Autism destiny and your thoughts.

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Writing about an event that I came across with my friend who has an Asperger/Autistic teen. Would like to know the thoughts of the parents and adults who had been on the spectrum. My friend and his spouse both have their past where somebody close to them passed away untimely death at young age. Both parents are affected emotionally by their past losses.

One day out of blue the autistic teen said that s/he has intuition that before taking birth s/he made an agreement with the super power that s/he will choose to live the life of disability if there is no untimely loss in the life of his/her parents. My friend said that after hearing this they looked back at their life and there had been no such loss in the extended family since the birth of this child.

Further the friend mentioned that although teen knew a bit about the past life history of parents, but teen is not high functioning enough to make up the story him/herself. Also the teen does not have enough social interaction outside the family that somebody would have told the teen to say so.

Have other WP members come across such experiences? If you were the parents how your attitude towards the child will change? If there was a situation that tough love was a good option to help the teen, would you still continue with tough love approach in certain situation? In general my friend thinks their parenting is on lenient side. In fact many times I tell my friend that they should be tougher with the kid.

The kid has extreme rigidity leading to frequent conflicts. Any thing not his/her own idea is no go. Currently lacks many skills and skills acquisition rate is zero.

I know in the end one’s thinking and response to such things is highly personal and different for each individual. But I thought it will a good idea to put it here to see other member’s thoughts.

Regards, archautism

It sounds like magical thinking. (see disclaimer at end) I don't think magical thinking is unusual for kids and autistic people have a greater imagination to draw from then some people give them credit for. It probably reflects fear and empathy b/c the child feels surrounded by death. Even if people think the child doesn't listen to what is said, or cannot hear them when they talk about things like that, the kid probably is aware of it.

I don't understand what possible connection this story would have on parenting philosophy unless a person was apt to be more strict if they could detect no -apparent- effective empathy. That would really not be appropriate in any case.

I am probably viewed in most circles as a lenient parent, but in my mind, I parent in a way that fits with my child's needs and he does not respond typically to typical authoritative parenting. My parenting is based on pragmatic conditions on the ground, as it were, not whatever comes out of his imagination. I don'rt see what bearing his stories would have on that.

I may have specific approaches when he is afraid of a specific thing, but that does not sound like what you are asking. I am not even 100% what you are saying.

I suspect you believe or your friend is saying that they parent the child based on the fact that they believe their lives have been extended as a result of his "bargain"???? Even if I believed such a bargain were possible, I cannot imagine changing rules around because of that, unless one were parenting based on subconsious misdirected gratitude. (By misdirected I mean that in the sense of misguidingly viewing leniency as a quid pro quo thing--not as a statement on the story)

Another possibility is that if you are (and I am not saying you are--but if you are) giving unsolicited parenting advice it is possible your friend is telling you that is the reason for their lenient parenting to get you to stop giving advice, thinking it would stop the discussion. Some people are conflict-averse and aren't comfortable saying they don't want advice on how to be more strict when their children when they already have a parenting strategy they are happy with. Parents of autistic kids tend to get especially inundated with advice from multiple sources, whether they want it/value it or not. Again, I am not saying you are doing that, and you may have been legitimately asked--I am just floating it as a possibility.

Disclaimer: if I inadvertently offended anyone with a more spiritual bent, I apologize. I tried editing this, but obviously my cynicism is out there b/c that is the essence of my answer. I am not trying to criticize the child or the friend, or anyone who would find this plausible, but as I say it is not something I believe in, and my answer reflects that.

ASDMommyASDKid, thank you for your post. I see your point about parents saying something because of unsolicited advice, but to best of my judgement that is not the case.

Your point is right that magical thinking should not affect one's parenting philosophy.

Also I was hoping that more people will comment here. But seems this type of question is unusual and many members here may not have opinion about this.

Thanks

From your English usage, I will hazard a guess about your cultural background and respond accordingly.

No, I don't believe in past births, karma, "between janma contracts between the Jeevatma and the Parmatma" etc etc etc. I used to, but since "divorcing" myself from all organized religions, I do not buy into these theories anymore. What I suspect is that the child heard the parents talking about how they went through a painful loss when they were young, and how much it devastated them. The child may have internalized the story, and if exposed to some of this religion's tenets, may have believed that he had made such a pact with the Paramatma that there will be no further loss in the family to protect the parents from additional emotional upheaval.

At least that is what I suspect. It could be a strange coincidence that there were no other early life losses in the family, but it does not necessarily indicate that this child possesses magical powers.

However, if the parents believed that the child did, in fact, possessed such powers, and therefore "out of gratitude" parented him more leniently (than you believe they should), then that's an issue ONLY if such leniency adversely affected his development and progress. If the leniency has no negative impact on the child's emotional or personal development, then I strongly suggest that you stay out of it, especially if you don't want to lose your friend.

I agree with ASDmomyASDkid, magical thinking. I did a lot of that myself when I was young, well, up till about about 40 years of age when i finally realized the world just didn't care what I thought, or if I thought. (by world I mean the outside barionic universe).

Aspies are very good at pattern matching. We'll see correlation where there is none, just because we were in the vicinity when something happened. It's difficult for us to understand that those things also happen when we are NOT in the vicinity.

Also, I have an excellent memory of things when I was very young. Anything my parents talked about between themselves or between friends I would remember for years, and ruminate on them until I came up with a hypothesis. Then I'd believe that I correctly surmised the situation and knew the answers to the universe. Only 20 or 30 years later have I come to realize I was wrong about just about everything. The world doesn't work that way.

So; magical thinking.