Something I overheard in a store

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look ladies, i don't seriously think i'll convince any one, but any way.

@bittersweetaffinity

If you insist too much on a behavior, its interpreted as an order, and it back fires. If you obey, the brain interprets that you submitted to the power of some one else.

"She refuses to do anything that she doesn't want to" I remind you she didn't chose being your daughter. Especially for aspies, we don't care if the house is a mess, or our clothes a bit ugly, or if our hair is like Einsteins. You care about chores because you want the house to be pretty or something like that. Its like trying to teach a pig to sing. Don't, your losing your time and annoys the pig.

I'm like your daughter and i was parented the "normal way".

The kid of your friend probably compensate for the stress of school. Its like alcoholics that drink because life is miserable. They play too much video games and watch tv to compensate school. If you take away the video games and tv he will vent his stress some other way(imagine something worse then video games), or get a depression. You really forgot how crap is to go to school. Again theres a hidden cycle of conter-reaction here. All this stress doesn't just disappears. The management theory still holds. Its all about reacting and conter reacting.

Your link is nice, i don't think it makes a link with parenting though, i suspect that wired from the beginning, thats my opinion. I can think of at least one reason why to ring the bell, you get bribed in to submission, people don't like being controlled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

"normal" parenting has better short term results, but worse longer term results. Usually people don't bother to see the longer term results. You are not there to see them.

@both
Are you sure you are not setting the bar to high?

Learning starts with bad results and gradually improve. Because of the way the brain works, learning needs to be spread over several "lessons", if learning happens too fast, they are negative consequences. Basically, you force a form of rote learning. You have the illusion of learning.

If you are overly strict, don't expect they'll follow the guidelines.

Drapetomaniac is right. I speak from personal experience.

That is entirely possible, it's one of the most difficult things about parenting a kid with AS, and something I try to assess every day - but I don't think the solution to this is to throw the bar out.

I have to say, I went to the unschooler's website, and didn't find it to be a good resource - it doesn't even offer an "about" page or other form of explanation. I'm not necessarily saying that this educational philosophy is right or wrong, but it does seem like nobody can explain it well - and I am fairly confident that tossing out all the rules for kids who need structure and negotiating with kids who have communication difficulties isn't a good way to go.

I'm not surprised theres no concise definition, its a bit too convolueted. I'll explain it this way, radical unschooling, is applying all the black art of good leadership on your kids. Immediately you see the problem of definition, how do you explain what makes a good leader good? Think about some one that you considered a good leader, what did he do to give you this impression? Leadership is a bit like the game of cards "Magic", they are some base rules, but almost every card brakes some of the rules in some way, and they are over 10.000 cards.

this is the best way i can think of in explaining it.

Its hard to explain, you don't throw the bar out, but you must do stuff with skill, so that they get closer to there real potential. If you are totally hands off the results will be not good. But if you are too controlearing again the results degrade. They aren't really rules for unschooled kids, but this doesn't mean they parent stay idle.

You see, its good leadership practices. If you want to be a good leader, theres no other way then reading a gabillion examples and you'll gradually get whats up.

this site is good, has a gabilion examples, precisely for the reason i explain above
http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

I hope my response is good enough.

It doesn't have to be chaotic. It can be structured, but you can't impose structure.

Actually, completely ignoring kids is less damaging than it's made out to be. It isn't ideal, but it doesn't lead to irreparable damage or turn your kids into sociopaths. I don't recommend it if you know how to engage, but not engaging at all is less damaging than doing it wrong. (You know you're doing it wrong if your child gets upset by or ignores your attemps.)

I think if you completely ignore them, they will just try to find an other road model for adulthood. And whatever happens, depends on the substitute.

Yeah, kind of. That's one way to put it. It's not how I would have said it, but I don't think I really disagree.

