To think that people are complicit with neglect

[Wierdyperiody]

There's a woman in my community, she is a prolific Facebooker, involved in lots of community activities and attracts a fair amount of praise and attention.

She has two young teenage boys, neither of them attend school or and activities or clubs, one never leaves the house at all and the other only goes out with her occasionally. In conversation she said a they don't get out of bed until near lunchtime and spend most of the day playing computer games.

They are both allegedly autistic, they did go to school and now have home education. The woman is out and about doing her activities for whole days leaving the children at home alone

I spend more than a healthy amount of time thinking about whether this is child neglect and imagine my own DD who is a similar age effectively being housebound, having no outside interaction. It really upsets me. It also upsets me that someone who is neglecting their children is praised and celebrated so much

I did suggest a playdate between my DD and the 12 year old as both like boardgames and had a nice friendship when they were much younger. The woman slammed it down.

Aibu to think this is neglect and there's a whole community of people complicit in this because no one seems to be thinking about these boys being in a top floor flat day after day?

Odd isn’t it

how the op is whinging about people being complicit

but it would appear she herself has done bugger all

Could be neglect, equally could be that kids are indeed autistic, are burned out and there’s actually no way to get them out/doing anything else. The latter happened to us, you think you would never allow it to happen until it happens to you

It can be very hard to get an autistic child out. I do go out with mine but he sometimes refuses to leave and in those situations you cannot realistically carry an older child who is kicking screaming and hitting you, it is not like taking a reluctant toddler out. They can also run fast and that can be dangerous if they try to get away while you are out. But are these children being left home alone? If so that seems neglectful.

Do you know for sure they are home alone and no relative or friend with them?

Presumably you are aware that there are people including children who suffer from conditions like social anxiety, ocd, agoraphobia, depression etc? You do understand that there are people who DO really struggle to leave the house don’t you? Are you suggesting the mum should join in with “never going out” or are you suggesting she doesn’t help them to go out enough?

she may be waiting for support from a therapist or they may be already receiving tailored support. Either way it might not be board games with your daughter.

It’s a very difficult one.

I know a few children like this.

They are ‘autistic’ (some diagnosed some not) and parents have deemed that they’re unable to attend school.

They’re also not able to leave the house and are allowed to sit in a dark room and game all day.
It is then even more of a challenge to get them to leave the house or interact with others because they’re not used to it.

Half of me thinks that school and the world is built for neurotypical people and we shouldn’t force people to fit into what society deems as normal.
If they’re happy and healthy, then what’s the problem.

The other half of me wonders how they’ll cope as adults and how I know many severely autistic people who will next live independently and they go to specialist schools or residential units and it does them no harm.

So is it the parents doing what they think is best for the child or is it just lazy parenting boarding on neglect.

This would not have been allowed 10+ years ago.

I don't think this is necessarily neglect OP.

Do you have any experience with children or teens with autism?

I am an autistic adult, my 6 year old is autistic, and I remember the schooling system being diabolical when I was at school. Traumatic even. I'd rather not have been subject to that trauma.

Now I'm fighting for an extremely limited placement for my child in specialist who is a school avoider.

We try and do some home education, but the truth is as functional as he looks on the outside it is extremely difficult to get him to engage in any meaningful way. Now imagine that as a teenager, willful and stubborn.

All children have a right to an education but that doesn't mean all children will engage with that.

So what is she meant to do? Not go out? Not run errands? Not go to work?

I'd have hated being dragged out of the house by my mother because of external pressures. I wouldn't have gotten anything except more trauma from those experiences.

Maybe she knows her kids would also hate this.

I'm commenting as a teacher in mainstream education whose autistic child attends mainstream school, but has had periods of low / non-attendance due to autistic burnout.

If this parent has two autistic children who no longer attend school, school safeguarding will almost certainly have kicked in at a previous point, connecting her with Early Help, local authority safeguarding and possibly allocating a social worker, all as supportive, not punitive, measures. Very few children and young people who have previously been in school, and who have prior engagement with the health care system leave services without a trace. As a home educator she will be registered with your local authority and receive regular check-ins and monitoring visits.

If her sons have previously attended school, chances are that, if their needs were unmet in mainstream education, they will have burnt out and she is now doing what many parents of autistic children and young people are doing; following advice to allow time to settle dysregulated nervous systems by removing all but essential demands in a safe environment.

Home education can be done creatively around the clock and looks very different to conventional schooling but can be just as effective, and definitely time-efficient. You can teach a single child how to calculate a percentage of an amount, or the internal angles of polygons in 15 minutes whereas it is a much longer process in a standard mainstream classroom.

DC1 also had periods when leaving the house was very difficult due to overwhelm and anxiety, but after carefully balancing the removal of any pressure to go out with opportunities to engage with known, time-limited activities outside the home at 'safe' times, this has abated. Your acquaintance's sons may be going out with her after dark, or on short trips on set errands in the car -would you know? My DC1, when things were at their worst, couldn't have attended any 'activities', especially nothing where other people -especially other children or young people- were involved, even if it was something that really interested them, such was the grip of anxiety. These things take time and immense effort on parents' behalf -we went down to one income to manage DC1's needs.

