I get so sad each time I see an overweight little kid because that was me. I know the hell of living that life.

Anonymous wrote:One kid standing by themselves and everyone else standing together in a big group. Unfortunately I was pushed out of a long-term group of friends in 6th grade so I can immediately spot the difference between “oh, she’s just waiting for her friends and it’s all good” and “she just got iced out forever.” I’m not a teacher but work in facilities management so I see a lot of different schools first thing in the morning or at pickup.

I saw it for the first time at DD’s school recently and it was a gut punch.

Same same.

Meant to say the overlap between anxiety, ADHD and autism is very hazy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moms smacking their kids hard (like my mom).

Loud public shaming/berating by parents (like my mom).

Kids allowed to be withdrawn/antisocial in public and at family events, or families eating in total silence at great speed at restaurants. That’s a super personal hangup that’s really specific to how my husband was raised and how it impacts our family life. When I see a little kid sullenly reading a book and slumped in their own corner at a nice restaurant, I don’t think, yay, they’re reading. My brain goes straight to: good luck to the woman who married that kid and into that family.

So do you want the family to berate them for being withdrawn in public, or do you want them to be left alone. Getting annoyed that a shy kid is reading a book is…interesting.

NP - there's no reason for a kid to be shy with their own family. If they can't sit in a restaurant and interact with their family members they should be in intensive therapy because something is seriously wrong. It's not appropriate to check out mentally and read a book during a family meal. And I say that as a voracious reader who is an introvert (but not shy).

Oh wow, you have no idea how some kids work. My ADHD/Autistic kid will absolutely focus on his book at a restaurant, because the restaurant is overwhelming/overstimulating. That's fine, and he doesn't need "intensive therapy". When I was a kid, my brother and I (who are not neurodivergent) always took books to restaurants, and didn't necessarily interact with our parents. Our parents were fine with this.

I’m the PP who has a hard time seeing a kid with a book, and it’s because my DH was diagnosed with autism only after our DC was born, but the maladaptive coping mechanisms his parents cultivated in him have made it really difficult for him to be a present parent and spouse. That’s why it’s a trigger for me.

While you as a parent may not be bothered and see it as an effective coping mechanism as the parent of your children, as the spouse of the adult version of that child I really struggle when I see it because I know the challenges it creates 30 years later.

+1

Same here, married into an aspergers family, I now know. Dx’d as an adult, brothers Dx was never disclosed by the mom.

I never took their silent dinners, silent drives, silent outings, and lack of connection with anyone personally, but it certainly has been bewildering and sad. They pass on the same “social and communication skills,” and lack thereof.

I don’t recommend an AS/NT home situation with kids. Unless you’re all AS, but even that can mismatch pretty spectacularly.

"Excessive" bookworming can also come from severe anxiety, and the overlap between that, inattentive ADHD (with hyperfocus on reading) and autism is very fine. I have severe anxiety and social anxiety, and always brought a book everywhere as a child. My mother understood that, A, I love to read, and B, It was a coping mechanism for me to tolerate being brought to see various places and peoples. My kids are the same. One has been diagnosed with autism but not the other. My husband, who is also on the ASD spectrum, HATES TO READ, and would never read anywhere unless it's for his job - and he's a research scientist who needs to read massive amounts of scientific papers! We all have ADHD and various levels of anxiety, and we're all deeply introverted. I'm a research scientist too, and my ADHD/ASD college kid is also shaping up to do research, but in a different field.

So I'm not sure reading excessively correlates directly with autism, but more with a certain intellectual profile.

I'm surprised that people are against reading - it's a symptom, not a cause. If you take away the book, you're not going to get more socialization, you're going to get a stressed-out and unhappy bookworm

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moms smacking their kids hard (like my mom).

Loud public shaming/berating by parents (like my mom).

Kids allowed to be withdrawn/antisocial in public and at family events, or families eating in total silence at great speed at restaurants. That’s a super personal hangup that’s really specific to how my husband was raised and how it impacts our family life. When I see a little kid sullenly reading a book and slumped in their own corner at a nice restaurant, I don’t think, yay, they’re reading. My brain goes straight to: good luck to the woman who married that kid and into that family.

So do you want the family to berate them for being withdrawn in public, or do you want them to be left alone. Getting annoyed that a shy kid is reading a book is…interesting.

NP - there's no reason for a kid to be shy with their own family. If they can't sit in a restaurant and interact with their family members they should be in intensive therapy because something is seriously wrong. It's not appropriate to check out mentally and read a book during a family meal. And I say that as a voracious reader who is an introvert (but not shy).