I have been able to successfully get my three year old to understand that it's better to take what was agreed upon than to continue to push or flip out. This is mainly because he has tried that approach and wound up with nothing. Crying because he didn't get his way won't kill him and he needs to learn limits just like any other child. And there IS a distinct different between crying because something didn't go his way and melting down. They look and sound different, and each situation is handled in a way that will teach with the lowest level of stress on him possible.

That said, not ALL of us are ok with a messy house, ugly clothes or wild hair. I prefer to be as invisible as I possibly can, and that's easier to accomplish if I am groomed and appropriately dressed when I am out.
As far as a messy house is concerned, at the very least it is depressing. Depending on how far you let it go it can become a fire hazard. Having AS is not an adequate excuse to be a slob.

I could try to respond directly, but you'll just brush all out. I can talk talk and talk. Fortunately, we can apply the philosophy in the other direction(child-->parent). Basically the philosophy is nonviolence, the kids could perform nonviolent resistance, and theres more in nonviolence then just the absence of violence (of all sorts). You know Ghandy and stuff. Nonviolence only works in the context that your opponent cares about you. This way, the "heretics" can see on them selves if its a load of crap or not.

What if i went to the adolescent and kids forum hanging out advice for nonviolence struggle. Stuff like civic disobedience, little protests, picketing in front of the house, handing fliers to the neighbors, protest blog, youtube videos etc... against there parents all that of course. If only i knew all that when i was little 8D.

This lecture seams good, ill post them that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4F8kJchX4I

If you brake, its proof that what i say its true. Its the sort of stuff your supposed to use while parenting, plus the leadership skills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance

Thats funny, no one is responding

i havent responded because quite simply, i dont know where you are trying to go with your last post there. ive already disagreed with your basic premise.

there is a huge difference in a good manager giving an employee freedom, and a parent letting a 7 yr old have access to all the candy they want. adults and children are not interchangeable.

you seem to think that parents "care about chores because you want the house to be pretty or something like that". thats not the case. chores are about teaching responsibility, work ethic, self control, hygiene, and cooperation, among other things. its about teaching a child how to function within a family setting, living in a healthy and clean manner, and doing what needs to be done regardless of whether you want to or not. life is full of doing things you dont want to do to earn the freedom to do the things you do want to do, taking out the garbage to earn computer privileges is just the first step.

one of the most important things to remember as a parent is that children are individuals, and they dont all respond to the same thing. no one method is good for all children. that also means they have varying ability for self control. my SO and i would be considered by most parents to be overly permissive. we allow our children a great deal of freedom and choice, with certain small restrictions. we still have to tailor our parenting individually to each childs needs.

i think this is quite an ironic discussion, here on a parenting-autistic forum, when it is so often seen that autistic children do better with more schedule and structure. i have seen this first hand with my own children, my 4 yr old autie does much better at school during highly structured time than in free choice time where he tends to get overwhelmed, and my 14 yr old requires an extreme degree of micro managing due to executive dysfunction and time management issues. neither of them, if given free choice in their eating of candy or otherwise, would choose anything remotely resembling a healthy diet, due to their autistic preferences for sameness and texture avoidance.

I also find this to be an ironic discussion, because it started out as a peaceful thread giving an example of something I thought was a good way of parenting. Granted, the mother could fill her cart with the items she picked out, and the son could only have one desired item, but at least the solution she came up with was such that it prevented the son's meltdown. After all, he did agree on one item, and once you agree on something, you gotta stick with it. Now, his only options were to get one item or get nothing, but let's disregard that.

On the other hand, I agree with the poster who thinks that parents "care about chores because they want the house to be pretty". So it ends up looking pretty after the child did his chores. And then what? What difference does it make to the child? Hundreds of years ago, children could learn the same work ethic, self-control, and cooperation by doing real work: feeding farm animals, packing crates, delivering newspapers, sweeping floors in a store, caring for the elderly, etc. Most importantly, they could see the difference they makes themselves. And they knew they help their parents live a better life. The hard work provided an opportunity for physical activity as an added bonus.

