be thankful that autism is as widely known within the general population.

Can we really expect individuals with no direct connection to autism to have an interest in autism? Why should they?


Thankfulness aside, there is a potential issue of exploitation RE the thread subject.

Privacy/freedom will always be at war with each other: someone could easily say not having the right to film their own children is a violation of their freedoms.

If I want to take photos of your wife, am I invading her privacy, or is your wish for me not to take photos of your wife a violation of my freedom?

Maybe they have that freedom, but that doesn't mean they're not a**holes.

They do it get sympathy as to make people feel pity for them. Thus, they only do it to gain social points among their peers to show them how good of people they are dealing with their "defective" child.

It seems like there are 3 issues here: consent, posting online, and filming meltdowns.

Kids rarely give consent to be filmed and parents regularly film them (because you want to have stuff to remember with). Very young kids (babies) don't even talk so you can't ask them if they're okay with you filming, and when they can as toddlers, they can't possibly make decisions thinking about their privacy and stuff because they don't know about that. So I think the whole consent issue is kind of silly- parents have responsibility to make those types of decisions for their minor children. Now with an adult, it's a little different, although I can see some benefits to filming an adult too (like to show the therapist). That said, personally, I do not post photos or videos of my kids online at all. That's just my personal preference and I do worry about people who post everything of their kids online.

As for filming meltdowns, I have. Like I said before, I did not and would not post it on youtube though. The reason I filmed it was to show the developmental pediatrician who was evaluating my son for autism. I was instructed to video tape in various situations, one of them being "tantrums". I presumably still have it- I have a lot of video tapes of my kids- but we don't watch it. I think it can be important to convey this information to a doctor or therapist. I get my kids' therapies filmed sometimes, really for 2 reasons: one being that my kids can't tell me what goes on in there, so I want to make sure they are being treated well, and two being that I want to see what techniques are used, etc.. Inevitably meltdowns have been filmed that way as well, and that can be useful because we can look at it later and say what triggered it, what the therapist did that worked, what didn't work, etc..

I feel it's wrong for parents to go filming their autistic children who are having their meltdowns, then posting it up on social media.

There are plenty of parents who do that. This would embarrass the poor kid who are on the autism spectrum, some people in general could look at it as some sort of laughing matter when it's in reality a serious situation. Some parents may think that humiliating their poor child would prove the point, but really, this would make it worst.

To me, for any parents who film their autistic child having a meltdown then sharing the video through social media will be just a same as for any parents to film their child (Even if they're not autistic) sitting on the toilet doing their things and then share it around on social media.

I did find a channel with a non verbal autistic girl who was mostly filmed by her father but I did see one video thumbnail where it said something about her having a meltdown and then I unsubscribed. I never had a meltdown and literally have no concept of it but that would be embarrassing if it was on YouTube and I think its terrible that people do that to their kids ...

You can Ok boomer me all you want but parents in general are filming and sharing way too much these days.

I'm fine with people filming meltdowns to show to doctors or other professionals to help the person. I don't think they should be put online.