Oh wow, you have no idea how some kids work. My ADHD/Autistic kid will absolutely focus on his book at a restaurant, because the restaurant is overwhelming/overstimulating. That's fine, and he doesn't need "intensive therapy". When I was a kid, my brother and I (who are not neurodivergent) always took books to restaurants, and didn't necessarily interact with our parents. Our parents were fine with this.

Okay, but we weren't talking about special needs kids. We were just talking about bratty kids who refuse to engage because ... maybe they wanted a different restaurant, or they're not allowed to order the food they want, or they wanted to be allowed to use their tablet, etc. You and your brother shouldn't have been allowed books at the table. Your son, fine.

You think you can tell by looking whether a kid has SN? Wow.

People happily looking on as their young kids do things that distress or even hurt a pet.

My parents used to insist that my brother, about 4 at the time, be allowed to "play with" our cat's kittens. I was 10 and was able to clearly see that he was too rough and that the kittens were unhappy and stressed when he "played" with them, and that the mother cat was also anxious. I cried when I kept begging my parents to get him to leave them alone; they insisted that "he's allowed to play with the cats too!" Then one day I came home from school and ran to see the kittens, and they were all dead and broken on the floor. My brother had killed them and my mom hadn't even been watching him "play with" them. I have never forgiven my parents for this. Animals are not toys and little kids should not be allowed to touch them just because it makes the kid happy.

Agree. Raised voices in non emergency situations is just wrong.
Talking over people is wrong too. That’s triggering to me too, esp when unnecessary and not additive.

But now I live in a big voluminous house w middle schoolers blasting music in their rooms so I yell to get them… still doesn’t work… up & down stairs it is.

Raising voices at children, or adults for that matter.

I hated that as a child. My husband does that, although less now that I've explained over and over that it's horrible for me. I have auditory sensitivity and I can't handle yelling - if someone starts shouting, I can't actually hear what they're saying, and I'm massively stressed out.

A child witnessing domestic violence.

* meant have YOU buy one for them.

Anonymous wrote:Well-to-do parents who pretend they're poor, especially when they make their kids think they're poor.

Hmm.

Like poor poor or just sensible poor? Or ruthlessly cheap?

My spouse’s parents to this day make a sport out of pretending to be poor and cheap. Make others pay for their trips or meals or outings. Just bad manners too.

But growing up he never had real vacations, said he never went to camp bc they were poor, no sports or paid activities- just study, piano and hang out at the music shop. 4 to shirts, 2 slacks, 1 pair shoes. Throw it out in 1-2 years, rebuy the same. Uniform schools too.

Reality is the father got huge public stock comp every year plus his base, bonus and company car, to the point where they gifted each kid 100s of shares each year. Then they had a cheap heloc and bought 5+ multi family small rental properties that tripled in value plus are cash cows. Plus their summer house which was a steal. And then when my spouse was 20 his mom inherited 1-2M and they bought a huge house and land for gardening. Also a steal bc it abutted a factory, which is now a pricey subdivision.

So they’re actually loaded, shrewd, and cheap as all get out.

We get hair brushes for Xmas from them yet took them on an Airbnb long weekend for Thanksgiving and it was pulling teeth for them to even pay for a meal or excursion out or their share. Our kids even notice the games they play when a bill comes or they go get a hot chocolate and the In Laws come running to buy one too.

They never say thank you. They never offer to pay anything. They never say they had a good time. They do ask rude questions occasionally. And for not saying much ever those zingers really stand out.

Well-to-do parents who pretend they're poor, especially when they make their kids think they're poor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moms smacking their kids hard (like my mom).

Loud public shaming/berating by parents (like my mom).

Kids allowed to be withdrawn/antisocial in public and at family events, or families eating in total silence at great speed at restaurants. That’s a super personal hangup that’s really specific to how my husband was raised and how it impacts our family life. When I see a little kid sullenly reading a book and slumped in their own corner at a nice restaurant, I don’t think, yay, they’re reading. My brain goes straight to: good luck to the woman who married that kid and into that family.

So do you want the family to berate them for being withdrawn in public, or do you want them to be left alone. Getting annoyed that a shy kid is reading a book is…interesting.

NP - there's no reason for a kid to be shy with their own family. If they can't sit in a restaurant and interact with their family members they should be in intensive therapy because something is seriously wrong. It's not appropriate to check out mentally and read a book during a family meal. And I say that as a voracious reader who is an introvert (but not shy).

