Is autism being used as an excuse for behaviour?

[abracadabra1111]

Child age 5 (not mine) - In school spun around with metal water bottle (like one of those Stanley cup things) which resulted in him wacking two other kids in the head with it. Child then cried about it because he was scared he’d get in trouble.

Childs mother said ‘it’s ok because he’s autistic and can’t help it and thank god we paid privately for the diagnosis so that the school understand his autism’

No punishment or correction to behaviour given.

YABU - Getting carried away at school and ‘accidentally’ wacking two kids is completely acceptable in a 5 year old autistic boy

YNBU - to be mortified that there’s zero compassion towards the two poor sods wacked by the bottle and think that autism is being used as an excuse.

Similar kid at DS's secondary school regularly assaults other kids, cries and is never punished. His victims receive detentions/isolations/suspensions for defending themselves. Its outrageous and I can only suppose that his parents pull the "additional needs" card.

Thank you! I do need to do this. I am a ‘keep the peace’ kind of person. I am really struggling listening to the autism stuff, it’s relentless. I literally have 2x 7 minute voice notes un listened just from this morning. Its tricky because I see her parenting style and without the ‘autism’ diagnosis it’s hands off / gentle parenting. It’s made worse by the fact I’m a mug who can’t say no.

I created this thread not to be bitchy or goady, I am genuinely interested to hear other’s perspectives about whether this is bad/lack of parenting or genuine autism or how autism is managed. It’s not to bash - in fact, I am asking this because I feel she is doing a disservice to those with genuine autism.

And for those that asked - no the metal bottle wasn’t taken away, it wasn’t even mentioned to him, nor has he been told off for swinging it around dangerously. He was only comforted for crying about potentially being in trouble.

Even the autistic contingent of us aren't oblivious enough to buy your faux 'I was just wondering'

Your issues with your family member and her parenting are nothing to do with autism, and my experience as a parent of an autistic child is not relevant to you and your situation. You keep putting "autism" in quotes, so you clearly don't even think this child is autistic, so autism really isn't relevant at all.

Delete the voice notes. You don't have to listen to them.

I do kind of agree, but I am getting bored with these threads now. There's one a week at the moment!

I don’t know. Until you are facing a child with some of these challenges it’s very easy to say “just discipline them” or whatever when actually it doesn’t work like that. Eg Lots of children with autism have non-typical ways of processing empathy- that’s not to say they are evil, but it means they can find it very difficult to put themselves in the positions of others to understand how their actions impact them and how they need to act in order to empathise. You can instruct and teach them how to “act” till you are blue in the face, but they will inevitably come up against a situation they aren’t scripted in and their inability to process or understand what the other person may lead them to act in a way that isn’t considered socially acceptable. Discipline or punishment doesn’t change that

the situation you describe is weird though, it was an accident, and one I can imagine even for a neurotypical small child. Apologies and checking the injured kids are ok is all that’s required.

My kids aren’t autistic but I could definitely imagine my son when he was was 5 accidentally whacking someone with a water bottle because he was spinning around. Apart from say sorry and be careful spinning around like that I wouldn’t have given him a consequence, it was an accident. If he did it again after that then yes they’d be a consequence but not for one incident. What do you think an appropriate response would have been?

You have no idea if thats true though, but enjoy your ‘supposing’.

Yes this is true. Honestly I didn’t realise until recently how much society actually resents disabled kids and their families.
My son is also at a SEN school, after a lengthy battle with the LA which almost destroyed me TBH. I’m at the complete burn out phase now. The fact that people think we go through all of this for the ‘financial incentives’ someone delightfully mentioned upthread would be funny if it wasn’t so hideous.

Well mumsnet is for asking questions that about things affecting peoples lives. I can’t control what you look at. My advice if you think there’s too many of these threads is to don’t look at them and scroll past.

I agree with your approach but this didn’t happen. There was no sorry for harming the other children, it was only acknowledged that it happened because he’s autistic.

Personally, I would have told him not to be a doughnut and swing metal objects around. I would also takeaway the bottle. This wouldn’t happen in this situation though because it’s a personalised Stanley thing and it only happened because he’s autistic.

Totally used an excuse for everything
Bad behaviour Rudeness not being the cleverest kid at school etc
No one just has a badly behave or thick kid any more
They are all wonderful geniuses who are just misunderstood

Yes, I have heard that too; imho, getting an NHS diagnosis is like jumping through hoops. I am sure there are so many private diagnosises that are correct, but a lot that aren't; this sadly makes it very difficult and invalidating for those who genuinely have ND.

I think with ND kids, you need to separate what they cannot help and what they can.
You can be autistic and also badly behaved, it isn't either/or. I say this as somebody with ND in my family.

You sound lovely. 🙄

Schools will make adjustments based on need, not on diagnosis. My child had a adjustments and an EHCP well before we eventually got an NHS diagnosis of autism. I can't really believe that @OutOfTheOtherSide really thinks that children like my DS must not be given any adjustments at school until they have an acceptable diagnosis of a condition that's deemed worthy of help?

Just want to say thank you to those who have given a useful perspective on how they parent their autistic children. This is very helpful, unfortunately this is not happening with this child in particular. He is badly behaved with no boundaries being set - it’s framed that this is impossible because he’s autistic. The autistic traits listed in his report are typical things that every child does/experiences.

Someone asked why I read the report - I didn’t want to. It was sent in a family group chat and we were all relentlessly hounded to read it. This mum is so precious about her child it’s literally all she talks about and he can do no wrong.

From what I hear, it's pretty likely.

It sounds like it was an accident so not shy why this warrants a post unless it is some not so subtle ableism again?

It should have been a, "We don't swing water bottles around, it is dangerous and can hurt others, you need to apologise.
It is so important to teach social skills and social norms, where and if possible.

You are very passive in the face of poor behaviour from this family member, @abracadabra1111 . You can say no, you can delete things that are sent to you, you can say that you are not interested. If people relentlessly contact you, mute or block them. Take some control back and stop being a people pleaser.

"How autism is managed" depends upon the individual child as children with autism are individuals with different needs and difficulties.As a parent you have to consider what behaviour you want or don't want and how best to achieve it with that individual. The same as for any child really

It isn't impossible to give boundaries but my autistic son is four and it is very hard. He will continue to do the same behaviour over and over again. That is so hard especially when he is non verbal. Don't judge if you aren't in this position. Being autistic isn't an excuse but it can explain the behaviour.

:-( you are right. I’ve made baby steps with this such as not telling her anything about my life, not that she asks lol. But it’s an arms length relationship now that I need to detach from completely. I’m working on it.

You don't seem to believe he has autism? Surely she knows her child better than you?

You could maybe search out all the other posts, then you’ll probably find loads of like minded people to slag off disabled kids and their families with.