HAVING AN AUTISTIC CHILD WRECKS YOUR LIFE!! by Carol Sarler

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It sounds like Tom is very low functioning. The thing is, the proposed test doesn't distinguish between low and high functioning, or take into account the fact that functioning level can change over time. For every Tom there is a Warren Buffett-unable to dress himself, but so gifted that he inevitably changed the world. Buffett shredded the Efficient Market Theory. If he had never lived, it might still be dogma. And what about Nikola Tesla? If HE had never lived, the computer on my desk and the light on my ceiling, both powered by AC electricity, would not exist. Do parents really want to risk aborting a child so gifted that he will change the world?

It seems like it's the old complainer. Remember, children if you find anything wrong, complain and if you complain persusasively enough you might just get something and convince everyone that your arguement is correct.

It's all crap, I am not convinced, not because her rhetoric is impressive(it really isn't. If she wanted to argue autistic children are awful to raise, well her syntax and choice of words sounded impressive but they really weren't. I could write better then that and far more convincingly), but because it's not true.

Remember black is white if you want it to be. I think that she thinks that if everything isn't black, it must be white, and white is bad.

Are there difficulties raising a NT child? Sure.

But there is zero percent chance that raising a NT child is more stressful than raising a ASD child.

I think raising a NT child with certain physical disabilities is way, way, way more stressful than raising an ASD child. There's some physical disabilities where your child can stop breathing, and die in the middle of the night. That makes cleaning up a fecal smearing episode not sound so bad to me in comparison. I refuse to feel sorry for myself over raising my children who are healthy, and happy.

I'm noticing an awful lot of autism articles from the Daily Mail on here. You think this is their latest scare story? They've done immigration, house prices and cancer to death, this could be their new thing.

(If you're from the US, The Mail is an awful english tabloid rag that masquerades as serious journalism. They have a track record of printing wildly exaggerated and sometimes entirely untrue stories, playing on the fears of the English middle classes and picking on the most vulnerable sections of the population - in short, BASTARDS!)

After 62 years, the worst people I met were NT, no question, and doing life in prison now.

As for kids in general, some are just nothing but trouble and won't go away. Same family, two good ones, and a curse, all NT.

The idea of curing children of their behavior means making life hell, all day, every day, and truth is, all dogs bite if you push it far enough.

There are no easy answers, but this story is just making life worse.

Do you mean that the average stress for raising ASD children is higher than the average stress for raising NT children?

It seems to me that there's a lot of variation in how stressful raising children is, and that variation is as much or more due to what the parents are like than what the children are like.

So, very different talking averages versus talking about a random ASD child and parent(s) versus a random NT child and parent(s).

Good summary of the Daily Mail!

From what I've seen and heard, people don't tend to take the Mail seriously, luckily. People, from my experience, only need to hear, "I read in the Daily Mail..." and they'll snort with derision. It's BS journalism, nothing more.

Another thing that really gets me about this article is that this WOMAN doesn't even have an autistic child, she's just judging by her friend's experience. And it doesn't seem as if she's even asked for her friend's opinion on this. Or if she has, I'm sure the mother wouldn't have said what she wanted to hear (basically that the boy should never have been allowed to be born).

Try my NT brother, who has a physical abnormality in the brain, as he is missing more than half of it, and he still functions normal, just a little slow at getting things... More NT than me though. He also has a blood disorder that prevents him from producing red blood cells, and he need tranfusions very often, and he also gets a needle every night that has to stay in all night, just to deliver medicine that keeps him from developing iron poisoning from the transfusions. He is monitered constantly by the doctors at Sick Kids hospital in Toronto, which is over an hour away, just because they are the nearest place with the knowledge on some aspects of his disorder. They are always checking his iron levels through a liver biopsy, which is done twice yearly, more often if it is above normal range. He is fully aware of his disabilities and hates himself for it, although he is not depressed. My parents, of course, would have preferred to not have to raise a child with such a severe disability, but they still love him, and would not trade him for anything. Add in that he has a defeatist attitude, and a limited range of interests and you have a unique situation.

Ok so far so good...
[quote=And the question they are starting to ask is too terrifying for words. If this amazingly beautiful child (they often are), possessed by misery and rage that no amount of expertise has relieved, is this destructive and violent at seven, then how much worse will he be at 17, when he's that much stronger? [/quote] Just because we don't like change doesn't mean that we can't.

[quote= Autistic children, like any other children, presumably reserve the right not all to be the same. /quote] What is this "presumably" business?

[quote=But looking on, as a relatively dispassionate observer... /quote] Dispassionate my foot. This Carol Sarler lady is no lady at all.

