AIBU to find videos of autistic meltdowns on fb distressing and wrong

[Frenchtoastie]

Seriously considering deleting Facebook as I can’t get away from this content.
does anyone else find it distressing that mothers are FILMING AND POSTING their children suffering? For attention and comments? It makes me feel physically sick

Other SEN related content. Its picked for you on your interests and groups.

On X I followed Nasa, New Scientist and Professor Cox and was still pushed far right content.

What about being a scientist screams far right? But there it was.

I never see this, sadly your algorithm will be showing you these reels, whether you have an interest in Autisim or young children etc etc, i agree though people videoing distress children because it is "educational " or showing what parents "go through" for likes and engagement is wrong imo.

At the other end of the scale I get aduly children exploiting their parents with Dementia, i don't understand how they think it is ok.

Are these friends of yours ?
Delete or unfollow them.

I am because i have a severly autistic son and have never seen this on facebook.

FB is such garbage now, I don't want to delete it entirely because I still have a couple of IRL things on there and pages/groups that are good, but it is so aggressive with the content skewing towards whatever will make you most anxious/angry/curious.

FWIW I get a lot of SEN content, but not meltdowns. I haven't seen them frequently, anyway. The emotion-driven content I tend to get which is suspect is anxiety-driven, is car accidents, house fires and child illness/accidents. And stuff about how draining/hard/stressful it is to be a SEN parent and fight unfair or unfit systems, which, I mean - fair, because it is, but TBH I don't actually need to add to the stress by wallowing in loads of other people explaining how they feel about it, at least not all the time, sometimes it's nice to see you're not alone or helpful to read the advice other people get given, but having it as a reel or whatever is more stressful than it is helpful IMO.

I have an autistic child. I cannot say that I have ever witnessed a video of child having an autistic meltdown.
I have plenty of footage of my child’s meltdowns. I also have incidents where I couldn’t record. I used these solely for the purpose of meetings with SENDCO and other agencies.
I don’t agree with videos of my child’s meltdowns online. It doesn’t serve any proper purpose - no actual awareness because autism by its nature is a spectrum and therefore someone’s meltdown is my Sunday, someone less Saturday is my meltdown.

Mine is full of surfing videos, gammons and missing cats. We both know what to do.

Yes I've seen them on tiktok and I think it's a disgusting invasion of privacy and I do judge the parents pretty harshly for it. The child absolutely cannot consent to their most vulnerable and distressing moments being broadcast for the whole world to see.

Really? The only engagement I have with them is to report but maybe that's what then feeds into the algorithm? I never sought them out though.

I’ve seen this just once or twice but frankly I think anyone posting endless videos or photos of their children is utterly wrong. It’s an invasion of their privacy. I’ve unfollowed/ blocked a couple of people who actually seemed like sensible, intelligent friends/ colleagues because about 90% of their content was vlogging their kids’ lives. The final straw for me was when a friend posted a photo of her 3 year old daughter and a caption ‘the face of a girl who’s just tried to push their brother down the stairs’. This friend is a teacher which doubly shocked me. Did she think she was being amusing? A few people commented (no laughs, just expressing concern for the brother) I just blocked her. I still see her now and again socially and Im fine with that but I just don’t want to feel I’m in any way participating in this exploitation of children. These things are there digital footprint - it’s out there now.

why can’t it be shown when it’s literally true?

Because it violates the child’s dignity and privacy. The account is not anonymous. The child’s mother is in full view giving a detailed account of her daughter. Anyone local to the family will be able to identify them and then will know exactly what the child’s bedroom looks like. Her personal and safe space.

It’s wrong. It’s sick as fuck actually.

Would you like it if thousands of strangers on the internet know what your disabled child bedroom looks like, and would know personal details about their medical needs? Please answer that honestly. (I’m hoping you don’t have children though).

And in the meantime the poor mother is left with shit smeared all over the room, how disgusting and heart breaking for her to have to deal with that. The least is to show the world the horrible life that the mother has to live.

I disagree. Completely.

