Bad advice from other parents

Post Reply New Topic

Don't you just love it when some judgy-mcjudgy gets up in your business and starts telling you how to parent your kid?

First is always "You don't discipline him enough!" These harpies look positively gleeful at the thought of punishing a child.
B***, I have three children. (And one baby.) Two of them behave perfectly. Do you think I just forgot to discipline one of them? Maybe I thought I'd not discipline one just to mix it up a little?

This one pains me because in reality, the autistic kid gets into more trouble than his siblings *already*. Anyone who thinks he needs more punishment is just cold-hearted.

Next they pull out "he's only doing that for attention. Ignore him and he'll stop." Oh, wow, it's amazing how you know better than I do whether this is a real problem he's having or something he made up.

"You're giving him too much attention."
I have 3 kids + a baby. In what universe are my kids getting more attention than your average only child?

"You need to give him more attention."
*insert swearing noises*

"I read a book about autism. It said blah blah blah..."

Ah, well, I just had to vent a little. How are you other autism parents doing today?

It isn't just parenting where unhelpful people insist on making contributions.

My son tipped our tractor over on an incline by our road. We were working on getting it upright when a guy driving by stopped to "help". He thought it would be helpful to direct us as what to do. I indulged him for an hour and then had to ask him to leave. After he was gone we got the tractor upright in 15 minutes.

You don't want to be rude and get a bad reputation with neighbors, but there are limits. If the person who offers you these "helpful" suggestions cannot be avoided, you may have to gently set boundaries.

The one thing I do NOT miss now that my children are adults is the input and judgement from people who have no idea what they are talking about. I'm at the stage where family members, etc who once doubted me look back and admit I was right all along. Not to say I was perfect, but my failures were never where judgemental outsiders thought they were. I've raised successful adult children who impress people, and can tell the world for themselves what life was like for them.

When you have a special needs child you toss out all the conventional rule books and have no choice but to figure out what works for your completely unique child. You have to tune all those voices out. Occasionally you will hear a helpful but supportive voice, and you can cling to those. All the rest, well ... you may, occasionally, get a chance to have a timely snippy response that puts them in their place, and can use those tiny little victories to solidify your armor.

It's hard and lonely work raising special needs children. Be grateful for the allies you do find. With any luck you'll get to the end of the road with adult children who are actually grateful. Or, at least, accepting that you did your best and it could have been a lot worse. I have one of each: my ASD child is very aware how bad it could have gone for him but didn't, and gives me a ton of credit for that; my ADHD/anxiety child I can't say I properly figured out back then, but she also wasn't exactly telling me the truth about what was in her head, either, and we've now talked it all out so that I now actually know how to support her. The few times I let third party voices get in my head just made everything much worse, so more reasons to tune it all out.

I am so grateful to have all those annoying outside voices gone from my life.

Thank you both. You are very kind. Mostly I just wanted to vent Yesterday my son and I went for a walk together (with the baby) and had a very nice time. I have a lot of hope.