An explanation and request from a mom of a kid with autism

[Anonymous]

I have a child with HFA and we just don't go anywhere anymore.

It is just easier and less painful (though not painless!!) for us both.

[Anonymous]

I work with SN children and work tirelessly to try to mainstream and make accommodations to classrooms and schools to ensure inclusion. However, a HUGE part of that is also education for the other children and yes, the parents. I don't give away your child's medical history but sometimes an accommodation may seem extreme or unneeded but a simple explanation usually clears it all up. Parents are parents and want the best for their children and understand and respect you want the best for yours. We can coexist in this world but to expect everyone to blindly smile and turn the other cheek to be spat on is not the way the conversation will move forward.

You are welcome to give your child time to 'figure things out' but you should at least communicate a basic statement to the mom/dad like "Sorry Joey splashed your child with the water bottle, he likes to get a reaction out of others and that is not Ok". Or "Joey really enjoys the rhythmic motion of the swing so I promised him 5 more minutes". Parents get it.
Then go talk to Joey, leave, whatever you want to do to handle it.

[Anonymous]

NP here, who has read the whole thread. I actually have some sympathy for the OP-- everyone needs to be more understanding of SN, for example. And I'd strongnly suspect that parents of kids with SN have 100x as many opportunities to see people being jerks about kids with SN than parents of kids without. I mean, as a white woman, I never saw (or "never saw") a cab fail to stop for black people until I tried to catch one with two black girlfriends.

That said, where OP loses me is when she says one of the techniques for dealing with her son's behavior is "planned ignoring." I don't have a problem with that strategy and assume it's good advice. However, there's literally no way for bystanders to know if she's using that strategy or simply ignoring, not even witnessing, or, worse, passively condoning his behavior. And assuming the best of her ignoring is really a bridge too far. Planned ignoring may be the best strategy for the child's behavior, but it's simply not practicable in these sorts of contexts, OP. "Assuming the best" *in general* is a good idea. Assuming that a mother who ignores her kid's aggressive behavior is implementing a therapist's advice? Without her telling the other parent and child this? Sorry, but that's too much of a stretch.

(And BTW, the behavior described may not be egregious or intentional, but yes, it's aggressive.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if your child is "bothering" my baby by growling, poking, spitting at/on them, it will not go well for you. How could you even think this is ok and other people should just deal with it. Sorry, but not.

If your baby is falling all over the play equipment and your following him like a moron squeezing into the slide, I will just laugh at you because you a big ol fool. So we understand each other then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here, who has read the whole thread. I actually have some sympathy for the OP-- everyone needs to be more understanding of SN, for example. And I'd strongnly suspect that parents of kids with SN have 100x as many opportunities to see people being jerks about kids with SN than parents of kids without. I mean, as a white woman, I never saw (or "never saw") a cab fail to stop for black people until I tried to catch one with two black girlfriends.

That said, where OP loses me is when she says one of the techniques for dealing with her son's behavior is "planned ignoring." I don't have a problem with that strategy and assume it's good advice. However, there's literally no way for bystanders to know if she's using that strategy or simply ignoring, not even witnessing, or, worse, passively condoning his behavior. And assuming the best of her ignoring is really a bridge too far. Planned ignoring may be the best strategy for the child's behavior, but it's simply not practicable in these sorts of contexts, OP. "Assuming the best" *in general* is a good idea. Assuming that a mother who ignores her kid's aggressive behavior is implementing a therapist's advice? Without her telling the other parent and child this? Sorry, but that's too much of a stretch.

(And BTW, the behavior described may not be egregious or intentional, but yes, it's aggressive.)

Well to take your analogy to the logical conclusion, black people don't owe some duty to the racist world to educate them. If my kids flapping like a crazy Elton and making noises at your kid and I'm moving him away, like our therapist has advised and yes planned ignoring is a thing, I'm not going to be taking the time to explain to you why. If you had a kid with special needs you'd understand: when he is dysregulated like that I have to follow him. Like literally be on his back. And yes we're leaving. And I have other kids. So I'm busy and I don't owe you a huge explanation. Do the people who aggressively push by me on the metro owe me some explanation? Maybe. Am I getting one? Yeah no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love my child, too. I don't want her to be frightened or upset either. If your son gets unfavorable comments or a parent (or nanny - DD's nanny is fiercely protective) raises their voice to your child, it is because we are protecting our own. No other reason.

Try thinking in broader terms.

What broader terms?

Like your kid isn't standing at the very center of the universe. You're setting her up for some serious sad times. Give her a chance to not be such a giant wuss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here, who has read the whole thread. I actually have some sympathy for the OP-- everyone needs to be more understanding of SN, for example. And I'd strongnly suspect that parents of kids with SN have 100x as many opportunities to see people being jerks about kids with SN than parents of kids without. I mean, as a white woman, I never saw (or "never saw") a cab fail to stop for black people until I tried to catch one with two black girlfriends.

