to ask you to PLEASE teach your children about autism

[CrochetBelle]

Apparently 'autistic' is now being used as an insult by teenagers - who really should know better.

Do your children know what autism is? Autism is not 'sitting in a corner rocking'. Autism is not 'Sheldon Cooper'. Autism is a whole spectrum and affects people to varying degrees. It does affect people though. There is no such thing as mild autism.

Schools are continuously waving the 'autism accredited' flag these days, with mandatory training on ASD. Don't get me wrong, that's great progress, but when you ask them what they are teaching the children? Nothing.

There is a whole host of accurate, reliable information out there about autism, and what it means. Please make sure your children are aware. Ignorance is no excuse.

CloudPerson

I'm told I have suspected autism. It's something I'm currently exploring with my health professionals. I have sensory issues (clothing, materials, audio) repetitive behaviours (scratching, picking, used to be flapping hands when emotionally stimulates but as I grew up I masked it by scratching my fingers), among a few other things.

Of course, I may not be autistic, but if the conclusion is that I am, I would describe myself as mildly affected. The same way I would say I had mild depression as teen, or moderate anorexia. That's how I feel about my own symptoms and how it impacts me Vs how I see it impacts others.

I didn't even know other people had issues with this. Thanks for letting me know.

Skadespelerskorna

the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/

Can someone enlighten me about 4Chan please? I’d be interested to know about this and it’s effect on calling people ‘Autistic’ as the new insult.

As a Mum if two autistic children, I am beyond horrified by this.

First - we aren't going to stop 4Chan - but we can influence our children to see them for who they are = dysfunctional bullies. sometimes they may do things which make you laugh but do you want to be "like them"?
Second - parents and teachers should make it clear that disabilist, racist and sexist language (and any other "ist" language) is not acceptable. And zero tolerance at school.

rcat - I cannot imagine having a "friend" especially a teacher who used such language. If a friend of mine used "autistic" as an insult I would tell them exactly how offensive I found their language and why, and almost certainly not be their "friend" afterwards, just as if they talked about "niggers" etc. (It is much harder if it is relations.)

Notsohippychick - ignorance is bliss when it comes to 4chan. It's like reddit on hate speed! It's basically a massive forum where anything goes, but the nastier/more black humour the better. Lots of trolls, lots of insults. Just one example: 4chan started "fat 2 fit" - they took pics of overweight people from their Facebook or twitter, photoshopped them slim, then posted them online for people to comment on how much better they looked/how ugly they still were/why couldn't they just put down the fork. The subjects had no idea their pictures had been taken and used in this way.

BirdsGottaFly

Only if the slurs are reported, and a lot of the time the person on the receiving end will not report it. I agree that we can reduce the instances of every nasty thing in this world, but making it disappear completely is unrealistic imo. There's only so much we as a society can do, individuals won't always confirm to what is socially acceptable. But, we haven't reached the point where we can do no more yet, thankfully! :(

Why not teach the parents as well?

The other day a mother grabbed her son by the hand and told him in a loud whisper that she didn't know what was wrong with my DD, that she probably has autisim.

What term do you use instead of mild autism then? To describe someone who has charactistics but otherwise functions perfectly well in society? I'm not being facetious, I'm wondering how to describe DS1 and DD without offending anybody.

I have a friend who labels anyone who is nasty or unbalanced as ‘autistic’.

I'm autistic. Neither you nor he would be in my friendship group, perhaps you need to review who you have in your group.

As for name calling, many, many folk on here have pointed out that if you teach your children well (in the immortal words of Graham Nash) these behaviours can be stopped. Please do so, it's lazy and cruel not to.

Rebecca

Oh god this sounds awful. Even reading your description made my skin crawl!!

However I may well have a nosey. I write a blog about parenting Austitic children. I’m horrified by all this and might write about it. If I can bring myself to have a look at this dreaded website!!! Xxx

Evil

I just say my boys have Autism.

