To think this is incredibly cruel??

[TeaOnEverest]

One of the school mums has been having difficulty with her youngest daughter, age 5, recently. The little girl has autism, and can be challenging. The mum has 3 older children, so has a lot on her plate

However, I was completely shocked yesterday.... I ran into her, and she started going on about how A's behaviour was so bad that she confiscated her beloved Dora doll.....and threw it in the bin.

The binmen have already taken it away. Mum is surprised that A doesn't seem to miss it at all, and is disappointed that it has had no effect on her behaviour. The little girl had been prewarned that the doll would be put in the bin.

The bad behaviour in question was interrupting mum on the phone, being rude to her siblings, and slamming doors

AIBU to think this is an absolutely horrible thing to do?

I stopped at a motorway service station and threw my DC toys in a bin.

They were argueing.
They were warned over and over.

Then one of them (they wouldn't say which) THREW something over my shoulder onto the windscreen while I was driving.
They were in car seats in the back.
It was just me and them.

Sue me. They remember it , years later.
Better that than a multi car pile up on the M6.

Ilove because the arguments (used to -better recently) start at bedtime, when I'm tired.
If I don't take it off her she will be awake at 4am...as it is she usually has it till gone midnight /1am when I go up to bed (if I take it off her earlier she doesn't go to sleep but will keep getting up etc and makes lots of noise wakes up her little sister and her dad (who starts work really early). As long as she can get up in the morning and doesn't miss the bus (leaves at 8ish) I'm not going to fight - I also don't need lots of sleep.
The usually threat is it will go 'in the box' (a locked cash box) which means she is unlikely to get it the next day and will have to earn it back...
The out the window is when my patience has completely gone. (Which will be after she has been warned and asked to give it to me multiple times and I will be standing there with my hand held out and she will say hang on I'm just putting it in airplane mode (lots of faffing) , then wrap and undo knots and rewrap the ear phones around it and then put it in my hand and snatch it back several times (like a game) ...
And she knows I find it hard to take it off her for school days ...she has been bullied and I know she (and some of her friends) use earphones as a way of not 'being able to hear' nasty comments on the bus etc... if it is 'in the box' I may just compromise - out the window and there can be no compromise...

My boy has severe autism .... He would give a flying fuck if I put a toy in the bin!
He wouldn't understand and doesn't really play with toys!
Although there is a lucky ducks game he likes !!!

Oh - and if she deliberately broke it to get a new one...she'd get a brick and she knows that too...
She hasn't lost this one yet but she used to lose her old one all the time but get it back (guess cos it wasn't worth anything) - it suddenly got worse and I suspected it was a move (encouraged by a devious friend) to get a replacement.
I told her she could have a new one for her birthday if she managed not to lose the old one before then (3 months)...I'd be mad to get her a new one when she couldn't look after the one she had, might as well just flush money down the loo ...
She didn't lose it again until the week before and she did get it back after a week - so I added on a week for every day it was missing ...

Amazes me that so many parents on this site have NEVER lost it with their kids!

Either me or my kid is crap! I have also 'done a gamerchick' and smashed a toy.......my child learned never to throw a toy at me in anger again.

Comparing decisions you would make if the child was an teen or adult is insane, for reason that are just too bloody obvious!

I think less judgement and more support!

My dd now 9 has ASD, when she was 4, I put all her blooming jigsaws in the bin, as pieces kept being missing and she would have a meltdown all the time, it was all too much. You don't know what pressures this mum is under, unless you have walked in her shoes.

You must have no idea how desperate it’s possible to get when ordinary parenting doesn’t work and no-one can offer any strategies that actually do work. I'm not going to claim it was a good idea but I can one hundred per cent understand why she did it.

I just felt sorry for the little girl losing her favourite toy

Then the next time an autism charity comes rattling the tin put a lot of money in, so that maybe someone will fund some respite care or some specialist training in behaviour-management.

Otherwise your pity for the little girl comes cheap.

It's a bit odd that because some of you would do this if the child was attacking siblings/carers or smashing up high value items that belong to other family members or if the item itself causes a issue with a symptom of the disability that this makes it ok to do for slamming a few doors and interrupting a phone call.

That's fucked up.

And no I wouldn't do it either, having a child with special needs or disabilities does not give you a free pass on having over the top cruel punishments and nor does it make the child less deserving of decent behaviour

Excellent post sock

And fwiw, I have the utmost sympathy for parents who are at the end of their teather even ones who make bad decisions because they are,

I even have the utmost sympathy for parents who abandon tiny baby's in safe places because they don't think they can cope

And I can totally understand why they do what they do. But having sympathy for it,understanding it still does not make it the right thing to do.

I'm a mum of an autistic child and have done similar to try and incite a reaction when at the end of my tether. Not just a tad stressed but totally f*ckin distraught. You have no right to judge this mum and compare with your own situation. If you were any kind of friend you wouldn't be judging and writing posts on here about her you would be supportive.Thank god I've got good friends not shit judgey patronising ones like you!

Wow Shame on you tea. You have no idea what this mum is going through, did you offer any help or support to her? Instead running and gossiping on here about her parenting is fine by you.

I think YANBU. Kids with autism often have a restricted range of interests and to throw one of them away that the child is attached to,especially when autism is related to being very anxious, seems cruel. Plus it's not likely to work as the mum found

YANBU that it's cruel but I also wouldn't judge the mum if she had reached the end of her tether. If it was calculated discipline though I think it was quite foolish.

I work in travel (breaks in the UK for families) and the other day a lady phoned and cancelled a two day Legoland trip as her 3 boys were behaving so badly.

MrsD

A couple of mine wouldn't outwardly react if I chucked away one of their things and would probally make quite scathing remarks about not caring

A Few hours later as soon as they had made their point one would be soiling themselves and banging head on walls the other would be almost catatonic.

Interestingly and I'm going from memory so could be not remembering correctly but I'm pretty sure that according to the named person gumph in scotland "does your parent/caregiver damage or throw away your things" is a question that they state they routinely ask kids and I think it's in their leaflet in the are you respected section now granted it's alongside other ones like are you allowed to decorate your room how you want and are you allowed to choose what you want to watch on TV and most of the info they give out comes across as a bit over the top but it does highlight that as a combination of other types of things it could be an indication of some type of support or intervention being needed.

Ofcourse this does not negate the fact that most parents could do with a bit of support and especially parents of highneeds children but it does make me think a bit

I'm with you on that one, I just think it's an interesting conversation.

I'm not sure a parent of a NT child would get a chuckle doing that with the behaviour circumstances the op talks about,I reckon they would for extream behaviour but not slamming doors and interrupting a phone call and I expect far fewer people would give them as much slack.

One thing I've noticed is often parents can be fucking horrible to other parents over the littlest things.

most parents could do with a bit of support and especially parents of highneeds children

"A bit of support” for the parent of a child wih autism? Is that the best you can do?

it does make me think a bit

Well good, but it’s quite hard for parents of NT children to understand how severe and persistent and relentless some behaviour can be. If someone says a banged door chances are it wont just be a banged door, it’ll be banged and banged and banged and banged…. And then people say "I wouldn't let my child do that".

I hear you there.

The ONLY way I could stop DD climbing on units to get to food, which was dangerous, was to shout at her.

People with all sorts of discipline methods open to them would have thought that was really crappy parenting.

Rewards don't work with DD, telling her doesn't work, threats don't work. This worked and stopped her hurting get self and eating stuff she shouldn't.

Once I threw my daughters beloved mermaid doll so hard on the floor, the tail fell off. She was about 5, now 8 and regularly throws it in my face!! I was a woman in the edge😳