Things you wish adults knew when you were a child

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To be honest, I didn't agree with every comment that was submitted, but they were all written by adult autistics, so I respected that they may feel different then I do. I added almost every comment that was submitted. The teachers, and parents that want their ASD kids to be like everyone else isn't going to care about this list anyway. They probably won't even read it. I'm hoping to reach the people that want to understand, and do better for today's ASD youth than what we got as children.

one thing to unfortunately remember is many Aspies are self-loathing; in my mind they shouldn't be, but they are.

Reminds me of half the guys on Beauty and the Geek.

When the show finally ended, they'd completely sold out, and the gals just....went back to being superficial b*****s.

The guy who won the last season of the show even implied that he hated himself, and was more interested in more folks liking him for what was on the outside. The one guy who truly liked who he was on the inside...everyone else hated.

OH oh this is easy: I wish they knew I was autistic!! !! My parents didn't know. There was a lot of yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. Everything was my fault.

yeah dude...it doesn't make them care.

I even tried offering advice from my personal experience and knowledge to my former teacher to help him better with his current students.

Care to guess if he willingly accepted my offer or not?

Serenity, that was a WONDERFUL list!! !

I've been there.
It was hell.

How do they know who to pick for a partner?
How do they do that?

No one ever explained this properly to me ever or what I was supposed to do to get a partner. Not even later in the specific training on how to work in teams and groups that everyone had to go through.




I couldn't sync up or follow along easily, so in the end I invented my own, much to everyone else's amusement.

This is also the reason why I don't attend step aerobics or dance classes.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make some people care. I had a similar experience with my sons' preschool teacher. She's a Early Childhood Disability teacher, plus she has a daughter with AS. She had mentioned that she noticed my aspieness, probably even before I noticed it. One time she was saying that she was going to take her daughter back to the doctor, because she was having "issues" with her. I e-mailed her back offering to give my opinion if she cared to discuss it with me. The response that I got was pretty much a pat on the head, and 'that's nice'. It really pissed me off. I felt totally dismissed, and patronized. Of course, I'm sure she took her to the doctor, because she does all the time anyway. God forbid, she ask someone who lives with AS before asking an educated professional. I'm going to send this list to her anyway. Who knows? Maybe, she'll get something out of it.



Thanks! I'm thankful to everyone that contributed to it.

AmberEyes I hope that you agree with those quotes that you referred to. I think some of them were yours!

It's very simple. They were friends already, or at the very least they liked each other at first meeting to want to work together.

Ah.

Maybe that was my problem, maybe I was too accepting of others liking them before I even met them properly. Maybe I should've been fussier.

Problem was, whenever I tried to talk to people first, they'd usually bolt or make an excuse or say that they were too busy talking to someone else. I was doing something to put them all off, but what?

It worked much better if someone else met me and said hello first, we'd get on much better then. The problem is, I'd have to wait around for people to take an interest in me. There are nice people out there, but they tend to be in great demand.

I think lots of people take it for granted that they can walk up to others and just chat and make friends, so they assume (often incorrectly) that everyone else can too.

I remember lots of times where I played alone in a house and there weren't any other kids nearby. Or later on it was difficult for others to get to know me because I lived in an out of the way place, or there simply wasn't enough time or convenience to meet up/or there was too much pressure.

So socially, I was alone a lot when I was little simply because of location or life circumstances. This probably aggravated any inherited personality traits I had.

Perhaps I was the "odd kid" when I was younger simply because my family had returned from abroad. I notice that lots of people coming from abroad or another culture or who've moved in from another area etc do have social integration issues, simply because they are new to the community and haven't formed any contacts yet. Language and cultural barriers can also slow things down, so I have respect and sympathy for people who have to go through this. I have made friends with people who've been in similar circumstances because we can relate.

Oh whoops!

I'm sorry, I just scanned your post.
Sorry for the confusion.


You'll find that I'm a very agreeable person.
Unfortunately, I tend to agree with myself a lot!
I value my own opinions highly.

