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lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

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Yeah, the kid in my area isn't autistic, he's a miserable fucking shitlord. I know this first hand, and I don't say this lightly about any kid. He was moved in to my daughter's classroom and he completely changed the dynamic of the room. He didn't listen, did whatever he wanted, and told the teacher to be quiet. This was after his parents sued the school board, and none of his bullshit was tolerated any longer. He was moved to a desk that was behind the teacher's desk, so he wasn't visible to the other students, and he still managed to screw things up. After a full year of being completely ignored when he was acting up and craving attention, he became moderately better. However, at the end of that year, the principal pulled the parents in and told them that extreme measures were needed for their child, and if the teacher decided it was important to do something like put the vest on him, the teacher would, and the parents would shut up. If they couldn't deal with that, their child was suspended from the entire school district and they could try home school or pay for a private school and take their chances.
 
chaos

chaos

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Alkorin said:
There is stigma attached to wearing the vest; for the parents, not so much the child. When you say "autism" to a lot of people, they react as if you've just insulted them or their child. Of course, being the parent of an autistic child, I tend to treat people who think that autism is an insult with about as much care as I would a mosquito -- I swat them away because they're annoying.
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I still feel weird talking about it or having people call my daughter "special needs" or autistic. And it is completely illogical, the diagnosis didn't change her and she's fucking awesome and I've read the stories of people who have kids with more severe autism so I realize how lucky we are. I think a lot of it is that I feel like it might be somehow my fault. Again, illogical, but I can't shake that. I have one daughter with autism and another with ADHD, and that one is being medicated which brings it's whole other set of stigmas. Lots of stupid guilt and feels that don't make sense associated with the entire idea.
 
Alkorin

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Yep. I expect strange looks when I talk about our daughter being autistic. Often, it's more of a "wow, I'd never have known" kind of reaction, which is true -- until she starts to throw tantrums, or you try to get her to follow a specific line of reasoning or a set of instructions she isn't really into, or try to get her attention away from a toy she's zoned in on, or try to explain something to her with more than one sentence, or... etc.

The point is, I don't shy away from explaining what's going on, because above all, anyone who's going to be responsible for her well-being (or her immediate play area, or her classroom, or whatever) needs to understand that there may be a need for supervision. I'm not talking a hug-me jacket here, necessarily.

Edit: I like to look at it this way: If I need to set expectations so as to make things easier for her, and that results in someone seeing me as weak because I'm saying the word "autism" and owning it, that's fine. I probably don't care what that person thinks anyway. Above all else, my daughter will be better off for my wife and I standing up for her, and that's all that matters. I will admit, though, that right after the diagnosis a couple years back, I blamed myself for a while. I had a long talk with my wife and my folks about it and we reasoned it out, and that was good enough for me to look past the blame and deal with the issue by learning as much as I could.

It's a steep hill, but climbing it has helped immensely. Now, when I see people dismiss autistic people as though this is the basis for some kind of immediate disqualification, I just stop listening to them because I know exactly how full of shit they are. As knowledge about the condition improves, there are fewer people like that*.

* - I'm not talking about the shitlords here on FoH. They will always be here.
 
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chaos

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It's a weighted vest that the kids wear. It can have some impact in calming a child, similar things work on people with anxiety issues, even adults. While wearing it you feel a slight pressure against you from the weight.
 
Cad

Cad

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So one of my kids had a birthday party at a movie theater... approximately 30 kids, 10-12 years old. I know most of these kids, and individually they are ok. In that group? It was total fucking chaos. When I showed up to pick up my kid, the mom who had been running the party looked like she had been through a war, completely frazzled. I had to raise my voice, physically separate the kids into smaller groups, threaten some of them with telling their dads (they didn't care about the moms), and just physically stand between some of them and dare them to try to push through me or throw something at me to hit the other kid.

And these are the kids of multimillionaires in the best school district in TX.