I understand that what you perceive from the outside may look concerning, but until you know more about how her life is structured, I think you are not necessarily looking at neglect but at a woman who may be managing her sons' needs while also managing to meet her own need for 'social interaction' and 'meaningful contribution' (both important goals in provision planning for SEN children approaching Post-16), a feat which eludes many SEN parents, sadly.

Is it really neglectful to leave teenagers home alone in the daytime? That in and of itself shouldn't be an issue surely?

Why don’t you make a report yourself? NSPCC , LA , SS etc. You have nothing to lose. Maybe nothing will happen, but at least you tried.

This family are not your family, the children are not you, this community is not the community that failed you. Your anger is misplaced (though I get it, on a VERY personal level).

Yabu....you don't really know what's going on or what challenges she faces with her DC.

As a late diagnosed autistic woman, we barely cope as adults.

Higher rates of poor mental health, suicide, abuse, manipulation, workplace discrimination, sexual assault, unable to form or maintain meaningful relationships, bullying.

All of which was rife through school too.

I wish someone had noticed 10+ years ago and stepped in to give me breathing space.

I'm presuming the OP meant complicit by authorities who wash their hands of struggling DC rather than on an individual basis.
Ultimately at some point these children will be entering the adult world. Those who spend their formative years holed up in bedrooms gaming with no structure to their lives are going to struggle to integrate into the usual workplaces. That leaves self employment, unless they have interests that can lead to opportunities they are going to be so restricted. Otherwise its the benefits system to support them.
Like it or not some parents do just take the easy route and avoid the hard parenting. If they are pushed into withdrawing children from school by inadequate systems but don't have the mental, intellectual or financial resources to home educate plus difficult children you can see how it escalates into neglect if there are no checks.
Considered, thought out, home education is great and can benefit children enormously, just leaving kids to it to wallow in a room is not home education.

If you're worried then make a report and get the authorities to check in on them. Bairns do slip through the cracks when they're home educated but I'm sure things were put in place where they are checked up on fairly recently.

Stick them on the radar.

How, pray tell, does one go about getting an unwilling autistic teenager to leave the house?

And to posters suggesting a 'back story' due to OP's child having been friendly with one of the autistic sons previously -tell me you know next to nothing of parenting autistic DC without telling me...
No back story. Autism is characterised by differences in development in social communication. One of the many sad aspects of parenting autistic DC can be to see friendships fall by the wayside as friends 'outgrow' your child and move on, or worse, your child's challenges around social interaction causes conflict, which in turn means friendships don't last.
Seeing your child's circle dwindle, despite your best efforts to actively 'socialise' them is really tough. Many autistic children and young people are very isolated. But you can't force friendships.

YANBU OP, I would report your concerns. There have been enough cases of invisible children being neglected or abused for this to merit some attention.

Even if she isn’t neglecting them enough to meet the threshold of intervention, it’s desperately sad that her children have such limited lives.

I agree that it could fall loosely under institutional neglect that these children have ended up in this position, but I don't think this falls on the mother.

It's extremely hard to get teens EHCPs, additional resources and provision especially if schools have not been cooperative with supporting a diagnosis.

However, there seems to be a lot of wondering how these children will work as adults.

Despite the most bespoke schooling many workplaces are not willing or able to adapt to the needs of autistic people. On paper, by law, we are entitled to reasonable adjustments but having worked in many places and going through the process of requesting reasonable adjustments, I know it is a battle that we just don't come out winning a lot of the time. Adults also aren't perfect little angels who stop bullying at 18 or when they enter the work force and we are extremely misunderstood and bullied in workplaces.

I think there does need to be a separate discussion on how workplaces can be made more accessible to autistic people but these children's value right now should not be based on how much money they can produce in the work force later on. It's a multifaceted issue but the answer shouldn't be how can we make these neurodivergent children act more like neurotypical adults.

This.
My two autistic DC rarely leave the house.

It shouldn't be an achievement in life that both children have been out of the house three days in a row but that's what I'm celebrating now.

"But are these children being left home alone? If so that seems neglectful."

It isn't if they are safe to be left without an adult. Plenty of people go out to work leaving secondary age children at home.

There are two families on my small street who live exactly like this but I don’t feel in either case it’s neglect or the parents fault. I do think as a society it’s something we need to face up to because I find it absolutely tragic

I completely agree but I do think there should be a balance.

If there was an orphanage where the kids were kept in one room, with no sunlight, no socialising or access to the outside world. We would all say it’s neglectful.

Have you looked up Altrustic Narcissism also known as Communal Narcissism? Sounds like this might resonate perhaps?

This. It’s so easy for people to be judgemental when it comes to parenting teens with autism but it’s much harder than people realise, you can’t force them to do anything. If they don’t want to go out what can you do?

you could report to ss.
probably a better idea