None of that is true today, because after the Industrial Revolution, a handful of bad apples abused the system, and child labor laws had to be created. The only way to teach the same qualities today is through chores at home. And let's face it: kids are smart enough to know that chores are not "real" work, just something parents are making them do, and that's true even if the allowance is tied to chores. It's nothing like a child being able to work as a floor sweeper, then use the money to help feed the family (and why not?), after keeping a little for himself. With chores, it's nothing like this: a parent's praises for a cleaning the house just don't carry the same weight.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 02 Feb 2011, 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I guess I didn't say anything because I already contributed and didn't really have anything more value to contribute. I agree with what azurecrayon says which is that I really don't care about making my house look pretty, and the previous comments about looking a certain way, or having hair a certain way. I don't care about those things, but when my daughter has dirty dishes piling up in her room and her all clothes are on the floor knee deep, I get a little fussy about it because that is not a good way to maintain a functioning happy life. She hasn't matched a pair of socks in 5 years, I really don't care. Her hair has rainbow stripes, again, it's not a problem for me and I don't believe it should be a problem for anyone else, it's her hair. The problem with her decision making is that we are experiencing a blizzard in our city and she can't accept why it's dangerous to go to the store to buy blue hair dye or why she can't walk to a friends house thats a mile away when the sidewalks are 2 feet deep of snow and the wind chill is 25 below 0 and the roads haven't even been deemed safe by the city. These are the types of problems that I face now due to giving her all the freedom in the world to chose what is right for her. I have provided her with the positive example and all the information to make an informed choice and sometimes, she is completely UNABLE to make the obvious best choice and I have to step in and say NO. I am nice about it, I don't punish her, or belittle her, rather taking the calm and patient approach of explaining over and over again twenty times why she can't do the thing she wants to do. The unschooling parent in me tells me go ahead let her do it. She'll see it's a dumb idea a couple of blocks away from home and she will return home. But the other part of me the rational part says NO, I am absolutely not going to put her in harms way just to prove I'm right. I am going to step up as a parent and keep her safe even if she doesn't like it. There will be another time and place for her to learn this lesson, but today it's too much of a risk. She has to learn at some point that sometimes there are rules to follow and you might not like them or understand them but you still have to follow them. It's like the Bob Dylan song says, no matter who you are, you're gonna have to serve somebody~ I do think that it's better to learn this young.

Possibly because your post makes no sense. When you have struggled with a 4 year old for an hour+ to get dressed because you absolutely have to get your other child to school for an important event, or when you have tried to console a child having a total meltdown on thier third birthday with all the party guests standing around staring, or when you have picked your child up from school for the third time in a week becasue he is having a meltdown and bit the teacher, again...

then come back to this forum and post some more about how we should be parenting our children.

You are just rehashing the same stuff and don't listen.

I'll go to the teenagers forum with my nonviolence struggle stuff. Care to comment before i do? I'm all ears. What do you think it will happen?

Drapetomaniac, as a fellow non-parent, I'll respond to you. In the perfect world, children and teenagers would have a valid channel of protesting the rules they disagree with, which you call civil disobedience. But we don't live in the perfect world! It's a well-known fact that minors have no rights whatsoever other than the right to life. Liberty and pursuit of happiness are highly curtailed until you turn 18, and even then, parents can still limit those two. I have a theory that this is the reason why most kids don't care about learning the Constitution in school; they're smart enough to know that none of rights it talks about apply to them. It's just empty memorization, especially considering that we have to go through nudie scanners just to fly.

All in all, the only thing kids will get for civil disobedience is being yelled at, or worse, getting grounded or some other punishment. Don't try to propagate the method; it only works if you're a legal adult. Don't mislead aspie kids/teens that this method will work if they try it. The ones still naive enough to believe that life is fair will be in for a major disappointment. The ones who are already jaded and bitter will laugh at you.

The current parent/child power structure is there because we as a species came up with it, and so far, there isn't anything better. And let's face it: most parents do at least an OK job at raising their kids. In the worst case, the kids can "make up for it" after they move out.