does anyone else find this blog insulting?

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i can't figure out how to link it but it's called "my aspergers child" and whoever wrote this is an ignorant shcmuck! maybe they mean well but every post is filled with bizzarre personal theories regarding aspergers. stuff like "aspergers children are terrified of leaning over the sink to wash their face" and other classics. and they do imply that this is true for all aspies!

"As you were raising your child, you imagined how he would be when he grew up. Maybe you envisioned him going to college, learning a skilled traded, getting a good job, or beginning his own family. But now that (once clear) vision may be dashed. You may be grieving the loss of the child you wish you had."

Ah, what a biatch... "woe is me, I have a child with aspergers, and it's so terrible he didn't live his life according to the stupid plans I made when he was born."

Why is NOTHING geared toward helping US deal with THEM? They understand SO damn little about us, and they only give a s**t about their half of the frustration. That, and they keep making up new lies and perpetuating old ones all the time.

Heaven forbid a parent accepts a child for who he is every now and then...

http://www.myaspergerschild.com/

Oh, "wonderful". Yay.

Why not do something about it, and sign up, and start responding to blogs that you particularly have an issue with? Do you have to be a parent on that site? (I'm not sure)

I agree there seems to be a lot of queries on "how to deal with them (aspie kids)", but nothing on how the aspies can deal with particularly annoying parents who just cannot understand, or maybe don't want to understand.

Yes that makes a good point there ; the NT expectation of what is normal, and the application of that expectation on children.
I think there is nothing wrong with having high hopes for one's own children, but what goes wrong is when people make assumptions about the neurology of personalities and then become disappointed when the reality turns out to be different. Not worse, just different.

However, if a parent suggests "it is so terrible he didn't live life according to my hopes", and the child instead grows up to become a stay-at-home aspie supremacist that has nothing better to do than bash non-aspies on internet chat rooms, then in that particular case I would side with the parent and agree that that is *no way to live*.

Expanding on that, what annoys me is that almost everything on the web about asperger's seems to be focused exclusively on children.

Oh yes! Jeez, don't get me started on that one.

I guess it has something to do with the extreme passion that parents have, to get together and setup 'support' sites, with the motivation to just discuss and talk about their problems, rather than actually deal with the problems that they themselves may be causing. They seem to get a lot of motivation just to talk endlessly about my little boy, my little daughter, without any kind of focus or intent to actually do something.

It's so annoying when you're trying to find information about adults on the spectrum, and all you get are google hits about MyAspergersChild. I just want to tell those sites to ****-off.
What do these parents really think these children on the spectrum will be when they are adults.
Oh yes, that's right, they will never become adults, even in 40 years time they will always be "my little child".

Haha yes exactly.

I can understand that they have a need to find support from other parents going through the same thing but it's almost as if they're oblivious that there is a whole world of adult aspies out there. As you say, what do they think happens when they turn 18...? Asperger's is something you have for the rest of your life, unless I am mistaken.

Maybe someone on a blog similar to this posted the information that on your 18th birthday (if you have an ASD) you magically wake up normal and loose all interest in your current interest and have a sudden desire to stand in crowds of people playing loud music and dancing with your new improved coordination?

These parents remind me of my mother, to the point it makes me sick. They talk about their child like he/she has cancer or something and they lost the chance to be a parent. So your child isn't like you... get the hell over it! My little boy is as NT as they come, and I am totally clueless. I had to ask my husband the other day if my son makes normal eye contact. I have no clue how to help him when he comes to me with social questions ("momma, she's picking on me at school. Does that mean she likes me, or that she doesn't?") And I will be so proud of him, however he grows up. Right now, he wants to fly an medevac helicopter. I'll be the proudest mom in the world if he is, but he is still my son and the greatest thing I ever did with my life if he's the president or a janitor or a scientist or a paramedic like me. I don't understand how a parent can be so despairing that their child is different.

My mom was the typical NT that give us so much trouble. Head cheerleader, prom queen, dated captain of the basketball team, etc... So what was she gonna do with a kid like me? After the first day of cheerleading try-outs in third grade, they suggested that I not come back. When she had big birthday parties for me and invited everyone she knew who had a kid, I always tried to hide somewhere. Once in a while, she even noticed I was gone. I was obsessed with MacGyver and generally only spoke in movie quotes or TV quotes. But I was hers and I worshiped the ground she walked on. All I wanted was to be normal, to be the kid she wanted, which I never could.

What are these "kids" now gonna feel like if they ever see that their parents are online lamenting about their crappy luck getting them as a kid? Is that something any kid needs, let alone someone who's self-esteem is already uncertain? I wish I could figure out how to post on there and tell them that. My cousin's beautiful little girl was every parent's dream, smart, sweet, social, perfect. She died 2 years ago from a brain tumor at the age of 12. these people should be ashamed.

