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androbot01
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30 Dec 2014, 6:45 am

To My Son's Autism Therapists - Huff Post blog

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I'll tell you that as a parent, it is tough to get your head around the fact that you have a child you can't help. We special needs parents are forced to rely on others to provide the tools our kids need to reach their potential.


Quote:
Your training should have included how much this therapy costs. I'm sure it didn't, but I'd like you to understand the sacrifices we are making to pay for all of this. You are worth it, I have seen it with my own two eyes, but it means we cut and save. Instead of a vacation, we pay for medical bills and insurance premiums. I work from bedtime to 2 a.m. so I can stay involved with what you do when you're here, in my home. So I can be a part of my son's progress.


Do parents of kids with other disabilities go on this much? I can feel the demonization when I read the article. It's like the way is being paved for elimination of autistics.

What is your reaction?



pj4990
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30 Dec 2014, 4:04 pm

I think "But I wonder if you know what it's like to be me. I wonder if you have given any thought to what it is like to parent these children you work with every day." is the sentence which annoyed me most. She doesn't once mention wondering what it's like being the child. This drives me up the wall that being the parent of a disabled child (I think it does extend to other disabilities) is seen as a first hand experience, but the father of a daughter isn't first hand experience of being female, the white parent of a mixed race child doesn't have first hand experience of being mixed race, so why do people think disabled people's experiences aren't valid, only those of their parents?

Rather reassuringly, wherever this attitude is coming from, it doesn't seem to be the general public. I find people are far more interested in first hand experience than second hand from parents, they just don't get presented it as often.



Hansgrohe
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30 Dec 2014, 4:30 pm

Oh boo hoo, a pity article. Sounds like Autism SpeaKKKs cure propaganda, except from a general person not involved with them.

I'm sorry, but I can't feel bad for this parent if that's the kind of attitude you bring to the table. You should be freaking proud of your child, no matter what they have, and you should do whatever it takes to raise them right. Worse it makes the generalization that ALL autistic children are raised in this way.

But no, go on about how "I can't go on vacation waaahhhh why cant they be normal?".



Aspiewordsmith
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30 Dec 2014, 5:16 pm

The Question should not be do they know what it is to be the parent of an autistic child? The Question should be do you know what it is to be an autistic child? when your mum and family and 'friends' treats you like a n****r for not being allistic and explain that without sounding like a racist. I see the demonising of the autistic spectrum to be caused by sheer arrogance. Also isn't early intervention 'therapies' for autism involve some form of social accessibility for the accommodation of allistic and other neurotypical people. I may be wrong on that and I did censor a potentially offensive word at myself as to avoid alienating people and to highlight the llink between ablism/neurobigotry/aspiphobia and racism/anti Semitism. as well as homophobia and chauvinism which all affects the way society. When I was a baby in the 1960s an autistic child would have been given a label of brain damage no matter whether the child had a learning disability or had allistic levels of intellectual functioning and which is why most people think of autism in the worst possible prognosis especially in those that advocate autism 'therapies' which do not cure autism just fake allistic its like having to be content with counterfeit human. Why be a counterfeit allistic when you can be a genuine autistic or Aspie. I think that the anti autism lobby those curebies have a lot to learn for causing some psychiatic injury like sexual abuse survivors and those that have been in or witnessed first hand domestic volence or emotional abuse becuase thinking an autistic child is other than your own and anything is justified does'nt wash with me. A doctor in 1968 told my mum I had brain damage derived from Dravet's syndrome and my memory would be affected. This would have been common for autistic people and would have been at a time where I may have met the requirements for a diagnosis of a more typical autism on the other hand another would have been thought of as allistic unitil proven otherwise. Either way the parent blames him or herself for the child failing to perform to allistic standards which has a devastating effect on the childs self esteem and a potential cause of anxiety disorders in people with high functioning autism. :?:



timtowdi
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30 Dec 2014, 5:48 pm

So...let me get this straight. The only ones deserving of compassion are the kids, and the parents, who work much harder than most other parents to care for and help their autistic kids (and also do whatever they have to do to pay for therapies, someone to stay home with the kids for whom school is a nightmare and homeschool, etc.), worry about and plan for how their autistic children will get by after the parents die...none of that's deserving of compassion, because you find it insulting that doing these things isn't easy for them?

It's not possible that both the kids and the parents deserve compassion?



timtowdi
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30 Dec 2014, 5:49 pm

So...let me get this straight. The only ones deserving of compassion are the kids, and the parents, who work much harder than most other parents to care for and help their autistic kids (and also do whatever they have to do to pay for therapies, someone to stay home with the kids for whom school is a nightmare and homeschool, etc.), worry about and plan for how their autistic children will get by after the parents die...none of that's deserving of compassion, because you find it insulting that doing these things isn't easy for them?

