Autism fidget toys are a fad

Post Reply New Topic

They're not banned at my school and I want a spinner and a cube.

Eeee, in the olden days we only had Bic 4-colour pens. We disguised it as being "productive".

Its pretty much the same as when yo-yos were a fad back in the 90s, the children like watching them spin and go up and down. NTs stim too, especially children. The only people I've seen with the stim toys are children and "NT" adults who probably have adhd, asd, or some other disorder anyway. And of course they are going to be banned from some classes because of some uppity, judgmental, dumbass-nitpicky teacher wants an excuse to b***h.

I read a blog on a Serbian adoption site (I am interested in Serbia, so that led me to study about disability issues in that country) about fidget toys. The mother of six children with Down syndrome, five of them adopted from Serbia, said that, instead of banning the toys outright, there should be a time set aside to play with the toys. This seems like a sensible solution and one that minimizes distractions to learning.

I like that fidget toys are becoming a fad because that means they are more accessible to those who do benefit from them. Plus why shouldn't NT's use fidget toys? I don't need bath bombs from Lush but that doesn't mean I don't benefit from it. I don't have to need something to justify having it.

Agreed. It reminds me of that old cliche, "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" Doing something just because everyone else is doing it makes zero sense to me.

I like tinsel, amusingly shaped erasers and blades of grass as fiddlethings, or clenching and throttling fresh air if I am caught in a momentary fury.

Honestly, this is just really idiotic to me.

If they dont have these fidget gizmos, they're just going to use other random objects instead. I used to do this with pens, back in school. The end result was that I'd have ink all over my hands. And if anyone had tried to take the thing away from me, well.... they'd probably have found themselves unable to. Tended to be very, very stubborn, whenever I thought something was bloody stupid, which was always. Like gym class, they always wanted us to play sports, I hated sports (as someone who hated basically everyone else in every class, you bet I wasnt going to try to be on a team with them) and simply refused. I quickly found that many teachers tend to get more than a little lost when that happens. Ended up on a seperate mini-class that often went to the local driving range to hit golf balls instead. Had the odd side effect of me carrying around a golf club all day (never went to my locker). Sure wouldnt get away with THAT these days, would I...

The point though is that they arent ACTUALLY accomplishing anything with this, except irritating the students. Which never helps. The ACTUAL solution would be to make the lessons less freaking boring. Change the system instead of blaming absolutely anything else. Honestly, as always, I see the education system as being a total disaster. It doesnt keep anyone actually interested in learning much, and of course you have bullying with nobody doing anything about it... whole thing is a mess. But no, let's ban these random harmless objects. Ugh.

I was coaching (climbing) a young, non-autistic girl yesterday and she asked me if I had a spinner as her dad bought her one. I said no, but I am autistic. Didn't phase her at all. I have real hope for the next generation

When I was in elementary school wigwam socks became popular. The school administration banned wigwams.
Next trapper keepers became popular. The school banned trapper keepers.
Then later pogs became popular. Pogs were banned.
Just as I was graduating Pokemon cards came into fashion. Pokemon paraphernalia was also banned.

What am I trying to say here? I'm saying that nothing has really changed in the eyes of the schools. Worldwide, school administrators seem to think that keeping useful but popular things out of the hands of children is important. Goodness knows socks and binders are useful, but they got the axe anyway. I think maybe the school admin needs some fidget toys. They obviously have nothing better to do some days.

I always hated that when I was a kid because they would be missing the point when they would be saying it to me or saying "just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you can." I was trying to figure out the rules and figure out right from and wrong and how to act and I relied on other people to figure it out so how am I supposed to know something is wrong or that something is optional? If you know you're different and not like everyone else so you want to be normal because you want to be liked and have friends and not be seen as weird or mean or rude, you will be trying to copy other people to be normal and to fit in. But apparently the adults didn't understand so they thought I was just doing what most kids do and then use that excuse of "But Seth did it" or "but my friends do it," they know it's wrong but do it anyway while I was just confused and couldn't figure it out so I had to rely on everyone around me. That never suited well with me.

I tried out my nephew's fidget spinner and found it was a not a stimming enhancer, but the opposite because the toy was doing most of the work not my body.

I completely agree. I'm new here by the way and I see that you're a fan of Star Trek: Voyager and Seven of Nine. I finished the series early this year after watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Seven of Nine is one of my favourite Star Trek characters.

I like what Ricky Berwick thinks
https://youtu.be/dLgQsiZKAJ4

They might be just another harmless fad like yo-yo's and Rubik's Cube, but NTs are hating them with a passion for no real reason, and they are using spinners as a new reason to hate autistic people. Because you know, it's not like we have enough reasons to be hated. I saw a video not long ago where someone was using a spinner and approximately 98% of the comments mentioned autism by people clearly have no idea what it means. One genius even spelled autism wrong. Stupid world!

Those fidget spinners annoy me because of the noise they make. I use a mini slinky as a fidget toy so I try not to get agitated when they have there fidget as well. When the teacher is talking.... thats when the noise is a huge distraction for me.