To think the t-shirt I saw on a young boy was unfair?

[VictorianSqualor]

First I have to say I have no experience whatsoever with SN so do not intend to insult anyone, I just felt quite sorry for a young boy I saw in Tesco earlier wearing a t-shirt saying "I'm not naughty....I'm autistic".

I can understand his parents may be fed up with nosey busy bodies giving them the 'look' thinking he is misbehaving or something but surely to label him in this way is just as unfair?

I mean, it's no-one elses business and it just seemed maybe they were too worried about other peoples opinions than how it might affect him.

I know it's judgy of me to say anything but I just felt for the poor lad.

However the t-shirt did look like it may ahve come from a charity/organisation that deals with autism so there may be something I missed and I'm sorry if I did, but I wouldn't have looked at him twice if I hadn't been trying to read his t-shirt.

I teach someone with HFA who is a very vocal (and sometimes persuasive) advocate of the benefits that his autism gives him. He isn't 'blind' to the draw backs, but he sees it is a fundimental part of his personality. he is aware that while his place on the spectrum gives him some advantages, this isn't the case for everyone with autism.

he is quite open about it.

I once worked with someone who was a facial agnosic, she couldn't regognise people from their faces. She wore a badge that said 'I can't recognise you, talk to me'

She has her first degree from Harvard and was a Rhodes scholor at Oxford, and was working on the psychology of vision!

Ah I like that one sarah.

Does anyone here know someone whose name begins with M who has a fantastic range of T-shirts. Always wish I was brave enough to wear some of hers.....

Last summer we were on the beach when a boy who looked about 9 started to demolish DS's sandcastle. Perhaps because of reading some mumsnet posts I stopped before doing anything. His father, running after him explained he had an ASD. I think he was at the less extreme end of the spectrum and I don't know whether his parents would have thought a t-shirt appropriate. However, DH (not spending much time on mumsnet) didn't suspect anything other than bad behaviour on the part of the boy, and if the father hadn't arrived in time and I hadn't been there, I think he would have intervened as though the boy was just being mean, which obviously wouldn't have been appropriate.

I have a sticker on my wheelchair which says 'keep staring, I might do tricks'
dd has one that says 'look at me, not my disability'

We never knew what was wrong with my brother, you could tell knowing him that it wasn't just naughty (naughty kids don't burn the school down so they don't have to go again - he didn't succeed but he did end up in a special school) and he was very clever - his special school teachers were running books on his maths skills! Now we know that the eldest son in every family has aspergers.

I remember Mum carrying him out of church one Sunday, like a baby (with his legs either side of her one arm) he wasn't a small kid (6' when he started secondary school) and he was kicking and screaming. She fell and landed on top of him. People were turning and looking. Fortunately my Grandad was our Pastor so he could say from the front to ignore it that Mum was dealing with it. I hurt for my brother because of how he was treated, I was going after a dinner lady when we were in primary school together for how she treated him. I know he wouldn't have worn a T-shirt, he would get angry at the suggestion of autism (I suppose going to special school he knew he wasn't like that but people hadn't heard of Aspergers then). I hope that my experiences as a big sister have made me a bit more understanding to "naughty" children in supermarkets. TBH supermarkets aren't that fun for children anyway!

Sorry, I think I've waffled a bit

I like the stickers that the French have that say 'If you take my parking space, take my disability!'

i was in tesco in the queue and there was a young lady with her son who was clearly distressed he was doing a lot of hand gesticulation and flicking and she looked ready to cry some old lady was tutting ...YES tutting and the poor lady was trying to hold him repeating the same sentence over and over again to him (i dunno what it was ) so i just left my shopping and pushed thru this group of old ladies who were watching and said ill unload and pack you look after him ,......in just a few minutes it was done my ds1 bless him came along and pushed her trolley to her car i just got on with my shopping then when he came back he said she started to cry and said she was sick of people staring and today she was thining of just running out and leaving her shopping at the till until i helped her .....she offered him £5 but he refused... i think at shirt would have been handy for her tbh

i think she meant in her family tree?