God help the ghetto teachers. What the fuck is wrong with kids? But proud to say my kid was just sort of there and didn't do anything, on the way home I asked him if they were always like that and he goes "yea thats why I don't hang out with them as much" .. /pride
 
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Big_w_powah

Big_w_powah

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Cad said:
So one of my kids had a birthday party at a movie theater... approximately 30 kids, 10-12 years old. I know most of these kids, and individually they are ok. In that group? It was total fucking chaos. When I showed up to pick up my kid, the mom who had been running the party looked like she had been through a war, completely frazzled. I had to raise my voice, physically separate the kids into smaller groups, threaten some of them with telling their dads (they didn't care about the moms), and just physically stand between some of them and dare them to try to push through me or throw something at me to hit the other kid.

And these are the kids of multimillionaires in the best school district in TX.

God help the ghetto teachers. What the fuck is wrong with kids? But proud to say my kid was just sort of there and didn't do anything, on the way home I asked him if they were always like that and he goes "yea thats why I don't hang out with them as much" .. /pride
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Threaten their parents with litigation.
 
chaos

chaos

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Alkorin said:
Yep. I expect strange looks when I talk about our daughter being autistic. Often, it's more of a "wow, I'd never have known" kind of reaction, which is true -- until she starts to throw tantrums, or you try to get her to follow a specific line of reasoning or a set of instructions she isn't really into, or try to get her attention away from a toy she's zoned in on, or try to explain something to her with more than one sentence, or... etc.

The point is, I don't shy away from explaining what's going on, because above all, anyone who's going to be responsible for her well-being (or her immediate play area, or her classroom, or whatever) needs to understand that there may be a need for supervision. I'm not talking a hug-me jacket here, necessarily.

Edit: I like to look at it this way: If I need to set expectations so as to make things easier for her, and that results in someone seeing me as weak because I'm saying the word "autism" and owning it, that's fine. I probably don't care what that person thinks anyway. Above all else, my daughter will be better off for my wife and I standing up for her, and that's all that matters. I will admit, though, that right after the diagnosis a couple years back, I blamed myself for a while. I had a long talk with my wife and my folks about it and we reasoned it out, and that was good enough for me to look past the blame and deal with the issue by learning as much as I could.

It's a steep hill, but climbing it has helped immensely. Now, when I see people dismiss autistic people as though this is the basis for some kind of immediate disqualification, I just stop listening to them because I know exactly how full of shit they are. As knowledge about the condition improves, there are fewer people like that*.

* - I'm not talking about the shitlords here on FoH. They will always be here.
Click to expand...
I will say this, the entire experience has taught me how to be an effective advocate for our children. How to differentiate what people need to know, what they don't need to know (to avoid confusion/misconceptions/whatever), and what our children's rights are, what our rights are as parents, etc.
 
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Alkorin

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If only, dude. If only.

Besides, the only guy who clearly needed to calm the hell down has already left, amirite?
 
Cad

Cad

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When I was picturing the "autism vest" I was thinking it was a lot more like a straightjacket. This is literally just a weighted vest?
 
Alkorin

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Yeah, a weighted vest, like this:

pressure-vest-small-33__40402.1459892279.1280.1280.jpg


Edit: That one doesn't come with weight, but some of their others do. Same idea though. That one is just pressure.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Seems like a band-aid and a bit archaic to me, but I'm a new parent. I've never even heard of this before
 
Alkorin

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It honestly looks (and sounds) like a straitjacket for a new age. I can't imagine how this would be appropriate in a school, any more so than dunce caps and wooden spoons were. Then again, I haven't tried to "teach" a classroom full of 4/5 year olds, either.
 
chaos

chaos

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I don't know about autism, but apparently for anxiety it's a real treatment that actually works. Not that I think it doesn't work, I just don't know for a fact it does. With anxiety I've seen it work.

Kind of a shitty example, but remember the thunder shirts for dogs? Those things actually work too. Something about the pressure helps people calm their tits.
 
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