Digital/Internet abuse by parents of ASD children

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Okay, so people misuse the terms sometimes.

I have also heard of munchausen by internet, which is when someone fakes illness to get attention online, from forums and blog communities. One person who had cancer encountered three different people faking cancer online. They turned super nasty against her on her blog when she outed them. Some people create lots of different online identities to aide their faking illness, like their mother or brother or spouse would show up on the forums to corroborate their stories and update the community when they were having a fake illness emergency like being in a fake coma to get more attention, esp. when other genuinely ill members were having a particularly difficult time like being in a real coma that was attracting too much of the community's attention away from the munchausen person. Some invent other people to have the illness and are themselves the loving fake caregivers. One person even claimed that she miraculously cured her fake brain cancer through her special diet.

The constant interruptions to the flow of the interview by digressions into inane 'small talk' was what made it unwatchable for me. I was sitting here constantly thinking, "oh DO get on with it!" It was extremely boring and tedious, painful to watch and hear. In the end I also just gave up on it.

I agree. I feel that the world is getting worse for us instead of better, because of those parents.

and this is what parental internet abuse can lead to:

viewtopic.php?t=287607

You have to wonder if some these parents are hidden psychopaths who hate their children and want to destroy them.

The father didn't post the video, the girl did and she also showed it to her friends. I posted a link in there that had more detail on the situation.

Oh my, you have hit the nail on the head with this and a nerve in me. I have made some enemies because I am FED UP, SICK AND TIRED of these darn parents posting such things or talking about their kids at autism meetings, etc. when their kids are around. Hey, I get it, we sometimes get worn out as parents. Heck, I homeschool my child, have been with him 24/7 since he was 3, that is over 11 years now and I have NO FAMILY or close friends to babysit EVER. But I will tell you, NEVER have I badmouthed my son. He's a kid. Yes, of course, I have gotten angry, of course I sometimes want to scream, but it's no more than probably the majority of parents. Instead, when things go sour and thanks to wrongplanet, I learned this when he was 5 or so, I look at myself and how I am contributing to his stress. Is it something I myself do? Am I stressed and therefore causing him undue stress? How can I teach BOTH him and MYSELF to not be so negative, to calm down a bit, etc.

I know a few parents who are constantly saying f#$%autism and that they HATE autism and I LOVE their kiddos. I have NEVER had an issue with their kids, even when their kids were ALONE with me. But no, the issues they are having have MUCH more to do with the bullying they themselves are doing to their own kids, than autism ever will.

Today was not a good day. I read another thread and it made me sick to my stomach. Just sick of these parents. Sick.

I hear your pain. Thank you for writing what you have written here. It is very meaningful, and so rare for we on the spectrum to read such tenderness and true feeling in what you have expressed. Many of us share your anger at the lack of understanding, acceptance and good will towards children on the spectrum. Some of these parents are like disappointed children throwing tantrums - it is unbecoming in an adult, and the more so in a parent. Parenting is not easy in any event. We are thrust to a set of challenge that life gives us so little preparation for. Most of us muddle through without doing too much damage out of our ignorance. Good will towards the child is the protection against that ignorance wreaking long lasting damage. Children can sense - as animals sense - whether adults have good or ill will towards them. You love your child, you have an abundance of good will in your parenting journey. We would like to clone you..

Hi, Mom!


The difference being the reason for the mask. For us it's self-defense, but for some NT's it's to hide something sinister behind a saccharine veil.

I'm not going to say these parents are horrible people all the time, but at the time they were doing what they did, each one of them was mostly evil. They need people to 1) stop them from doing what they're doing, 2) humanize them and find out why they are doing it (their own psychiatric problems, etc) and 3) teach them kindness for their children in a way that is suitable for getting thru to them (and that includes being human to them to an extent, which will help them understand why it is important not to abuse OTHERS).

Parenting is naturally hard for a lot of people, but it doesn't have to be. There's always the opportunity to learn that your children are human and need to be treated with love and respect.

And I find it outrageous how many parents, my own included, become the bullies to their kids that they are trying to protect their kids from. They would have been better off doing nothing.

I can still hear the father's voice saying the word "consequences" and "was it worth it?"

I wonder how often he asks himself that question now?

It doesn't matter if you push a kid past his or her limits with good intentions or ill. The thing is that in your role as a parent, you should not push your kid over the edge and you have a responsibility to pay more attention to what is actually happening in your kid and less to your dogmas about correct behavior or conduct.

I f ind it very disheartening to learn of how sometimes parents could somehow, willfully allow their children to be bullied either intentional or non intentional..

I used to read a lot of parenting websites (not related to autism or any special needs) and I used to see a lot of debates about school versus home school versus no school at all. Depressingly enough, one of the arguments pro-school people sometimes used was that kids need to be bullied. It's not just that school was awesome for other reasons, and the presence of bullies was an unfortunate but acceptable downside--they actually considered bullies to be an upside of school attendance. They just had this moral belief that kids need to be bullied (by people other than their parents directly, I guess) so that they could know how to handle bullies "in the real world."

My mind was blown by seeing this argument at all, much less from apparently multiple people.

I was about to say something similar. What I have noticed is that although some of my kiddo's friends are bullied, the majority who are bullied in school are ALSO bullied at home by their parents, of course, their parents don't see it as bullying. I have now made the decision to stay away from such parents, as a few have started to bully my son. That's where it all went crazy for me...they can all take a hike. My son is an incredibly fun, sweet kid with great self-esteem and I'll be dam#$%ed if the parent of another autistic kiddo will bully him.

Reading about this makes me nauseous... I feel very sorry for children with parents like that.