I have people tut at dd for drooling and making funny noises. Afraid I have lost my temper and shouted 'she's brain damaged, whats your excuse?'
And the tutters over her being bottlefed just did my head in. Bet they've never tried to latch on a baby with severe spastic cerebral palsy. grrrrrrrrrrrr

blimey dippy I started reading your post and thought you were talking about me (it's not quite the same story though) - something very similar happened to me with ds1 in Tesco. Except I didn't have a trolley and I dropped all my shopping to the floor because I couldn't hold ds1 anymore. The lady behind was lovely and picked everything up and held it for me and told me she'd been where I was (I don't know in what capacity). A true saint.

Yes, within my family. Dad has a cousin who is severely autistic, then of my cousins, they're children and my nephew the eldest son (2 undiagnosed) have had Aspergers.

I was talking to someone about it and saying it's just so odd the way it happened. He told me the same thing has happened within his family and it's an Irish trait. I don't know we have any Irish in us, but it's interesting to know it's not just my weird family!

i think it's reasonable enough, i personally don't look twice at people who are disabled or are mentally unwell because i work in these fields, so i'm used to it all the time so seeing someone who displays classic autism symptoms in a supermarket, regardless of whether they wear a tshirt stating 'i'm not naughty i'm autistic' or not, wouldn't really catch my attention. i'd be too busy trying to get the shopping done.
i don't find it suprising that people who know very little about such conditions choose to stare, it's just pure ignoranceon their part, so it is a natural reaction. 9 times out of 10 most people genuinely are curious, not malicious.

What do you think was in the mothers mind as she dressed her son in that t-shirt to go shopping? Many on here will tell you. Probably something along the lines of 'this will stop the buggers tutting and judging if our shopping trip goes wrong today'. I can see exactly why a mother to a child who has autism would dress her child in this t-shirt.

I have to say that some of you tonight have bought tears to my eyes. I have a son with Aspergers and believe you me, my son and I are judged. It was a lot worse when he was younger, supermarkets being the worst but there was not much chance of leaving him behind and going alone. It is to do with sensory overload, the noise, the smells the lights and yes, there were always old ladies having a good old tut!

It also was not nice to be ignored in the playground at school picking up time as no one wanted their child to be associatied with the "naughty boy".

I am so very heartened to realise that in the five or so years since he has been diagnosed, there are more people who have taken the time to become aware and educated on the invisible disability and are not willing to just judge straight off. Thank you ladies.

i agree with you thomcat, some of us will go to these extremes out in public because of the culture where people just want to judge and make assumptions on what they see.
i appreciate why the mother did what she did, hard to say what i'd do in the same situation with ds.

aspergers is one of the worst autistic spectrum disorders. i've only had experience working with adults with this, must be so difficult being a parent with a young child who suffers from this, candlewax. i take my hat off to you, parenting is bad enough, 24/7 job, but to also have a child with a disability such as aspergers really does require the patience of a saint.

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When DS1 (now 18) was younger I would have considered the t-shirt as he has Asperger syndrome and would still have huge tantrums in Tesco when he was 10 or so. I got so sick of people judging him and me - it was horrible and I've left more places in tears than I care to think about. We had cards from the National Autistic Society explaining his disability but I was always too busy dealing with him to hand them out when he threw a wobbly.

Sometimes I take ds1's PECS book in part to wave around so that people cotton on that if someone is using symbols to communicate there may well be something up.

Although it then just becomes something else that gets in the way of trying to stop him sitting on the display toilets

Candlewax - agree that the sensory overload can be a disaster. As he's got older, though, DS1 has found lots more ways of coping without getting angry and life is easier than it was. I hope things get easier for you and your DS too.

My Father and Mother had three girls in their marriage (me being one of them). They divorced. My Father then went on to have two boys. The first one, no problem, the second has High Functioning Autism. My sister had a girl with her first partner and then a boy with her husband. This young boy has Aspergers too. We come from an Irish family and my Grandmother, who never used to talk about "things" (shock horror) told me after my son was diagnosed with Aspergers that my Grandfather (who is now dead) had Autism in her opinion and that one of my Uncle's does too (I can agree with that). Also, one of my Uncle's son's who has not been officially diagnosed, but from what I have seen of him (and that is a lot) I would say he has Aspergers. So yes, I think it is definitely a male thing and I think it is generic. Maybe in years to come, they can identify the gene that causes this. But to be honest, even though the going is tough sometimes, I would not change my son for the world. He is what he is and I love him.