Should I tell my friend how to parent her child?

[ibis17]

A friend of mine has recently disclosed to me that she thinks her 10 year old son might be autistic. I’ve worked with autistic young people for decades and to me he does seem to tick most boxes for ASD.

I see autism as often a very positive thing, and have a lot of sympathy with those on the spectrum. My friend, however, views it as a very negative idea and this is playing out in how she parents her son.

her approach is carrot and stick in an attempt to train him out of his autistic traits. In our conversations about it, she uses words like ‘shame’ and ‘punish’ when referring to her son’s autistic behaviour.

hes a very sweet boy and is obviously trying painfully hard not to upset his mum and to be less autistic (I don’t think they’ve discussed the concept of autism with him, he is just told he’s being rude/ selfish/ ungrateful etc)

he is constantly apologising to his mother for letting me down.

hearing her stories breaks my heart as it goes against my fundamental values as to how people with autism should be treated. I am worried irreversible damage is being done to her son.

however, we live at a distance so I’m not often present to see this parenting, I’m also aware she has opened up to me as someone she trusts and isn’t really talking to anyone else about this. I care about her as a friend and respect her in most things. I don’t want to alienate her or absent myself from her son’s life.

do I say something to her or just provide a sympathetic ear?

Encourage her to have him assessed. How do you know he's trying to be less autistic?

Rather than correct her parenting, you could talk more generally about how best to support autistic kids? And offer to send her some links? Since it’s your profession to have knowledge about it and it’s new to her.

Keep being a listening ear for her and tread very y carefully. You are used to autisic traits but it can be a lot to take in at first as a parent.
Your intentions seem good but it's a very delicate situation.

That must be hard.

Be the listening ear and remind her of your job frequently. Offer "If you ever want to sit down and have a proper chat about autism and how your child's understanding of how life works for them, you know I'm all ears"

Just to echo others, encourage assessment based on her concerns, not your advice, iykwim. My feeling is she trusts you because you have so much experience. I think she’d take on board your gentle encouragement of assessment.

Thank you. This is all really helpful. Floating as assessment based on her concerns sounds like a really great way of framing it.

In this situation no one is even sure if he is autistic or not so surely the first step is an assessment.

Offer her support, she’s obviously struggling. I HATE this “autism is a superpower! Autism is great!” Trope. Autism can cause being limitations to peoples lives and cause tremendous difficulties for the person. Just because she’s not doing backflips over it doesn’t make you a better person.

Ask her what she would like.

She probably confided in you as a trusted friend but also because she presumably knows you work in this field, also because you have insight and experience she doesn’t.

But be empathetic. I absolutely agree that her current approach seems punitive and worrying, but try and remember that for her it might feel as though the world is falling apart… her son isn’t going to be the person she thought, he will have challenges she doesn’t understand and is fearful of, her parenting journey is/will be harder etc etc etc.

So say you’re glad she shared this with you, that you have been thinking about it and can only imagine how hard it must be for her to be going through this.

If she has expressed doubt about the autism, but you feel she’s right about it, then validate her feelings - tell her you’ve been mulling it over and can see why she would think there’s an issue, that’s she’s not going bonkers. Point out that because of your work you have useful info you could share - is that something she would find helpful? Offer to be a sounding board - but make it clear that you understand if that’s not what she needs right now. if she rejects your help let her know it’s not a one time offer, and that you’re there for her and her family if anything changes in future.

Try to offer some positives from your experience - eg “I find parents are fearful of what it might mean but when children get a diagnosis it often brings a lot of relief - it helps make sense of so many things that have been happening in their lives and which they’ve been struggling with. They just didn’t have the tools they and their children needed to succeed”.

Success stories of those you’ve worked with. Especially, depending on your friend’s priorities, mentioning people you know with good careers, happy family lives or whatever - this might be reassuring to your friend.

Offer to help her navigate diagnosis if that’s what would help. Offer to talk on phone more regularly, meet up and chat (or whatever you’re able and willing to do). You get the picture.

If she rejects your help then stay in touch, maybe wait a while and send a link to a particularly pertinent article or website (saw this and thought of you type thing).