Although I believe the correct term is an ‘Autistic Spectrum Disorder’. To me it’s just terminology though and don’t think much about it!! I haven’t got the headspace. Lol!!!!

Obscured

But surely autistic people exist who themselves feel that their symptoms mildly affect them?
I'm still not sure I get it. Surely it is down to the individual who is experiencing the autism to describe it and how they feel it affects them? Some may feel it affects them only minimally, others may feel it affects them severely. Is personal experience not important here?

And 4Chan is completely anonymous & untraceable with zero moderation. It's very, very nasty.

But basically if you sit down and make a list of everything that would offend your average Mumsnetter, then you will have roughly come up with a list of most of the major content of 4Chan.

I agree with youarenotkiddingme - a good place to start would be schools having an absolute zero tolerance policy for anyone heard using such language, in the same way as a racist or homophobic insult. It's easy for schools at the moment to brush it aside and make mealy mouthed excuses to minimise it. But society as a whole also has a long long way to go before disablist targeting is treated in the same way as racist/homophobic etc crimes are.

I love the sound of what reinettepompadour says too, could see how that could be effective.

Yep. It's a rabbit hole of neck beards and trolls and very bored people sitting behind their keyboards looking to cause trouble. You might not find much about autism on there because it's so big, not - they'll have moved onto bashing something else by now.

I think we could just stop calling each other names

This is so spot on. The people who are minimising or justifying or saying it will pass, or allowing their friends to say these things unchallenged, you are part of the problem.

What term do you use instead of mild autism then?

Autism.

Why is there a need to qualify it as mild? To make it seem better? "It's only mild autism...." and there more socially acceptable?

Curious.

Ginger Teenagers are not children , well you may be able to tell a child to stop using that language and they will, a teenager most likely will not. Are you saying you never used insulting language as a teen not knowing the consequences? I did and I’m not proud of it but we thought we were rebelling, not being twats

What term do you use instead of mild autism then?
I wouldn't use anything. By using the word "mild" you are implying that it should affect the person involved less than someone with severe autism. But actually in some ways it can be affecting them just as much or even more. Sounds odd?

Okay imagine you know Fred who has "severe autism" he is pretty much non-verbal, incontinent etc. For Fred the world revolves around him to a large extent. Everyone who encounters him realises they have to adapt to him.

Now compare this with Sophie who has "mild autism". She is intelligent, well spoken etc. She seems to function well in society. But every day Sophie is putting on an act, and working very hard. To her it is as if she is taking part in a real life "Truman Show" but she doesn't have the script and has lost any ear piece. She is working very hard just to seem "normal" and work out what is going on. Sometimes she might make mistakes, which probably cause her extreme anxiety - especially as she may not always know immediately that she has made a mistake etc. She may well need time to decompress.

To Sophie her difference doesn't seem "mild". Mild more describes the level of accommodation that society around her makes for her, rather than something intrinsic to her.

And why should children be trained about one particular condition, what about diabetes, heart conditions, lung cancer, kidney stones, asthma, sleep apnoea.

Well, that’s just ridiculous. How many times have you heard someone being told “you have lung cancer” as an insult. Or being gawped at in the street for having kidney stones? They should be taught about disabilities because that is what the vast majority of children behave inappropriately around.

I just think people are pointing out that this comes from a subculture where the intent is to offend. So being noisily offended on MN is counterproductive rather than constructive. They just aren't the sort of people who can be stopped from doing it by a quiet word from Mum

What utter nonsense. It isn’t a subculture. It’s not just some dirty corner of the Internet. It is out there, in the schools, on the streets. Every. Fucking. Day. Those pricks on 4chan and everywhere else might well have acted differently if they had had a regular “quiet word from mum”. If their parents hadn’t use brushed it off as “oh that’s what happens, kids will Be Kids, it’s just a subculture.