With the "find yourself a partner" thing, I sometimes wish that I could be two people, then I could cooperate so easily with myself and get so much more done!

I've found that I'm a brilliant team of one.
But talking and thinking to myself can positively "drive me up the wall"!

I do like talking with others occasionally.
It's a shame that I don't often get the opportunity or have the time.


Thanks for the list.

I wish the adults in my life were more consistent. They constantly changed the rules without warning or explaining what the exceptions were.

I remember my father extensively preaching about how one should never lie and then asking us to say he's not home if Mr X called (I couldn't see the irony at the time)

I wish they would have spelled it out for me - I was punished all the time for breaking rules I didn't understand or wasn't aware of and I lost my trust in adults.

This went on throughout my childhood - at home and at school - so as a teenager I ended up thinking everybody's an hypocrite and uses a double standard.

Took me about another 15 years to figure things out by myself.

Just an update, and a question. I have distributed the list to my sons' teachers, principals, and other relevant people, and it got an overwhelmingly positive response! My 7 yo is in a mainstream classroom, and I gave his teacher a copy yesterday morning. She e-mailed me last night asking to meet with me so that we can go over it, so that I can tell her which ones apply to him. I've been having some problems with her about how she treats my son, and I just thought she was one of those people that didn't want to have to do anything extra for special ed students. It's not that at all. She just didn't understand anything about autism, and had no idea how things effect him. There are people out there that are willing to be more tolerant, and inclusive, but they just don't know how to go about doing that. I want to say thanks again to everyone that contributed. It really has made a difference already with my own kids, and I'm hoping that by educating others it will continue to make a difference for other autistics as well.

Now the question. I was wondering if it would be possible to do this again, but with other topics like the reasons, and feelings behind lack of eye contact, stimming, sensory issues, need for routine... ect... If people were informed of the whats, and whys of of the things that we do, they might understand it better, and might not be so judgmental. The point is to take away the stigma, so that others don't fear what they don't know. There isn't much out there about these things, other then books, and info to stop your child from doing them. The only thing is, is that I'm not sure how to go about this without the 'list' turning into a small book. Most people will take 5 minutes out of their day to read a list of a few pages, but a book requires more dedication.

What does everyone think? I hope that my suggestion isn't inappropriate for the forum. I've been hesitant to ask, but that probably just me being paranoid.

Well, they could always...oh, I don' know....ask.

Thats what I noticed too...

At least at work, I am given respect and not brushed aside...explains why Im a workaholic when Im in college and woiuld rather work instead of going out on a friday or saturday.


Anyways, back in my younger years in elementary and junior and senior high. it was always the partner situation that made things miserable more than they already were.
I once had to play hooky and skip school for a few days and be a truant just so I could get excused from a PE partner assignment.The teacher was going to give me a zero because I didnt have a partner.I skipped school and got an excused instead...this is one of those rare cases where truancy actually pays off and gains marks instead of losing them.

I think it would be hard for NTs to know exactly what questions to ask. They can make assumptions, and jump to conclusions about what the behaviors that autistics display mean based on a NT POV, which is often incorrect. Much of the time they think they already know the answers, but their answers aren't correct. My son's teacher for example, had no idea that his brain, and sensory system operated so differently until I gave her that list. She knew he was autistic, but didn't know what that entailed. It seems to me to be a faulty ToM issue with NTs. They can't hardly imagine what it would be like to be autistic. The biggest one that my son's teacher mentioned was that she doesn't know how to tell if he's paying attention, now that she knows 'eyes on me' (that's what she calls it) doesn't indicate that he's paying attention. She had assumed that if he wasn't looking at her that he wasn't paying attention. For NTs, that's what that usually means. She wouldn't even have thought of asking me, or him for a second opinion, because she (mistakenly) thought she already knew the answer.

If they already knew the answer, would they honestly be having so much trouble?

Y'know what....maybe I'm just expecting too much of others or something, who knows....