Oh wow, you have no idea how some kids work. My ADHD/Autistic kid will absolutely focus on his book at a restaurant, because the restaurant is overwhelming/overstimulating. That's fine, and he doesn't need "intensive therapy". When I was a kid, my brother and I (who are not neurodivergent) always took books to restaurants, and didn't necessarily interact with our parents. Our parents were fine with this.

I’m the PP who has a hard time seeing a kid with a book, and it’s because my DH was diagnosed with autism only after our DC was born, but the maladaptive coping mechanisms his parents cultivated in him have made it really difficult for him to be a present parent and spouse. That’s why it’s a trigger for me.

While you as a parent may not be bothered and see it as an effective coping mechanism as the parent of your children, as the spouse of the adult version of that child I really struggle when I see it because I know the challenges it creates 30 years later.

+1

Same here, married into an aspergers family, I now know. Dx’d as an adult, brothers Dx was never disclosed by the mom.

I never took their silent dinners, silent drives, silent outings, and lack of connection with anyone personally, but it certainly has been bewildering and sad. They pass on the same “social and communication skills,” and lack thereof.

I don’t recommend an AS/NT home situation with kids. Unless you’re all AS, but even that can mismatch pretty spectacularly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moms smacking their kids hard (like my mom).

Loud public shaming/berating by parents (like my mom).

Kids allowed to be withdrawn/antisocial in public and at family events, or families eating in total silence at great speed at restaurants. That’s a super personal hangup that’s really specific to how my husband was raised and how it impacts our family life. When I see a little kid sullenly reading a book and slumped in their own corner at a nice restaurant, I don’t think, yay, they’re reading. My brain goes straight to: good luck to the woman who married that kid and into that family.

So do you want the family to berate them for being withdrawn in public, or do you want them to be left alone. Getting annoyed that a shy kid is reading a book is…interesting.

NP - there's no reason for a kid to be shy with their own family. If they can't sit in a restaurant and interact with their family members they should be in intensive therapy because something is seriously wrong. It's not appropriate to check out mentally and read a book during a family meal. And I say that as a voracious reader who is an introvert (but not shy).

Oh wow, you have no idea how some kids work. My ADHD/Autistic kid will absolutely focus on his book at a restaurant, because the restaurant is overwhelming/overstimulating. That's fine, and he doesn't need "intensive therapy". When I was a kid, my brother and I (who are not neurodivergent) always took books to restaurants, and didn't necessarily interact with our parents. Our parents were fine with this.

I’m the PP who has a hard time seeing a kid with a book, and it’s because my DH was diagnosed with autism only after our DC was born, but the maladaptive coping mechanisms his parents cultivated in him have made it really difficult for him to be a present parent and spouse. That’s why it’s a trigger for me. While you as a parent may not be bothered and see it as an effective coping mechanism as the parent of your children, as the spouse of the adult version of that child I really struggle when I see it because I know the challenges it creates 30 years later.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moms smacking their kids hard (like my mom).

Loud public shaming/berating by parents (like my mom).

Kids allowed to be withdrawn/antisocial in public and at family events, or families eating in total silence at great speed at restaurants. That’s a super personal hangup that’s really specific to how my husband was raised and how it impacts our family life. When I see a little kid sullenly reading a book and slumped in their own corner at a nice restaurant, I don’t think, yay, they’re reading. My brain goes straight to: good luck to the woman who married that kid and into that family.

So do you want the family to berate them for being withdrawn in public, or do you want them to be left alone. Getting annoyed that a shy kid is reading a book is…interesting.

NP - there's no reason for a kid to be shy with their own family. If they can't sit in a restaurant and interact with their family members they should be in intensive therapy because something is seriously wrong. It's not appropriate to check out mentally and read a book during a family meal. And I say that as a voracious reader who is an introvert (but not shy).

Oh wow, you have no idea how some kids work. My ADHD/Autistic kid will absolutely focus on his book at a restaurant, because the restaurant is overwhelming/overstimulating. That's fine, and he doesn't need "intensive therapy". When I was a kid, my brother and I (who are not neurodivergent) always took books to restaurants, and didn't necessarily interact with our parents. Our parents were fine with this.

Okay, but we weren't talking about special needs kids. We were just talking about bratty kids who refuse to engage because ... maybe they wanted a different restaurant, or they're not allowed to order the food they want, or they wanted to be allowed to use their tablet, etc. You and your brother shouldn't have been allowed books at the table. Your son, fine.