It's not possible that both the kids and the parents deserve compassion?



androbot01
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30 Dec 2014, 5:53 pm

timtowdi wrote:
It's not possible that both the kids and the parents deserve compassion?

I don't think theres one sentence in the blog post that lends any sympathy to the child.



pj4990
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30 Dec 2014, 5:54 pm

The parents deserve compassion AS WELL, not exclusively. That article didn't mention that the child might be having a tough time too.



timtowdi
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30 Dec 2014, 6:11 pm

pj4990 wrote:
The parents deserve compassion AS WELL, not exclusively. That article didn't mention that the child might be having a tough time too.


And that's the only news piece to do with autistic children, it's not part of a larger conversation about both autistic children and their parents. Every article must contain the entirety of the discussion.

Yes?



androbot01
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30 Dec 2014, 6:20 pm

timtowdi wrote:
pj4990 wrote:
The parents deserve compassion AS WELL, not exclusively. That article didn't mention that the child might be having a tough time too.


And that's the only news piece to do with autistic children, it's not part of a larger conversation about both autistic children and their parents. Every article must contain the entirety of the discussion.

Yes?


But it is part of a larger conversation. It should at least aknowledge the suffering of the autistic child. Even if it is not the main topic. Rather the child is only mentioned with regard to her suffering and thankfulness to the people who work with him. He is completely objectified in this account.



pj4990
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30 Dec 2014, 6:54 pm

I don't think the suffering of the person directly affected is such an obscure part of the conversation that you would only reasonably expect a mention in a book-length article. To not even mention it in passing in the article is disgusting.



timtowdi
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30 Dec 2014, 11:15 pm

pj4990 wrote:
I don't think the suffering of the person directly affected is such an obscure part of the conversation that you would only reasonably expect a mention in a book-length article. To not even mention it in passing in the article is disgusting.


A break, please. The "book-length article" is a few paragraphs long. It's a distraught mom who's overworked and deeply worried about her kid, hoping the therapists will love the kid and care as much about him or her as she does. Jeez.

Even if she wanted to write an entire book that was only about her feelings, and not about her kid, that's allowed too. d



pj4990
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31 Dec 2014, 6:36 am

Read my post more carefully. I didn't say the article was book-length, I meant that you were implying that the article would need to be the length of a book to reasonable expect a mention of the child. It doesn't, an article that length should at least mention the child's point of view in passing. Something like "I know my child has a tough time, but I would like to explain how tough I have it too" would suffice.



kcizzle
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31 Dec 2014, 8:32 am

pj4990 wrote:
It doesn't, an article that length should at least mention the child's point of view in passing. Something like "I know my child has a tough time, but I would like to explain how tough I have it too" would suffice.

Why should it? She's writing about her feelings, which she is allowed as a person in her own right. I get the impression some in this thread view parents as just carers rather than equally important separate human beings who existed before their child was born and don't disappear or remain frozen while their child sleeps.



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31 Dec 2014, 2:26 pm

It's tough having a special needs child I know. My mom worked hard for me and has lost sleep over me and had other psychical symptoms from stress from fighting for my education and to figure out how the system worked and what her rights were as a parent and figuring out what to do with me and how to raise me but she never let me knew as a child how hard it was for her. I was in 6th grade when I realized how much work I was and time consuming and how expensive I was but she acted like it was no big deal because she is the parent and it's her job. Kids aren't stupid so I am sure they all know how much work they are and burden they are to their parents even if they don't express their frustrations or show it but they see how hard they (their parents) work compared to their normal siblings so they know even if the parent may deny it or sugarcoat it.

I don't think the mom is bad for how she feels. Everyone is entitled to their feelings, they're not robots. I am sure parents of normal kids get frustrated too and get overwhelmed whenever they hit a rough spot or when their kid is having problems too. Wait, I have seen parents rant online how hard it is being a parent and these are parents of normal kids assuming. I just don't like it when other parents turn it into a competition about who has it harder and who shouldn't be stressed out and overwhelmed rather it's the childless or the childfree or parents of none special needs kids. I have seen people trying to turn this all into a competition.


_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses.


Moromillas
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03 Jan 2015, 5:38 pm

Pretty furious.

The problem is not the spectrum, the problem is a severe lack of infrastructure, where NTs have an egregious amount of support by comparison. Except we've been screaming this for decades now.

One parent has her warbling posted up on that damn huffington post for the world to see, they actually pick it up and run it and there's actual discussion on it, yet instead of exposing on the problems that AS people have to face, instead she paints herself as the victim.... No, we're the ones that are disenfranchised!

Should have used do not link so they don't get their bux.