That said, where OP loses me is when she says one of the techniques for dealing with her son's behavior is "planned ignoring." I don't have a problem with that strategy and assume it's good advice. However, there's literally no way for bystanders to know if she's using that strategy or simply ignoring, not even witnessing, or, worse, passively condoning his behavior. And assuming the best of her ignoring is really a bridge too far. Planned ignoring may be the best strategy for the child's behavior, but it's simply not practicable in these sorts of contexts, OP. "Assuming the best" *in general* is a good idea. Assuming that a mother who ignores her kid's aggressive behavior is implementing a therapist's advice? Without her telling the other parent and child this? Sorry, but that's too much of a stretch.

(And BTW, the behavior described may not be egregious or intentional, but yes, it's aggressive.)

Well to take your analogy to the logical conclusion, black people don't owe some duty to the racist world to educate them. If my kids flapping like a crazy Elton and making noises at your kid and I'm moving him away, like our therapist has advised and yes planned ignoring is a thing, I'm not going to be taking the time to explain to you why. If you had a kid with special needs you'd understand: when he is dysregulated like that I have to follow him. Like literally be on his back. And yes we're leaving. And I have other kids. So I'm busy and I don't owe you a huge explanation. Do the people who aggressively push by me on the metro owe me some explanation? Maybe. Am I getting one? Yeah no.

You don't owe them an explanation, but it's reasonable for misunderstandings and judgements to occur when people don't have context.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here, who has read the whole thread. I actually have some sympathy for the OP-- everyone needs to be more understanding of SN, for example. And I'd strongnly suspect that parents of kids with SN have 100x as many opportunities to see people being jerks about kids with SN than parents of kids without. I mean, as a white woman, I never saw (or "never saw") a cab fail to stop for black people until I tried to catch one with two black girlfriends.

That said, where OP loses me is when she says one of the techniques for dealing with her son's behavior is "planned ignoring." I don't have a problem with that strategy and assume it's good advice. However, there's literally no way for bystanders to know if she's using that strategy or simply ignoring, not even witnessing, or, worse, passively condoning his behavior. And assuming the best of her ignoring is really a bridge too far. Planned ignoring may be the best strategy for the child's behavior, but it's simply not practicable in these sorts of contexts, OP. "Assuming the best" *in general* is a good idea. Assuming that a mother who ignores her kid's aggressive behavior is implementing a therapist's advice? Without her telling the other parent and child this? Sorry, but that's too much of a stretch.

(And BTW, the behavior described may not be egregious or intentional, but yes, it's aggressive.)

Well to take your analogy to the logical conclusion, black people don't owe some duty to the racist world to educate them. If my kids flapping like a crazy Elton and making noises at your kid and I'm moving him away, like our therapist has advised and yes planned ignoring is a thing, I'm not going to be taking the time to explain to you why. If you had a kid with special needs you'd understand: when he is dysregulated like that I have to follow him. Like literally be on his back. And yes we're leaving. And I have other kids. So I'm busy and I don't owe you a huge explanation. Do the people who aggressively push by me on the metro owe me some explanation? Maybe. Am I getting one? Yeah no.

You don't owe them an explanation, but it's reasonable for misunderstandings and judgements to occur when people don't have context.

I guess? Or they could just assume that since I'm like marching him out I've got it under control? Let's try to do the latter. That was my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, were you complaining last week that your daycare provider didn't seem to appreciate your child? You have a kid who has HFA who the director told you is a problem and you have to be ready on a moment's notice to come pick them up if they cause a problem?

Ah, no. You do know that many many kids have autism right? That was the point of my post. No, my child has a nanny who is aba trained and goes to a special needs school. I am also a huge protector of him, as much as you all are of your own. We're all parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here, who has read the whole thread. I actually have some sympathy for the OP-- everyone needs to be more understanding of SN, for example. And I'd strongnly suspect that parents of kids with SN have 100x as many opportunities to see people being jerks about kids with SN than parents of kids without. I mean, as a white woman, I never saw (or "never saw") a cab fail to stop for black people until I tried to catch one with two black girlfriends.

That said, where OP loses me is when she says one of the techniques for dealing with her son's behavior is "planned ignoring." I don't have a problem with that strategy and assume it's good advice. However, there's literally no way for bystanders to know if she's using that strategy or simply ignoring, not even witnessing, or, worse, passively condoning his behavior. And assuming the best of her ignoring is really a bridge too far. Planned ignoring may be the best strategy for the child's behavior, but it's simply not practicable in these sorts of contexts, OP. "Assuming the best" *in general* is a good idea. Assuming that a mother who ignores her kid's aggressive behavior is implementing a therapist's advice? Without her telling the other parent and child this? Sorry, but that's too much of a stretch.

(And BTW, the behavior described may not be egregious or intentional, but yes, it's aggressive.)

Well to take your analogy to the logical conclusion, black people don't owe some duty to the racist world to educate them. If my kids flapping like a crazy Elton and making noises at your kid and I'm moving him away, like our therapist has advised and yes planned ignoring is a thing, I'm not going to be taking the time to explain to you why. If you had a kid with special needs you'd understand: when he is dysregulated like that I have to follow him. Like literally be on his back. And yes we're leaving. And I have other kids. So I'm busy and I don't owe you a huge explanation. Do the people who aggressively push by me on the metro owe me some explanation? Maybe. Am I getting one? Yeah no.