Meet one autistic child and you have met just that one.............NO autistic or NT child is the same!

Those of us on the Autistic Spectrum may have diet differences, behavioural differences, cognitive, sleep and emotional differences.................................As similar as all that is NONE of us are the same. We are all uniquely wonderful in our own ways. Meltdowns? Yea sure, doesn't everyone have them to some degree BUT if you know the signs, the triggers then you can minimalise the damage.

By getting to know your child best, learning how to handle them with kid gloves when they get prickly, soothe them when they get anxious, be there when they need a friend is the kindest way of dealing with any issues that are troubling. Shouting, getting angry and frustrated gets no one anywhere.

And yes I get as prickly as a porcupine sometimes, but the kids know how to handle me just as I know how to handle them.

A lot is said about 'aggression'? Whilst it may appear aggression, actually if you look just a bit deeper it is FEAR and anxiety, frustration and sometimes embarrasement that is the cause of the problem, not aggression at all. And lets all take a look at the basics

A - Antecedent

B - Behaviour

C - Consequences

We focus in on the B without going to the A. What has caused the behaviour in the first place? And what are the consequences of this behaviour? It is really quite simple, many of these kids don't know what they have done wrong? Gently we can teach our children, it aint rocket science. Children are forever. When we decide to have them, we are also promising .............to love them, honour them, look after them in sickness in health, respect them and cherish them. We take oaths when we marry so why not when we have kids?

I chose to have my children and I don't for one minute regret a second of it. Would I change anything? No. Would I be without them? No.

Every child deserves the best, it is our job as parents to do whatever has to be done in as kind and gentle way as possible. Did my mum do her best for me? No...............even more reason why I have to do more than my best. I know how it feels to be rejected, ignored and unloved. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Everyone deserves a chance but boy Carol Sarlor you just blew yours Would you like to see some more of her work?

Carol Sarler
Observer
Sunday May 12, 2002

One of my first tasks in journalism took me to interview a chap whose
claim to fame was an IQ so high it couldn't have been measured on the
Richter scale; indeed, he became some premier cheese in Mensa and was
wheeled out as a promotional tool for the organisation.

The trouble was that the IQ was his only claim to fame: he worked
menially - in a bingo hall, as I recall - and had little success with
personal relationships because he was, frankly, odd. Not mad or bad,
just lacking in social ease or grace, as I had unkind fun in
demonstrating within the piece I wrote. Two days after my snitty lump
of prose was published, he killed himself. His note did not blame me
specifically; it just wailed his feeling that nobody, really,
understood him back there in his tormented, excluded isolation, alone
as he had been with the genius IQ that had bought him, in his whole
life, absolutely nothing.

Full text
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Artic ... 31,00.html

Obviously I meant everything else being equal it is easier raising a NT child.

An NT child does a better job of covering up if they are a so called problem child. You can't help them as easily because you literally can't tell if there is even something wrong with them until they come home with a black eye, and then all you can do is ask them "what did you do to deserve that?" and hope they are honest. Maybe I'm wrong as I can't see into the NT mind that well, but I do know that they have their own set of problems that for me would be harder to deal with. I don't mind the idea of raising a child anywhere on the spectrum, as I would still be able to take care of such a child, with the help of a loving partner, anything is possible. I am not in that situation yet, but I look forward to getting married to whoever it is I will, and having children someday.

Would someone be so kind as to attach some C4 to my head and set it off thanks.

Again, define 'NT'. My older sister is not physically disabled, and not ASD. Yet due to her problems with GAD and chronic depression, she has been significantly more challenging for my parents than I ever was. In addition to that, the friends that she had enticed her into smoking and drugs at an early age. An ASD kid might be less likely to do that, due to not being in those social situations in the first place.

For the most part, I just kept to myself, behaved well and got good grades. Even though she's 30, my sister still very much depends on connections to the rest of the family, and it tires my parents out. They have a much more "hands off" approach, where people are supposed to solve their own problems. They have an easier time with me, because I prefer to not talk about my personal problems if I can avoid it.

My daughter is autistic. She is barely verbal, may never become potty-trained (she's 7 now), and has great difficulty in expressing herself in pretty much any way. The only tsuris she's given me lately is fighting over taking her cutouts of Yo Gabba Gabba! characters to school - it's one of her big perseverations, and if she took them, she wouldn't pay any attention to her teachers.

The last two weekends, I've had to keep an eye on a friend's NT kids. They're destructive (shredding my daughter's pine cone, flushing several styrofoam bath-toy letters down the toilet), noisy, running wild throughout my house... I don't think I could stand to deal with kids like that on a regular basis. They'd drive me insane in short order.