Comments on: Social Compass:- how we fail our children

By: excavator

excavator — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:28:55 +0000

Life is perilous, isn’t it? I’ve actually experienced stuff along these lines with my ‘typical’ boys (my youngest has ADHD and is sometimes impulsive)–I can see many ways that a situation can go wrong and my child will then be saddled with an Identity on that basis. Very draining, to have to have that radar up all the time. And there is something about a decision-making matrix like that that my mind just can’t seem to comprehend. That’s too bad, because I don’t think well on my feet, either. God its hard to thread that needle sometimes.

By: kristen

kristen — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:09:59 +0000

Yes, this is so much a part of our life. I intervene less now that he’s getting older, but it simply feels like we’re in a limbo phase. I suspect as he gets even older still, a whole host of new and unknown scenarios will come into play. Intervention, indeed.

By: mama mara

mama mara — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:43:19 +0000

I loves me a good matrix, but when I’m in the midst of a potential crisis-in-the-making, my brain goes primitive and incapable of complex reasoning. In those moments, I would willingly resort to a much simpler decisionmaking method — “Heads or Tails” anyone?

By: Tanya @ TeenAutism

Tanya @ TeenAutism — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:03:43 +0000

Nigel gravitates toward younger kids too, and I find it worrisome for this very reason.

By: graceunderautism

graceunderautism — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:54:04 +0000

Oh oh oh….I have a headache from being on edge for 2 hours of play at friends’ house. Always, “when do I intervene?” So thankful that my adult friends recognize when their kids have provoked J into an incident and all are disciplined equally. But still I stay on edge and have to come home and decompress every week.

By: Club 166

Club 166 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:00:37 +0000

Last week we were in a fast food “play place”, and Buddy Boy took a punch from a smaller girl who didn’t like the way he was playing.

Though he immediately wailed loud enough for the entire place to hear, he didn’t hit her back.

I considered it a win.

Joe

By: Leanne

Leanne — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:23:29 +0000

Ah, to intervene or not to intervene, the eternal question!

By: laurentius-rex

laurentius-rex — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:12:03 +0000

I have no children so how can I fail them?

By: Crystal Jigsaw

Crystal Jigsaw — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:57:11 +0000

A well written post, extremely thought-provoking. I hope many parents with children who DO NOT have special needs will read this and it will make them think too.

CJ xx

By: Fleecy

Fleecy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:33:20 +0000

“As a result the public is left with a random collection of negative assumptions to apply to the autistic population, a general shorthand. Each additional headline loads another brick in the wall of segregation, isolation and mis-information.”

Yeah. This reminds me a lot about what I wrote about stereotypes. That’s exactly how it happens. It’s really sad. Mental shorthand, stereotypes, causes lots more problems than it makes things easier. But it’s such an instinctual urge that people don’t even notice when they’re doing it.