As an autistic person AIBU

[estrogone]

To be sick to death of people blaming all bad behaviour on neurodiversity.

It seems like the go to excuse.

Little Johnny urinated on somebody- must be ND
CF stole my shit and is rude and unpleasant - must be ND.

I wish people knew that autistic adults (especially women) are highly sensitive to fairness. We have strong inner policeman and will make sure we play fair. We spent decades masking and sticking to the rules, so we would be the least likely to be a cheeky fucker.

Some people are just rude, insensitive, aggressive, entitled, horrid. As children this might be down to genetics, family dynamics, as adults because they just are not very nice.

Ugh autism is a spectrum so not everyone will present the same way - great that you can be a "good girl". I have a 5yo son with ASD with PDA profile - diagnosed at 3. I mainly experience the other side of this - where how he behaves is perceived as bad and we are judged as bad/lazy parents from the outside but most people have NO IDEA. Unless you have experienced it you do not have a clue. We didn't own a tv until DS was 4 so not down to tv. He has been violent towards us since the age of 18months/2. We see an occupational therapist every week, a child psychologist every month, attended parenting courses, sought out brain/gut health specialists, but his behaviour doesn't change because he has ASD with pda profile. Most people don't understand what ASD with pda profile is but let me tell you it's a living nightmare. Any demand placed on my son triggers his nervous system and usually results in a meltdown, which is often violent and most demands have to be reframed - kids like this crave autonomy. If we go to the park and DS starts doing something he shouldn't, I will always stop him, redirect and give him a warning. 9 times out of 10 he will do it again and then we will have to leave the park. Other NT kids will learn from this behaviour but DS won't, he repeats the same behaviour. Consequences do not work. There is no learned behaviour. It is a complete loss of control when DS has a meltdown and there is nothing i can do to stop it when he's having one - i can only try to avoid it through redirection or keeping him regulated throughout the day. We have minimal issues at school but it is very stressful and exhausting to live like this. And isolating because there is so much judgement from others who quite frankly do not have a clue. You cannot parent away ASD. You can have ASD and present in a completely different way that you appear "well behaved".

And no it is not normal for a 5yo to pee on another child. His parents should have told him off, apologised dealt with it. It could be undiagnosed SEN or it could be poor parenting.
We have a girl in DS class where the school has told the parents that they think she has developmental issues - she frequently soils/wets herself in class, does not follow instructions, screams, says bad words, hits, causes chaos - but the parents refuse to even consider that there is an issue and try to push back on the school that it's their problem. I suspect she might have additional needs and be poorly parented.

My autistic son's behaviours that challenge are not because he is bratty or because he hasn't been parented properly.

It's depends. Are you judging my severely autistic, severely learning disabled, non verbal child by the same level of cognitive understanding that you possess? If so then it's not a comparison. He will never be able to moan on any forum about behaviour, we are ecstatic that he recently started responding to his name at 11 years old. We live in a state of flight or fight with extreme challenging behaviour, self injuring, aggression, and trying to set boundaries with someone who has the body of a larger child and the mind of a toddler.
On the other hand his brother, also autistic, but verbal, academically able, with a different set of challenges, has very different expectations and boundaries.
Sorry but it has nothing to do with your 'experience' as an autistic person (I am also autistic, genetics, ha), more to do with your human tendency to judge others. Or are you using your autism as an excuse for poor behaviour?

Actually this not what I said at all. The very opposite.

My son has ASD when we have a group of kids at his parties when he was younger they all would have have ASD and they were all very different with their presentations. DS is as placid a kid as you will ever meet but with very poor levels of engagement with other kids. Some kids played really well together.

But I can think of one child diagnosed with ADHD and ASD and his behaviour was atrocious, he had a real interest in cause and effect and getting a reaction from the other kids and no compunctions about harming or hurting the other children. He has been kicked out of every school for similar behaviour, they have been banned from venues, hotels since.

He is a violent child with anti social tendencies and obviously no longer invited to ours.

One of the other autistic children came up to me at one stage when I was dealing with the fallout from that kid and said we are all autistic but he is the only one behaving that way. He even noticed how different this child’s behaviour was to the other kids.

Not every ND person presents the same way as you @estrogone and it is sometimes an individuals specific brand of ND that causes issues.

I did not say that all men with autism lack empathy. I simply said that in my experience women with autism tend to have an extreme amount of it.

