A Reminder that Life with Autism Is Rarely Like the Sparkly TV Portrayal
Hi, friends. I saw this news report on Facebook yesterday. Police: Mother Strangled, Abused 6-Year-Old Son With Autism After He Defecated In Pants Child abuse is nothing new. Parents of typical children beat them, harm them even kill them out of anger for childhood "sins" like wetting or soiling their pants. The comments on Facebook were appropriately and perhaps especially harsh toward this Mom, whose comments seemed anything but remorseful, according to the report. Many call for harming the Mom. "Just give me 5 minutes with her!" I get it. Child abuse in any form is anathema to the majority of us.
The boy in this story is just six years old. How will Mom cope when he is 16? 26? The stresses are too much for some parents to bear. Many just don't have the support systems, pressure relief valves, money, respite, training, or simple parental patience, which for autism is about 1000X what's needed for a typical child. That said, wealthy parents with the world at their fingertips have murdered their autistic sons and daughters as the exhaustion, despair and frustration of parenting a child on the spectrum strikes every socioeconomic group.
I have 64 cumulative years of autism parenting under my belt. I still struggle with temper and patience when the chaos takes over. One of my children was not BM trained until almost 12 years of age. Another used to play in toilet water to satisfy a perseveration, even when the toilet had not been flushed. I coined the term, "crapisode." That awful mess made my head explode every time. My first reaction was never sympathy. My second reaction was never to harm. Sometimes I just shut the bathroom door with her in it and walked away to catch my breath. That's me. Or was me 12 years ago. Today I have many more support systems than I did a decade ago, despite choosing to divorce. Like most of you readers, even with support, as the sole caretaker, I get tired.
I hope this Mom gets help. For herself first. So that she can begin to parent her son in an appropriate way.
Love,
Kim
The main stream “disabled rights” community don’t give a darn about this kind of serious stuff like abuse and murder of the significantly disabled. To these so called “disabled rights” advocates everything is about frivolous lawsuits related to wheelchair accessibility and “bullying”. Don’t give me started on that autism self advocacy organization nonsense . They do very little to help too. A few years ago there is this horrific tragedy in which a bunch of disable people where murdered at a group home or something like it in rural Japan. Barely a mention of this disaster in the media left wing or right wing. Of course “Je suis Charlie” ! for months! Even though the tragedy in Japan killed more people! The hypocrisy of the media both sides.
Posted by: Willie | January 18, 2019 at 08:12 PM
The mother was 27. The Age Of Autism includes her too. Or any of these young fathers who strangle their kids because they've cried too loud while they were trying to play a video game.
The abuse/neglect stories rarely make it to the media unless death results.
Posted by: Joy B | January 18, 2019 at 02:11 PM
I sincerely wish there were more supports for parents. Dealing with autism is hard wherever the child or young adult is on the spectrum.
Not all parents are warrior parents. Not all parents are strong. Not all parents are resilient. Not all parents have access to resources that make parenting a child or adult with a disability a little bit easier. Respite can difficult to access. Often family can't or won't help...often they don't even understand. Some parents are themselves suffering from depression, anxiety, exhaustion, anger, despair...
None of this is an excuse for abusing a child with autism, or any child for that matter. Not one gets a pass for abuse. But these are conditions that can cause to snap and sometimes do awful things to their children. It's better to put supports in place beforehand and thereby prevent incidents like this from occurring.
Posted by: Aimee Doyle | January 18, 2019 at 12:39 PM
I agree totally with Luis' comment and would add another consideration. I hate to mention it and hope I don't upset anyone, but I think "autism" has a genetic predisposition as well as an environmental cause. This means that parents of autistic kids could be just a little bit autistic themselves, and worse still, without the benefit of a diagnosis. So they could suffer "melt-downs" when struggling to cope with the impossible. Tragic for all concerned, and I don't think we should ever be judgemental as we never know all of someone's circumstances. On the other hand deliberately causing death and destruction in order to make big money for himself, like Paul Offit, deserves the severest condemnation from us all.
Posted by: Grace Green | January 18, 2019 at 09:05 AM
I read this question: what about help? In my opinion, that's the key. HELP.
For a man-made madness which is autism help should be something that had to be at the reach of desperate parents.
It's so easy to judge but, many times those who do so are the ones who have not experienced anything like autism or other neurological disorder in their lives. This mom seems to be a young woman with probably not enough knowledge of how to handle a child with autism. Even the most knowledgable person in a matter of autism or other disorders may lose control of himself or herself, but of course, a trained mind will stop before causing any harm and walk away to recover self-control. It's not easy but doable. For a young person with no support and wanting to live a normal life, being "stuck" with an autistic child is something that in the mind of this mother was totally unbearable. I have heard this before; desperate people do desperate things in desperate times. She was probably desperate, could not handle this situation and acted without thinking. Frustration, anger, isolation, etc. act like mind blockers and when people react, they just don't think until it's too late and the child was the one who ended up dead.
The fact is undeniable; autism is a man-made madness created by the greed of big pharma by adding mercury and aluminum in vaccines as preservatives and the government acts as an accomplice by making this whole thing mandatory before taking the necessary measures to make sure these vaccines are safe. One child with autism is a child too many. We now have millions of children with autism and other man-made disorders and the big pharma keeps putting more vaccines in the market and the government keeps making it mandatory. This is a never-ending vicious cycle.
Posted by: Luis | January 17, 2019 at 09:37 AM
..autism certainly brings the worst out in them...
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | January 16, 2019 at 06:11 PM
I’m sorry. I know it’s typically for us moms to give support and sympathy to other moms dealing with the stresses on a daily basis raising our special needs children, but from all articles and news blurbs I’ve seen she is not presenting as a person who deserves that out in this situation. There are just bad parents out there who lose it on their kids when their typical and not dealing with special needs. Do I think and hope she gets help and counseling - yes! Does she deserve to be excused or overloaded with sympathy for her reaction to both her son and the cops- no way! If you truly feel lost and distraught with no support than walk away, drop your child off at a fire or police station but to beat them in a public stall isn’t a “distraught” action it’s a mean and purposeful one toward your child.
Posted by: Kim | January 16, 2019 at 02:52 PM
These parents are in a terribly, almost impossibly, difficult situation with no end in sight. Obviously violence is never ok but judging someone facing severe autism is not right either. I wonder how they would do? Instead of criticizing how about helping?
Posted by: Someone | January 16, 2019 at 02:23 PM
Very sad news to say the least. These Social Media enthisiasts should place themselves in the place of Autism parent before posting such hate comments.
One silver lining is that more and more mainstream doctors are coming forward to say that mandatory vaccines are bad medicine. In other words, state mandated vaccines causing Autism, but parents are getting the punishment.
https://newsok.com/article/5617173/point-of-view-mandatory-vaccines-are-bad-medicine-bad-politics
Posted by: R Prasad | January 16, 2019 at 02:00 PM
Our son was doubly incontintent to the age of seven when a gluten free diet resolved the problem - it was a liberation for us and above all it was a liberation for him. Coping with a large incontinent, highly mobile seven year-old 24/7 - who has little language, doesn’t sleep and doesn’t understand social rules - is nothing remotely like dealing with a normally developing toddler. But also in such situations the parents become the object of general social hostility and total mental breakdown is a distinct possibility.
Posted by: Parent | January 16, 2019 at 11:19 AM