What is the best thing your parents could have done for you?

Post Reply New Topic

I can only relate my own personal experience but there are things that I had a horrible time with, that perhaps could have been explained to me in a way that I could understand. They are things that I still really struggle with understanding. It is important for a child to understand that they are not the genesis of abuse that they receive from others. You would really have to get into sophisticated concepts to explain this to a child. But "don't take it personally" and "they are just trying to 'get a rise out of you'" were baffling and infuriating statements to have to hear as explanations. Because I could make absolutely no sense of them, I can't underscore enough how illogical those explanations were and are. I needed to understand why people are mean. I still don't get it and will still fall prey to it. But I understand the psychology of it now.

They could have told me, at least once, that they loved me.

But they never did.

They were sick people, who ruled by anger, humiliation, guilt and violence. The outside scars are gone, but the inside ones will always be there.

I never had a sense of freedom until they were both dead. Now they can't hurt me anymore.

The best thing my dad could have done was leave my mom and take me with him. That was probably nearly impossible in the mid-to-late '80s, though.

One thing they both could have done was not get all bent out of shape just because I was sick of being a child and couldn't wait to grow up. Even after I was legally free, they still used every mind trick they could think of to keep me under control.

They could also have kept trying to get my ADHD treated... apparently, they gave me one pill when I was small, didn't like how I responded, and pursued it no further, relying exclusively on screaming and punishment to manage my attention issues. The outcome was... suboptimal.

It would help if my mom was less protective, although that was beneficial at age 7. Now it just get me more grief at school and such.

Homeschool me.

I wish my mother had accepted that I wasn't just a smaller version of her. (That's not a specific AS thing; that's absolutely basic to all parenting. Some parents get that their kids are actually, you know, people in their own right; some never do.)

Specific Aspie things are that I wish it had been accepted that just because I was a girl didn't mean I was obsessed with 'girly' things like clothes and makeup; I got more pressure about that from home than I ever got from anywhere else. And I wish I'd been given more of an education in relationships and sex and how they worked in the modern world. I think it was assumed that I'd never need to know about stuff like that, and I only narrowly avoided some potentially very dangerous situations.

Also: What RhettOracle said. If you love your kids, tell them. If they're good at anything, tell them. I only ever got told what was wrong with me, and it's taken decades for me to accept that I'm actually an OK person most of the time really.

Be blind to her facial expression and body language. Seriously. She may look like she is laughing at you, or being disrespectful, but it's just that she likely can't regulate her nonverbal signals properly.

Please don't force her to submit to input that distresses her, such as being touched.

Don't get angry at her if she goes unresponsive under lots of sensory input. She can't help it.

Listen to her input & don't discount things as simply childhood stuff when it may be more than that.

For example, I went thru both underwear-hell & sock-hell in elementary school because my mother would buy irregulars. She couldn't tell the difference in fit, but I could easily. There's a difference between "I hate underwear" & "The right leg-hole is tighter than the other & it hurts". She could've saved many tears, fights, & money if she'd listened to what I was saying instead of what she thought I was saying.

It took two-three school years to get my parents to transfer me back to public school from private. I'm not sure why my lists of reasons weren't good enough, but when they finally transferred me they did agree that they should've listened sooner.

Fight for her & don't let other people roadblock you.

Reiterating the special interest thing. NEVER try to take away a child's special interest, no matter what it is. Invariably it will only cause the child to CLING to it EVEN MORE, develop anxiety about it and lose trust in you, and they will resent you forever as a result.

My mother tried to interfere with my special interest between 1987 and 2002. It was a cartoon that had toys associated with it. She thought it was unhealthy because I'd kiss the TV whenever a particular character from that cartoon was on TV. Her actions did not abate this and only made it worse.

Just listen to my teachers because they knew something was different about me. Also taken me out of classes like math where I failed and almost did not get to walk red carpet at the graduation ceremony.

I wish my parents - my Mom in particular would have given more time to listen to me and hear me out, and take me seriously.

We never had much of a problem in my younger years, and I figure this is because they had complete control of me, and I was content with that. Like my Mom would pick out my clothes, and tell me what we were doing and just take me places whether I wanted to go or not, and I would just have to sit tight and put up with it.

As I got older my individuality , and my desire to lead my life how I wanted popped out. I never wanted to do anything bad, but Mom constantly controlled me via the blackmail route.

She tried everything in the book to try and get me to be 'normal' because being 'normal' is so important to her.
I even tried it her way for a while because I was being bullied at school, but it didnt work so I didnt see the point- it was just making me even more miserable,. My parents never thought the bullying was that bad, and said that it was my fault I was being called names because I played into the bullies hands.
i didnt know how else to deal with them that was the trouble. Back then I had the inability to ignore them
My mom is a school teacher as a profession and teaches 3rd graders, so obviously when the teachers at my school told me I was a trouble maker, she beleived them instead of listening to me to find out that actually, I was being constantly wound up to the point where I just flipped because I couldn't take it anymore. The teachers failed to do much about it, so I felt I had to

My mom never liked the fact that I didn't want to wear make up, be interested in fashion, or celebrities, or be like a lot of the other girls my age. After a while she just accepted it, but she was still very fussy about what I wore when I was out with her, saying that what I wear reflects on her.. (not true in my opinion)

As you can see from my profile picture Ive gone completely the other way now, to wearing things that most people consider fancy dress, as my regular wardrobe. This is what I like wearing and I feel comfortable and happy. I dont wear it to annoy my parents, its just what I always wanted to do growing up because I always liked costume dress, and I was not allowed to when I was younger.

I am 25 now, and no longer live with my parents, and for some part I can see why my parents did the things they did, and on the whole they brought me up well.
I beleive though that me and my mother wouldn't have been at loggerheads all the time if she just sat down and took the time to listen to me, and not tell me that my innermost feelings were utter rubbish


If I had any advice to give based on my upbringing, it would be to listen to your child. Teach them good morals, and right from wrong. dont let them walk all over you but at the same time respect their choices that if they want to lead their lives a little differently from the 'normal' let them. If its not actually hurting anybody.

My moms favorite reason from why i wasnt allowed to do something was 'because I say so' That irked me so much and made me so angry, because I knew it was because she couldn't think of a reason to say no to me and was saying it to annoy me. I think if somebody asks you for a reason why you cant do something then you should give one

Anything even remotely resembling a childhood would have been nice. I was in the worst hurry to grow up, and incredibly ill equipped too when I finally got there.