You don't owe them an explanation, but it's reasonable for misunderstandings and judgements to occur when people don't have context.

I guess? Or they could just assume that since I'm like marching him out I've got it under control? Let's try to do the latter. That was my point.

Like other posters, I'm having a lot of trouble picturing the scenario where your kid does something, you're intervening and handking it, and a crazed, rude, irate, mean, horrible parent lashes out at your kid. Can you provide one single example of how that happened???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love my child, too. I don't want her to be frightened or upset either. If your son gets unfavorable comments or a parent (or nanny - DD's nanny is fiercely protective) raises their voice to your child, it is because we are protecting our own. No other reason.

Try thinking in broader terms.

What broader terms?

Like your kid isn't standing at the very center of the universe. You're setting her up for some serious sad times. Give her a chance to not be such a giant wuss.

No. Just no. My daughter is 14 months old. I have no clue why a large five year old is spitting st her and simply will not allow it even if I did know why. So no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love my child, too. I don't want her to be frightened or upset either. If your son gets unfavorable comments or a parent (or nanny - DD's nanny is fiercely protective) raises their voice to your child, it is because we are protecting our own. No other reason.

Try thinking in broader terms.

What broader terms?

Like your kid isn't standing at the very center of the universe. You're setting her up for some serious sad times. Give her a chance to not be such a giant wuss.

No. Just no. My daughter is 14 months old. I have no clue why a large five year old is spitting st her and simply will not allow it even if I did know why. So no.

You are a fool. Having a 14 month old does not make you incredibly special. So do millions of other people. Your kid gets to scream her head off on the plane vecause she's 14 months old and it's developmentally appropriate. My kid blows raspberries in her direction because it's developmentally appropriate for him at 4 when he is autistic. He gets punished and we leave the pool. That's what I'm trying to explain. You'd be so outraged if someone dared to complain that your kid was acting like a baby's my kids acting. Like he acts and I'm monitoring him and taking him away and he's making real progresses I'm not locking him up. You're taking your kid on planes and maybe to brunch. I wouldn't dream. Actually my kids amazing on planes and always was there are some benefits.

[Anonymous]

SN mom here. It's hard as a parent because I do feel judged a lot when my child is doing age inappropriate things. I am on him like a hawk which is insanely stressful and keeps me always on edge in any public situation. He looks fine so I'm sure most people just think he's a spoiled kid and I'm a bad mom. Last week he flipped out at a small performance at his camp and screamed at the top of his lungs. It was completely unexpected and I tried to escort him out but he ran. Parents were giving me dirty looks and I felt terrible about disrupting the performance, even though the whole incident only lasted about 2 minutes. I did manage to catch him and physically remove him and of course talked to him about how it's fine to be upset and go outside and express it but it's not okay to distract from other people's enjoyment of the show. Being an SN mom is awesome and also a lesson in humility. I would hope that other parents could use those moments to talk with their typical kids about how everyone has different challenges and sometimes people do things that are "weird" not because they're bad or mean but because they see the world differently and don't always know how to go with the flow like the rest of us. Of course our kids shouldn't hurt others, no kid should, but it would be nice to have the benefit of the doubt sometimes without also having to explain or share private information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SN mom here. It's hard as a parent because I do feel judged a lot when my child is doing age inappropriate things. I am on him like a hawk which is insanely stressful and keeps me always on edge in any public situation. He looks fine so I'm sure most people just think he's a spoiled kid and I'm a bad mom. Last week he flipped out at a small performance at his camp and screamed at the top of his lungs. It was completely unexpected and I tried to escort him out but he ran. Parents were giving me dirty looks and I felt terrible about disrupting the performance, even though the whole incident only lasted about 2 minutes. I did manage to catch him and physically remove him and of course talked to him about how it's fine to be upset and go outside and express it but it's not okay to distract from other people's enjoyment of the show. Being an SN mom is awesome and also a lesson in humility. I would hope that other parents could use those moments to talk with their typical kids about how everyone has different challenges and sometimes people do things that are "weird" not because they're bad or mean but because they see the world differently and don't always know how to go with the flow like the rest of us. Of course our kids shouldn't hurt others, no kid should, but it would be nice to have the benefit of the doubt sometimes without also having to explain or share private information.

It is s huge huge huge lesson in humility.

[Anonymous]

23:36 again - also just wanted to say that a few weeks ago we had a bunch of SN kids together at a park and a neurotypical kid (I'm assuming of course) was being really inappropriate and borderline dangerous with our group. Parents were nowhere to be seen. It was a good lesson for our DS though in dealing with different situations. I don't see why parents can treat it like that with their typical children - if someone is doing something unsafe or that you don't like, you can always leave. Yes we all think we have a "right" to be at the park or whatever, but it's a good lesson for kids that you can only control yourself in a situation and sometimes the best thing to do is remove yourself if someone is behaving unpredictably or otherwise in a way you don't like.