I feel for the mother. I totally do. However, filming her vulnerable daughter’s shit smeared bedroom to show thousands of strangers on the internet isn’t the answer.

Never seen one but god what utterly shit parents to do that, the poor kids.

Its not fair on the child
And i get it my son is 16 and severley autstic and would not care oe have any undrstanding if i posted pictures of him on line hes extremely vulnerble whilst he might not care i do its about HIS dignity .

I find a lot of stuff posted onto social media about children completely unfathomable. Posting photos of ill children, posting tantrums, posting naughty things they’ve done, posting their children’s failures or calamities…and it’s all for the attention of the parent. They are literally using their child for their own validation/self esteem boost/likes/whatever. It’s so wrong and makes me feel uncomfortable that these videos and photos are out there to be potentially used against that child at a later date. Just horrible and I cannot understand any parent who chooses to go down this route.

I feel queasy about any parent sharing footage of their child online, but especially of meltdowns and especially of disabled kids. I hate the reels with really mawkish music on them, too - look how sad disability is everyone! It just all feels very exploitative.

In the autism community we have been raising awareness for decades without needing to violate any child’s privacy. They are doing it for clicks, pure and simple.

It is usually an attempt at raising awareness but I'm not a fan if a child is unable to understand which is usually the case with profound autism.

September is childhood cancer awareness month and my child had cancer in 2024 so my feed is currently full of childhood cancer awareness stuff including some very difficult pictures/videos. I'm all about raising awareness but have mixed feelings about that too, again, especially very young children who can't fully understand.

Not unreasonable, I have an autistic child so this kind of thing often pops up on my algorithm due to other things I follow. It’s gross how parents are using their children’s most vulnerable moments for content and claiming it’s to ‘create awareness’ or ‘show the reality’ of looking after a disabled child. Horrible attention seeking however you try to mask it. 🤮

Yeah, its not raising awareness. We are aware. It raising likes and followers and comments, seeming attention. I believe content creators get paid per comment sometimes.

The child is entitled to have her dignity preserved and this applies whether or not that child will ever have any understanding of dignity.

The parental support FB groups I go on ban any videos or photos like this or any derogatory comments about a child.

I’m on both sides of the fence with this one.

I have three kids, all three are awaiting assessment. All three are “high functioning” and mask incredibly well at school. Two of them have the most horrendous meltdowns at home. The stress is unbearable to handle. Feeling like you are constantly under attack is horrendous. It has made me suicidal.

Telling anyone about this does nothing. What people can’t see, they don’t understand. What they think is your kid having a 20 minute tantrum because you turned off the TV. School is under the impression that my kids are perfect.

Showing absolutely does raise awareness. But it also takes the privacy away from these kids. The parents are people too. And their mental health matters. Talking about it and actually experiencing it are not the same.

Completely agree with you ACatNamedRobin. I wouldn’t personally show my child doing this sort of thing, (though they have done that and a whole lot worse).
I wouldn’t post a video because I haven’t the stomach to put up with more judgement. (I had a neighbour, while drinking a Christmas drink in my house, complain that paying for respite from, and day care for, my profoundly disabled adult child was “why Council Tax had gone up in our area”)
But…personally I am extremely grateful for those parents that do show this sort of thing.
I think life is immeasurably tough for parents with children like mine and theirs and the more that Jo Judgy Public knows the more chance there is that they’ll be a little less unkind.
But, interesting that parents like me get judged whether they keep stum about the misery of day to day life, or alternatively publicise their misery and probably everything in between.

Yes I hate it too, I don’t like seeing videos of children shares publicly at all though, even cute ones. Too many weirdos out there! Share with your friends and family of course, but not public… the videos of kids having tantrums should only be recorded and shared as an example to show health care professionals to show them what the behaviour looks like… not necessary to share with anyone else

What’s the actual purpose of raising awareness of some of this stuff? What outcome are they actually hoping for? It’s baffling.

There are millions of things which are literally true that have no business being plastered all over social media!
What an extraordinary viewpoint.

I wouldn’t put my child on facebook if they were winning the noble peace prize whilst headlining Glastonbury and getting the 100m gold in the Olympics.