And when you see it and hear it every day, and see your child upset and embarrassed by it every day, you can bet your arse you would be noisily offended by it. Are we just supposed to sit quietly and let it happen, to not speak up? I get so pissed off with the argument which says you are just playing in to their hands, giving them what they are looking for, feeding the trolls. Blaming the victims for their response is possibly the most offensive thing which happens. When people speak up loudly about it, it tells others who have fallen in to the trap of using the language, that it isn’t ok to do so.

What amazes me is, we keep being told that kids will be Kids and there is nothing we can do, and yet our children who face this kind of abuse and discrimination and mocking rarely use this type of language themselves. My daughter will never be mean to any kid, let alone one with a disability. She stands up for those who are bullied, makes friends with those who are outsiders. She does this because we have taught her about different disabilities. She does this because she knows she could be a target too. She does this because her school has an ethos of inclusion and support. If those of us who have children with SN can teach our children to not use certain words, (and some of those children are much harder to teach) how come it is so difficult for parents of children without disabilities to do so? Probably because they actually just don’t give a shit and think it’s fine as long as their kids aren’t the target.

beka

Spot on. I was trying to write a response but yours summed it up perfectly.

Skadespelerskorna, but previously it was ignored, today it doesn't need reporting by the Victim because everyone takes notice. That is a big difference. I can remember teachers having to leave my school because they couldn't put up with the racist insults. That wouldn't happen now.

"individuals won't always confirm to what is socially acceptable"

When i was younger, immigrants would get burned out of their houses, without neighbours getting involved. People are now proactive about open attacks and the law is updated and applied.

Unfortunately Police forces are criticised about not using the law in Hate Crime cases against disabled people and there is still a Culture of it not being taken seriously by the justice system. Before the Steven Lawrence case, it was thought that change couldn't happen, but we know it can, so it should be.

You can't stop individual bigotry, but you can remove it across SM and in public life, if we all take a stance. Stop talking about what we can't do and focus on what we can.

Whilst I totally get where you are coming from, with respect I think we should teach our children to be more accepting and understanding of all disabilities and differences.

More awareness is needed of thousands of conditions and diseases. My daughter has a genetic disease that many "know of" but little understand what it actually is, and I worry how others will take her at school given she will have so many obvious "differences" and likely need extra assistance. At school children with all sorts of differences are picked on, I don't think it is possible to educate them on every condition, but just to teach them to be tolerant, accepting and kind to others.

Ginger...you really are reading a lot into the word "realistic". None of which relates to me I'm afraid, as much as you would like to think it does, so as you can have a little fight on here and make out anyone who challenges anything is terrible. I'm all for education, but really really really don't want any more time taken out of my child's school day for subjects like this, that can be much better canvassed outside of school, ie by society etc, social media, what have you. As another poster said, children probably know more about autism than adults do as there will more than likely be a child with autism in their class.
Yes, children are supposed to learn things at school that prepare them for life..but sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day, and education does take place outside the classroom too. Yes, i want my children to be knowledgeable about autism (I think they are) but I also want them to be knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects and issues and other medical conditions. And I want them to get some GCSE's too. I just think you can't keep chipping away at the school day for every cause that exists. I'm sorry if that offends people, that's not my intention. I still stand by the simple fact of life that all the education in the world won't stop name calling ever. It simply won't. We as a society can do our utmost to reduce it as much as we can, I for one wouldn't allow my children to do it.

Teenagers are not children , well you may be able to tell a child to stop using that language and they will, a teenager most likely will not

Oh right well that’s ok then eh?

Here’s a plan, make the consequences of using such language so unattractive they will stop.

If they’re abusing people online, remove access to the internet.

If they say it out loud, remove something that will bother them/ground them.

Challenge it, each and every time and come down hard. Because everyone who has let this go without consequences, for an easy life or whatever, has made life harder for my children and other people who are autistic. But because it doesn’t affect you, you don’t see the harm it does.

If it was your ten year old telling you he’d rather be dead than live with people mocking him for being autistic, I bet you’d have a very different opinion. But it was mine, because he had been so ground down with this “fad” for this insult that he actually wanted to die.