Autism and ‘lazy parenting’

[BlueDusky]

I read comments on threads sometimes that suggest that parents seek a diagnosis of autism or ADHD for their children to excuse poor behaviour due to lazy parenting. I don’t think these comments are fair - I would argue that most people who want their child to have an assessment because they believe they may have additional unmet needs do so not because they want an excuse for poor behaviour but they care about their child and want the best outcomes for them. Surely a lazy parent would be one who ignore their child’s needs?

Or I read comments like ‘they still need to be taught to live in the real world’. The inference being that if your autistic child cannot live ‘in the real world’ you have somehow failed them as a parent. As a parent of a child with higher support needs, who medical professionals have said is unlikely to ever live independently, I find posts and comments like these to be insensitive at times. What’s worse is these comments will often come from other parents of autistic children. If you have an autistic child who is successful don’t act like that’s all down to your fantastic parenting it’s probably down to luck and the fact they have lower support needs.

Maybe I am being unreasonable to allow these comments to irk me.

Having said that I would say your child has high needs
My son can also toilet and has loud vocal stims he also can't read or write or speak at all he's 15
I'm not playing disability top trumps
As that's not helpful but I also don't think a blanket statement of it's all just autism is helpful either.

I think the difficulty is when you say ‘My child is autistic’, that means a different thing to when someone who’s child is taking their A’levels and they’re looking at supporting them to go to university saying ‘My child is autistic’. Different needs, different challenges, different priorities.

I agree with that. Though people judge parents regardless, but yes when kids "seem" to behave badly, that's just another stick to beat parents with. There will also be good and bad parents, parents with autistic children aren't any worse

It's like you just don't understand how the world functions.

Children are service users. They have a right for their needs to be met whilst using that service, in this case the service is school. So the teachers are obliged to meet the child's needs, including making allowance for or providing special measures for, the child's disability.

The parents of that child aren't providing a service to the teacher. So there's not the same obligation to meet the teachers needs. If the teacher has needs due to disability it's for their employer to accommodate those needs, not the service users or the service users relatives.

Just because a teacher has needs that doesn't mean they have the right to demand members of the public (in this case the child's parents) meet those needs, there are no laws to that effect.

So you are saying it is perfectly fine to discriminate against adults with SEND because they are adults. Says it all really.

Teachers do have the right to say no - yes they absolutely do and no the teachers do not have to give their own personal time at all. Meetings after school are unpaid and in the teachers own time. They are under no obligation at all during their own unpaid time. So it is not during their employed time. They are doing it because they want to help. Shame that you think it is ok to harm them in return for their goodwill.

Just because a parent has a sense of entitlement doesn't make it acceptable to treat anyone as less than.

If we want an inclusive world that means we want it for all. So sad that you want it for some and want to actively discriminate against others in their own time.