I spent today at a seminar for parents of people with autism. My daughter was probably much more highly functioning than most of the children and young adults that were spoken about, some of whom are unable to verbalise their thoughts. A more upbeat and happy crowd of people you could never meet, even those who know they are going to be caring for their children, when they are adults, which I don't think will be the case for us. The same has been true of most of the parents I've met. I've only met one parent who is embarrassed (maybe even ashamed) to have a child with autism. I truly think most of us are positive. I come on here looking for support and ideas, from parents who've dealt with similar behaviour issues. Sometimes it helps to know that other people are dealing with the same issues and that we're not imagining it. It's a steep learning curve and I need all the advice I can get. Although I'm probably on the spectrum too, my daughter's not me and trying to figure out why she might be upset can be difficult. So, it helps to talk it through with others who've been there and done it. But, I'd never lament about my lot. My daughter's the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Exactly. These people should be proud of, or at the very least try to WORK WITH their kids and their kids' strengths and abilities, not constantly b***h about their kids' weaknesses and try to change them.

Maybe it would help for some of them to meet adult aspergers like us and see that some of us do have jobs, friends and heck some of us even date or raise children ourselves! Sounds like they are talking out of fear and ignorance more than anything else.

I do understand that some people simply need the support about issues they're dealing with. But it is so frustrating about the world as a whole, but especially about stuff like this is its all about helping parents to cope, which is great, but you find nothing about parents helping their children to cope with a world they are not hardwired for and often find frightening and confusing. It's all about helping your child to blend in or act normal or to force them to be social because its what they're supposed to do even though other kids are cruel to people who are different. The mother of a medium-functioning autistic boy I knew once put it best when she came to me asking how to help him: "Even if I have to take care of him the rest of my life, he will have to cope with the world longer than I will have to cope with his differences". Why can't more people have that attitude?

Why do people force autistic children to socialize when they don't want to? Why do they have to learn to recognize that their stimming and stop just because other people don't like it? It is a self-soothing technique that is programmed into their brains for the purpose of SOOTHING them. The decrease the likelihood of a meltdown.

The quick, easy answer is that parents want them to live as normal a life as possible. That sounds great when talking to other parents, but what if a parent's definition of "normal" isn't what your child wants? My cousin was obsessed with money. Not the typical greedy, have to have more, want to be rich obesssion with money, it just fascinated him.He spend all his time and energy that he could studying it, learning the different types of coins and such throughout history and learning how the stock market works, while at constant odds with his dad to get him to go play football or baseball or some other "normal" boy activity. I mean, really, who wants a son who is afraid of dirt, will say 9 words all day (5 of which involve filling his plate at dinner) and is constantly playing with a handful of coins? Now my cousin is almost 30, has a stock portfolio that would allow him to retire at any time, is a successful financial planner, and rarely if ever speaks to his father.

Maybe my opinions are colored by the way I was treated by my mother who was so desperate to have a "normal" child that I routinely got whipped for routine autistic behavior such as talking about my special interest, rocking, being unable to speak or saying random, off-topic statements when I had no other response. I was often forbidden from reading or watching whatever TV show I was obsessed with, or listening to music while country music was my special interest. My mom was so concerned that people would know what kind of "freak" she had that I was shoved into sports like cheerleading that I was horrible at due to my lack of coordination and ordered to keep my mouth shut if all I could talk about was whatever "stupid s***" I was interested in. I'm married to a good man, have a brilliant, sweet little NT son, an excellent job that I enjoy, but I will never equal to my family what my 2 NT sisters are. Smart, socially brilliant, beautiful, cheerleaders and volleyball players. One is one her way to becoming a forensic psychologist, the other is still in high school.

My AS diagnosis made life so much better on her. It wasn't something she did, I came (in her words) "broke from the factory". I simply don't understand why Autism Awareness and all the effort put into finding a "cure" can't be put into finding a way to bridge communication rather than forcing us into a world we neither understand nor like. Why do we have to be something different for everyone else's convienence?

Yes totally! I was ridiculed for being clumsy, for not understanding jokes, for my obessive sticker collections, for not understanding how to work in a teams with other children, even one incident where i corrected a teacher for a factual error (and I was right) I was sent for detention. i think it is important to learn social skills but equally why not encourage some tolerance for Aspergers quirks.

The way the mother treats her son may actually enforce the negative traits associated with the disorder. One of the common denominators with aspies who live "normal" lives (i.e. work or have worked, have a high school diploma, live on their own, have had relationships in the past and so on) is that they were given much of the same opportunities as their NT peers and was not sent to special ed class with mentally chalenged children, not told that they'll never have normal lives, not told that they were significantly different from their peers and told to stand up for themselves.

You have a point there. I got put in gifted classes in the 1970s. But I also grew up thinking that I was lazy and weird and unloveable. My son will know he's different, but he'll know how to live with it but not let it define him.