Would you 'cure' your children?

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This thread is especially directed at 'anti cure' aspies/austistics/etc, as I'm sure anyone not satisfied with the life of an Aspie/Austistic/etc would not want to put their children through the same thing. If you were to have children, and a medical process existed that would make them 100% neurotypical, would you do it?

Also, sorry if this thread has been done before =/

This is complicated because it's not so easily explained. In other words: there are lots of miserable people and it would be great if something could happen to take away their misery, whatever that "something" is. I don't know if it's the same for everyone. I would want my child to not be miserable. We all have to keep in mind that everyone experiences unhappiness from time to time. How do you get people to where they aren't in a constant state of unhappiness? You distract them, talk about stuff they want to talk about, befriend them, give them a shoulder to cry on.
I tend to think in terms of 50/50. It's fifty percent you, fifty percent them which means, you can cure yourself all you want but other people have to work on their fifty percent (attitude toward you) or it won't make any difference.
If there are people in your life that don't want to work with you, you are pretty much wasting your time convincing yourself they will like you if you cater to their whims.

I would never want my children to go through this hell I deal with. I always seem to say or do the wrong thing, and feel terrible about it.

yes, Redbus, you are correct, this thread has been done and done and done and done, but you are fresh to WP and might have some point we haven't heard about it.

Merle

I have yet to see a thread like this, so here goes my answer.

No, I'd wait till they were old enough to make that kind of decision on their own, like piercing ears, as long as there was no danger to it. If they said they needed that same medical process to save their lives and in the process, it would also cure their autism, well, no duh, I'll opt the medical process.

i would try to raise their functioning to the highest lvl possible.

No.

If they are older and fully able to understand the process and what it would mean and want to go through with it, I'd let them.

No.

Absolutely not.

oh, hell no!

Merle

Maybe if I was Jesus and I could actually cure people.

It depends on the severity of my child. If the treatment that we use now don't work and if this 'cure' is not harmful to my child I would consider it.

I would be guided by my child.

With my AS son, I know the answer: NO. While there are aspects of himself that he would happily "cure," he has no desire to loose his gifts. We actually had this discussion, one day when he was having a really difficult time, and I noted there were a few things we could try, to see if they helped, like a GFCF diet (open to it, but didn't have the discpline to eat that way) or medication (absolutely not). If he can stay who he is and now be able to write without pain, he'll take it. But if being able to write without pain means his mind is no longer full of out there ideas, he won't.

If I had a child who couldn't learn to communicate by any means, it would be a much harder question. You want your kids to be able to make decisions for themselves. What do you do if you have a child that you know can never do that, but with a proven and tested treatment might be able to? It's this group that drives all the cure talk, and I can understand why. If they were just mute, that would be one thing, but some kids are really locked away in their own worlds. What choice do you make then?

Everything in the middle ... wait until the child is old enough to be involved in the decision. I don't believe in absolutes, and I don't impose them on my kids.

No, it would be like curing them of themselves.

My answer is a definite "No."

I have two sons. One is going for diagnosis this summer for autism. I have AS...and if he is autistic, he has gotten it from me---the autistic gene is in my family. I would not want him cured. He is a happy little boy with a love of life. He is full of energy. My wife and I do not want to change him. Our reason for diagnosis is so that the school can better provide for him if he needs it---and so that the school can better understand him. Our school (where I teach) has some autistic students in it. They are treated with respect, and they are admired by the school.

So again, no cure. My wife and I love our sons. And if the one turns out to be autistic---no problem. We love his personality/self the way it is. And he is happy.

There are way too many variables for me to give you a straight answer. You'd have to describe the child first.

There are situations where I might, hypothetically, but I think the "cure" approach is the wrong one. The right approach is one that attempts to mitigate the negative effects of autism rather than to make autistic people not be autistic.

I guess for me a cure would be a sort of "last resort." And yes, as a last resort I might use it. I'd rather turn a low-functioning autist into a high-functioning autist but if the only alternative was to make them not at all autistic, then if I felt it would greatly improve their quality of life, I'd do it.

To me, both the ardent "pro-cure" and "anti-cure" people are wrong and sensationalist.

no...

But I would also not subject them to the hell of public school.