Asperger's father loses almost all access to his children

Post Reply New Topic

"A clinical psychologist, Julie Peterson, said the children of people with autism or Asperger's were sometimes traumatised by their parents' behaviour."

Link here

I've heard of this happening before. It's blatant discrimination against Asperger parents. I'm not sure I understand what issues the court was having with behaviour.

Divorced dads get the short end of the deal in America, too.

Once the mother gets physical custody, the father may as well kiss his kids good-bye ...

... if the mother (and her lawyers) will let him get close enough.

Did anyone read the article before commenting?

The father's behaviour is not appropriate in my opinion, seems like Aspergers was used as an additional tool by the mother's lawyer.

Just to put the quote in context:
A clinical psychologist, Julie Peterson, said the children of people with autism or Asperger's were sometimes traumatised by their parents' behaviour.

But even though they appeared to be emotionally limited, those parents were devastated when courts elected to remove the children from their care.

"We know they love their children, most of them," Dr Peterson said. "They feel the grief and loss."

the behavior was inappropriate.

Although what the wife did was kind of mean imho I'd not want my kids left w/that guy either........leaving a baby in it's bed and dropping the other kid off is child neglect. The other stuff a good parenting course could probably fix.

As a mom w/ASD this kind of stuff bothers me though b/c it's making blanket statements about parents w/ASD.

<--- Knows he would make a horrible parent so he declines to have kids.

I read the article. Asperger's or no, the guy sounds a bit like a wacko and his behaviour was completely inappropriate. He hasn't lost complete access to his children, but his access to them is restricted, which I think is sensible.

My parents were neurotypical and they were very cruel, I was very traumatized.

It's a good job I don't think I will ever have children.

ridiculous bunch of dogooder dheads.
the issues they state he has with his children are directly related to his aspergers,as this is the UK the social services shoud be monitoring and giving him guidance-perhaps encourage him to go on courses run by the NAS aimed at autistic parents, through two LD websites and the offline world have personaly known many adults with LD,down syndrome and severe mental illness who were supported to be parents or stay in their son/daughters life,he shoud have that right to,he is a mildly autistic man with a high mental capacity fer christs sake, not some axe wielding prostituting crack whore.
he might as well have jacked up in the middle of the hearing they probably woud have gave him more visiting hours and plenty of support for his addiction but because he has a life long developmental disability they seem to think he deserves less support to be a dad.

perhaps there shoud be a thingy over this,cant think of the word for it,obviously a petition woud be a small start but something shoud be done. what say everyone?
the NAS shoud be backing him up tbh,woud help highlight their adult campaigns to.

Hello Kingdom, this is in Australia, mate. Not the UK.

I don't know any more about this case than this article, or much about the understanding of ASCs over there.

It reads to me that the father does have some deliberate disruptive behaviour patterns, but that may be media bias.

The psychologist sounds either neutral or slightly negative in her opinion of spectrumites. Obviously an anti-aspie professional would suit the mother's case just fine.

It would be interesting to hear some local opinions on this.

I'm a parent and it did NOT come naturally like it does for most NT people. I was freaking horrible at first and struggled with tending to my sons needs and wants. I didn't understand alot of things he did and why kids were so irrational. My ex and I did not get along for a while and it made the entire situation worse. When I'm stressed i'm not half as good as a parent. I do need time alone and my ex understands and helps tremendously with this. Staying with it and having another person there to help is a must I think for the average aspie. After two years I can say i've pretty much trained myself to be a better dad and am awesome at it. My kid is showing signs of ASD already and I understand him much more now where the mother doesn't. I have to explain why he does things and acts certain ways. In short age 0-2 was a NIGHTMARE for me. Now it's getting much easier, you have to stick with it and get in the habit of putting their needs before your own and eventually it becomes part of your routine.

Thank God this diagnosis wasn't well-known back in the '90s.

My mom's parents would have been more than happy to use it when my dad ended up with custody of me.

If they'd raised me for another six years, I really would have been up s**t creek.

Nevertheless-- leaving one kid in the crib while you take the other one to daycare is pretty f*****g stupid. Statistically speaking, it might be safer...

...but it doesn't take a neurotypical to realize that people are going to s**t bricks...

...or that it is, frankly, not a good idea.

Some of the father's behavior was inappropriate - mostly the leaving his son alone in the cot. Taking his children physically out of class was also inappropriate; he should have called the school instead. My parents gave me "the talk" at around the same age and school gave us "the other talk" about puberty in the 5th grade. Allowing his son to hit him, provided he didn't hit back, is his prerogative.

That the social workers or mother's lawyer used asperger's as an actual reason offends me. The fact that they cited a lack of empathy offends me even more - especially since that just isn't true.

I don't see why his punishment isn't to take parenting classes; that's more constructive than just preventing him from seeing his kids.