Some children cant help it ,my don is severely autistic with severe learning disabilities he has extremely challenging behaviour at times and he doesn't understand how his behsviour impacts others
Obviously im on high alert and remove him from situations broke things escalate and dint take him plsces I dont think he will cope with but hes never going to learn how yo behave appropriately due to his complex needs .

I'm like you op. Also AuDHD.

As a parent I've been unpopular in Sen mum circles when I've said it's not an immediate excuse or get out of jail free card.

Unless a child or adult has severe learning disability they are able to grow and learn with the right support and environment.

My eldest will never ace an exam but he has manners and knows to be kind. I don't have to worry he will be breaking the law because I've put a LOT of time and energy into him growing up knowing he is responsible for his behaviour.

It makes me furious when someone is posted as being abusive or controlling on here and there's immediate comments of maybe they're ND. 🤦🙄

It should also be self apparent that people with severe learning disabilities plus autism have an entirely different set of needs and their behaviours should not of course be judged by society in the same way.

ND doesn't always refer to autism though.

There are other ND conditions that do cause bad behaviour through a lack of impulse control. There are coping strategies for those conditions but children will still be learning them and making mistakes and you need to be able to separate out what the child is truly responsible for.

Punishing a child for something they were not able to control is cruel and not going to work anyway. There has to be some allowance for these kids to make mistakes and grow and learn.

I think behaviour comes down to values.

I'm AuDHD and I have very strong equality, social and moral values (I care about doing the right thing by people, being respectful).

I know another AuDHD person who has different values and doesn't care about people in the same way at all.

They're just a bit of a dick.

My husband is controlling due to his autism. He isn't a bad person and he's not abusive. Hes controlling about weird stuff and its because of his anxiety and need for things to be 'just so' I pull him up on it and he does try to moderate but when he's stressed he'll revert to he same behaviours.

Queuejump?

You would hope so but I have seen many threads on here about children/ adults with severe autism and learning disabilities when its clear their behaviour is due to their complex disabilities, and you still get posters not understanding this
And comparing them to their own autistic children wo are very cognitively able.

They can grow and learn within their capabilities which differ massively so your son doesn’t speak for all ND people.

ND people are vulnerable and more likely to suffer from MH difficulties, bullying, abuse and trauma. Some mange ADHD as well as autism. All of which add to the huge differences in ND presentation and reinforce the saying- if you’ve met one person with autism you’ve met one person.

Yes for an awful lot of people that's exactly what it is. Which is why some of thise who genuinely need it nearly lost it.

@PinkLegoBalloon but that's just it isn't it - I've also put alot of time into raising my ASD son (having been a SAHM for the first 4 years of his life) but it doesn't change his behaviour. Just because your sons ASD presents one way ans what works for you - works! It doesn't mean it's the same for all ASD kids and not through lack of trying. You're lucky. I'd love to be able to parent away my sons ASD.

100% agree with you. When I was at school in the 90s/00s, ADHD was a term (rightly or wrongly, I'm not saying it's either) for naughty kids. Nobody wanted a label; now it's like everything has be to explained by a condition. And it takes away resources from people who really need it.

That's why its a spectrum and not one size fits all. Reminds me of CAMHS who said my son has ODD because PDA doesn't exist because its not on the DSM.

The naughty kid is typical male presentation. We know better now. it’s a diagnosis, not a label.

Being diagnosed really doesn’t. There are no resources, none. ADHD is also under diagnosed in this country.

Some people are just rude but by reducing every ND person behaviour to having “inner policemen” you are discounting the many different ways people experience their own ND.

i work in this field and see a huge variety of presentations of disregulated behaviour - many of which can present as extremely anti social. That’s not to say that every expression of anti social behaviour is ND but you only have to look at prevalence in the prison community to see how it can affect people.

Well I wasnt reducing anything. I was saying that it is common.

I was pointing out a good reason to NOT automatically jump to Autistic within the first 5 posts on almost every thread about people being arseholes.

But is the high numbers in the prison community from the ND itself or the lack of parenting in some Nd children. You see it on here and in life all the time kids being violent hitting, damaging property etc and a significant amount of parents saying they can't help it they are ND. Or there is no point in telling them no they wouldn't understand. Parents need to realise if their child is hitting them, being disrespectful, smashing things up and refusing to listen to the word no they will grow into adults who act exactly the same way. Nobody gets to 18 and suddenly has a personality transplant these are things that are taught from birth so that we can live in a civilised world that isn't full of domestic violence and rapists.