You sound really caring, and I’m sure you know more about the positives and best approaches than she does. But don’t minimize her perspective - she’s probably been struggling for a lot longer and lot more than you’re aware.

It really just starts with an affirmation that you care and the question - “What can I do to help?”

Shorter answer to your question would be:

No. But by all means offer to help your friend support her child.

Well.first of all.he needs a proper assessment to.see wether he is autistic or not ,and also autism is a huge spectrum it is also a Neuro developmental disability ,it's not always a positive thing for everyone ,once they have have established wether or not he is autistic then hopefully they can access support for both o f them.

I would have hated that when my child was first diagnosed ,granted he was only three and he is severely autistic,but it wouldnt have been at all.helpful for me to hear about all these people who.had marvellous careers,and were the " success stories" it impacts everybody differently.

Encourage her to reach out to agencies, make up you know someone who's child was similar and they spoke to the school or whatever. Don't mention the word autism as lots of parents just switch off after this.

@x2boys , my actual Health Visitor at the time (she was meant to be there for my younger son) would wax lyrical about how all autistic people are super gifted successful savants! I just thought "really, including the ones who first get flagged up at their 2 1/2 year check by one of your colleagues and got a referral to the special needs preschool?"

@x2boys you’re right, of course. It’s certainly not a one size fits all scenario. I’m very sorry to hear about your challenges and hope I didn’t cause offense. I guess my advice was a bit of a smorgasbord in the hope OP would mix and match an approach that would work for her.

My main worry is that, if OP can’t find a way to connect with her friend on this, that poor little boy is going to have a really awful time of it. For his sake I very much hope she finds an approach that works for her and her friend.

Have the school picked up on anything?

I'm guessing that your friend has confided in you because she knows you have experience with autistic kids? When autism first appeared on my horizon I was desperate for someone to help show me through the maze. Ask her if she'd like your advice. Signpost her towards appropriate parent training. Be a listening ear, but maybe also suggest approaches which have been successful in your experience.

I would call SS and describe the emotional abuse she had admitted to.

Just be upfront and tell her that if she likes, you can share your experience of autistic children and what strategies might help. Then it's up to her to say yes please or no thanks.

I think OP was keen to help AND stay friends ...

Thank you so much - some really great advice here.

He is on the end of ASD that used to be called ‘Asperger’s’ so although life is of course more complicated for him in some ways, I think there is huge potential for him to be happy with the type of autism he has. I’m not necessarily talking about the kind of ‘success’ in a commercial sense that often gets talked about in reference to autism. However I strongly believe that a lot of people with an autism diagnosis can live very happy and fulfilled lives, and although there are cases where the autism is severe and this becomes much harder, I think for a lot of people who receive the diagnosis, with support and understanding it is a different way of living rather than a debilitating way - and this is after decades of working in education with all sorts of people on the spectrum.

At the moment he is being punished for not wanting to go to parties, give hugs, make eye contact and being prevented from playing music, which he loves and instead being forced to do team sports, which he hates because his mum thinks it will train him to be more ‘normal’. It’s a kind of tough love approach. He’s recently started self harming and this is being dealt with in a similar carrot and stick way ‘of you don’t self harm for a week, you get a treat at the weekend, if you do self harm, you’ll be punished’

School don’t know about the self harm and have never mentioned an SEN diagnosis to my friend. I think the boy masks quite well at school and doesn’t necessarily present in the more old fashioned idea of male autism.

I really hope your friend is open to hearing your perspective - I find it hard to believe she isn’t desperately worried about her son and is just expressing that in a way that can’t possibly be helping either of them. Success is a broad church - to me it’s just mainly children who are happy in themselves and treat others well. I hope she sees that her son can achieve that kind of well being with her help. Good luck OP, it sounds like that child needs your help.

If she understood the stress she was putting on her DS, I'm sure she would try different approaches. I do wonder whether her disclosure to you in particular was a cry for help. You seem like a really sensitive friend, so I'm sure you can ask her in a way that will keep the lines of communication open.