To the Parents of NT Children: How You React Matters! Autism Acceptance, con't

Captain Gilly Wants You to Know He's Really Not the Enemy

Mandatory education shoves everyone together. Diminishing SpEd ranks mean more disabled kids in classrooms, and less staff to manage their behavior properly, which leads to more of a chance of a culture of resentment developing.

We have to get past that outside the schools.

The schools have no choice, and the kids in them have no choice:  they all have to be clumped together for 6 1/2 to 8 hours a day, five days a week, 180 days a year.  If things go wrong in the classroom, it is a very different "wrong" than the NT(neuro-typical, i.e., NOT spectrum children) may have any insight into whatsoever.

Judged swiftly and harshly many times, the spectrum kids are often whisked off to another room, like they did something wrong.  It's not that THEY did anything wrong necessarily.  Even if they did, the solutions to keeping it from occurring again are complex and must be implemented by people who understand how the autistic mind works.  It could be that their accommodations have failed, that teachers were not able to apply them adequately, or even that there is some unknown random disabling factor that led to an incident in a classroom.

Blaming and shaming are pointless.  Half the time the ASD child cannot even adequately recall what happened in the first place, because their focus is on some minutiae that isn't even important.

Parents at home may hear stories about the spectrum kid in their child/children's classroom and draw erroneous conclusions based on those stories.  It is VERY unlikely that an NT child has a clue what actually happened and their narrative of what they remember probably bears little resemblance to the actual situation.  There is also the added difficulty that teachers and staff are somewhat bound by privacy laws not to explain things adequately.  Sometimes, it might be helpful for a parent who feels like their child was harmed somehow to hear that the incident in the room that concerns them was not directed AT their child, and was the result of a series of stimuli that added up to a meltdown.  They might also need to hear the timeline to assure themselves that the meltdown was brief and managed properly.  I think explaining HOW autism works to people with questions, and being specific might help people be more compassionate.  Explanations might also help the parents of neuro-typical children challenge the assumptions their children make in narratives about school days and provide a valuable insight into how all of us can make things better if we try.

I know for my son, there are occasional meltdowns and outbursts.  They are NOT the norm.  They are rare, in well-managed settings.  Unfortunately, they are less rare with teachers who are overwhelmed, staff/teachers who do not believe that autism is the root cause of most difficulties and therefore do not apply the abundant accommodations that make classroom success possible, or situations that no one could control or foresee (the snow cone guy did not come as promised, after two weeks of using potential future snow cones as a behavioral control measure which the behavior specialist would probably have told you was a TERRIBLE idea in the first place...etc.).  When they do occur, my son has his own strategies for calming down, and the SpEd staff who knows him very well, can usually return him to regular life in the classroom quickly.  This has all been dramatically improving with every year.  I know his fellow classmates remember him when he was younger as someone quite difficult to manage, and I do hope that they have noticed how much better he is with each passing year.  He deserves that.  He works hard.

When an NT child is narrating something that happened with the ASD child in their classroom, I can understand the gut check a parent might have about things they are hearing.  I understand because I HAVE an NT child, also, and I had many occasions to react to things she told me.  So, I'm no stranger to the gut check reaction at "stuff that happened at school."  However...I did not allow her to be ugly if we met school kids outside school.

Know this:  when a person on the spectrum loses their temper or reacts badly to change, they are DEEPLY embarrassed and ashamed that they could not keep those feelings a secret.  They are desperate to fit in, just like the others around them, and they often painfully, deeply imagine that when they cannot control impulses, everyone will treat them like they are a failure and not worthy of being part of the community.  It hurts to lose control and yell out, or lose your temper.  It is terrifying.  It is humiliating when you did everything you could to be a good person and be kind to others and be what other people expect.  I know this because he has told me what it is like inside a meltdown.  It is awful.

That awful is why there are SpEd teachers and behavior plans.  If you prevent the things are ARE controllable, meltdowns stop.  Dead.  None happen.  My son is a happy, contributing member of the classroom and no one notices because he is quiet when things are going well.

Now, to the point--- no matter what you heard about school from your NT child, the ASD child at the park or the pool or the playground or the concert or the fireworks show may NOT be anything like the child you heard about from those narratives.  A narrative generated by a child or a teacher who is trapped in a room for 6-8 hours a day is not always a reliable yardstick to assess the person outside of school. In their families, most ASD people are calm, happy, smart, funny, gentle and deeply empathic people.  They LOVE making others happy, and have a great deal to contribute.

If all you have encountered is the narrative of the person in the room you've heard about, and you react without actually interacting or paying attention outside of the room, you will miss out on a friendship, a smile, or just a fun few moments.  The least you can do is not make life MORE difficult by judging the child OR the family.  Autism is hard, and it gets better slowly. 

The conversation will continue....

#learnbeforeyoujudge