Proud of my son's Autism.

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I find the Supernanny show highly suspect anyway. The whole point of the show is to display the extremes in child behavior problems, and if your family isn't operating in the extreme, you don't get on the show. It's the modern day version of the traveling freak show. You have to wonder how much of it is real and how much is creative editing.

It's a very annoying way to sell cars, Windex, and dog food, I must say.

I went to MIT, as did my wife and most of my friends. At least half the student body there were aspies. If your son goes there, he'll probably be fine; it's the neurotypicals that are misfits there.

The intellectual giftedness and the perfectionism are two sides of the same coin. Lose one and you lose the other.

I would delicately submit that you are borderline fucked-in-the-head: I have borderline HFA, a 160 I.Q., and, in keeping with those, an inclination to think that yours is a tawdry, highly romanticized and sensationalized account of what is, for some of us, hardly an existentially feel-good situation.

And is your evaluation of your child's intellectual prowess itself not without some plausibly ill-grounded embellishment? Is a mere parroting of [aesthetically nightmarish] poetry at the age of 3-ish, for instance, really an exceptional feat? To be sure, it is not being regurgitated without a modicum of cognitive ability--a capacity for crystalized intelligence, for instance. It is no doubt entertaining, as well. And what parent would not be proud of such a performance? Nonetheless, I am hardly persuaded that these things merit glorification and exaltation, if the ground for the accolades is one largely underwritten by the supposition that this behavior is, in and of itself, indicative of a celebratory genius to be celebrated...

Ummmm, okey dokey.

I am proud of things like achievement and effort and putting others first, not because someone per se is gifted or has ASD or ADD or schizophrenia. It does not make much sense to me to be proud of someone just because of who they are.

I do not wish my ASD/ADD son was different because that is fanciful thought. He is the way he is. His artistic skills are probably a result of his ASD, as he has shown signs of being intensely observant of detail and no-one else in his family on either side has anything like his artistic talent. I am proud that he drew such fantastic drawings when younger. I am not proud that he effectively later got kicked out of the cartooning class by the teacher who had previously said he was the most talented cartoonist he had taught.

I am proud of my son when he makes an effort, but not proud of the ASD per se.