K for my blog today I would like you all to take a few minutes and watch this video.
I like the attitude in this video a lot. My only thing is that I think as parents of kids with autism we need to do everything we can to enhance their quality of life. I have no problem with my child being “different”. I don’t like a complacent attitude about it and just letting what it is just be.
I for sure am not going to force Silas into behavior therapy which tries to make him look like “normal” person. No way. So I guess I’m middle of the road. I want to help him through the difficulties of autism but I want to celebrate his mind and how amazing it is that it’s so different.
Your turn, tell me what you think.
Very intriguing video! I think I’m middle of the road like you – being able to give people with autism the tools needed to interact/communicate with others around them without compromising their identity and individuality.
This world can be a difficult place and we want our children to learn how to make their way through it with as much harmony as possible. Would that include teaching them to fit in? Perhaps. But they also need to be able to relax and be themselves. So called “normal” people learn how to adapt to different social settings and behave appropriate for the situation. We know it’s OK to burp with our sisters, but don’t do it with our coworkers. Lots of different special needs require extra training in this adaptive behaviour (my own kids included). Is there something called “adaptive behaviour therapy”? That makes more sense to me.
Very interesting video. It really helped me understand autism more fully. I read some of the comments and discussion there as well and found them all eye-opening.
I can’t get the darn plug-in to work so I can watch the video, but I’m going to up and weigh in on the fitting-in thing anyway.
My kids have nothing as potentially troublesome as autism, but my son, now 9, isn’t your average boy. He likes, and always has, nail polish, necklaces, High School Musical, etc. I was always fully in favour of letting him wear nail polish because it is stupid to say it is only for girls if boys want to wear it. What happened, of course, was that he started being made fun of. I was all for him being his own self, but his peers weren’t. And he wanted to fit in.
In our case, the answer was easy. I explained that his friends just weren’t mature enough to understand that it’s okay for boys to wear necklaces, or nail polish and he’d just have to wait until they grew up a bit. It’s okay to like that stuff, but it is also okay to hide liking it so he gets accepted.
I think that while you are fully willing to accept Silas for whoever he is (as a parent should be), you are going to have to help him to fit in, because he’s likely going to want to and it could hurt him to have problems with that. Watching your kids have difficulty with their peers is one of the hardest things about being a parent, IMO.