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.

Sounds like he was stimming. Autistic children shouldn't be punished or corrected for trying to self regulate. He should be watched to make sure he and other children are safe and of course the injured children should be checked on.

The problem is that if you tell a child with autism to say sorry, when they have no concept of what that means, they can believe that they can do whatever they like, and all they have to do is say sorry afterwards, to make everything alright again!

That's literally most kids to be honest!! They hit a point around 8ish where they start to understand but until then sorry is more performative and part of social training. A bit like saying hello, or thank you.

Without the evidence of a diagnosis the local authority won’t give the child an EHCP or appropriate support at school.

A diagnosis is not required for an EHCP. EHCPs are based on needs, not diagnosis. Same for school level SEN Support.

Most private healthcare providers are used by the NHS right to choose system

Not most. Some. There are many private providers who are able to properly assess and diagnose who are not RTC providers.

Not a bloody clue🙄

This could happen to and by any kid. Kids do silly things. To say its ok because he is autistic is wrong. Child needs to know that he has to be sensible and that applies to all children. Mother of autistic child is just making excuses and school needs to step in here.

My autistic child is non verbal, so I could tell him to say sorry all I wanted and it would have no effect whatsoever! Unless I’m missing a trick and I just need to tell him to talk, and he’ll do it 🤔

Another whatabooutee.

What's his developmental age? Is there an age appropriate non verbal action? There might not be, but that doesn't excuse him going round and doing what he likes. You have to watch like a hawk and prevent where possible. (I'm sure you do this).

He doesn’t go around and do what he likes. Mainly because we rarely leave the house now due to the judgement of others.
His development age is about 12 months.

On the ‘financial incentives’ that someone delightfully alluded to upthread… I had to give up my £90k a year job to care for my autistic son. But woo hoo, at least I get £330 a month carers allowance now!

Probably.

Though some parents are just a bit nuts. Not most, but there are a few out there. Maybe this mum is one.

I have a mate who went to 4 different psychiatrists for a diagnosis for herself until she got the one she wanted. God knows why, cost her a fortune. Some people are weird.

No.

I'd probably look at your ignorance though.

We use visuals to sign stop for my non verbal autistic four year old. You can bet he will do it again ten minutes later. And again. And again.

My dc have SEN and honestly you don't know until you live with them what their behaviour is actually like. They mask exceptionally well. I had other parents openly saying that the extra time one of my DC had in exam was me just playing the system. Did they sit with my child and see the amount of extra work my DC has to put in to do the same tasks? No they didn't. What you see on the outside can be very different to the day to day experiences these people are living through.

That’s why I started this thread and gave examples. I’m trying to understand if this is poor parenting or genuine autism.

Same.

As others have said, I wouldn't be terribly concerned about this in any 5-year-old, autistic or not, though it might be an occasion for a sternish 30-second conversation about the importance of being careful around others. I would, I think, question the judgement of giving the child an easily swingable metal object of this size. There's no need for Stanley cups except as a fashion statement and kids will do fine with a plastic bottle with some brightly coloured pictures! (Assuming you even sign up for the entirely modern notion that a child needs to have a bottle of water on hand 24-7 at all.)

12mo is very different to the child described in the OP.

Your DS is supposed to do things over and over at 12 months, just like a parent of a 12mo has to watch them all the time.

It’s more complicated a question than ‘is it
an excuse’? First of all we don’t know what happened directly before or afterwards and that might be relevant.

Secondly, we don’t know anything about tbe boy’s difficulties. Perhaps he was being deliberately agressive or perhaps he has very poor proprioception (awareness of where your body is), he may struggle with impulse control and understanding what is expected of him. He may have been overwhelmed and frightened by the consequences. We can’t tell.

I would hope that a teacher who knows what his difficulties are has either told him off or made sure he understood where be went wrong and how to avoid it in future. Obviously I also would assume he was told to sorry to the kids he hurt (Assuming here be doesn’t have learning difficulties, speech problems etc ).

It is possible to hold a child accountable and accommodate his disability.

what the boy’s mother said certainly sounds awful but perhaps the OP misunderstood her intentions? Did she really mean that it is ok for her son to hurt other kids? Or could it have been trying to explain to her DS or others that he’s not bad and didn’t do it deliberately? Maybe the comment about the private diagnosis was more about “he has serious difficulties and we needed to get to tbe bottom of them
quickly”.

Well like I said, we rarely leave the house now so it’s not an issue for us. I got so drained and exhausted by the stares and the judgement of strangers so it’s just not worth it any more.
He’s 8, by the way.

My ND child wasn't entirely none verbal, but late speech development, dragging by hand, frustrated etc. In contrast one of my other dcs who is NT talked early.
I always still said to nd dc "No", "We cannot do this, or that because..."

I did the same for both my dcs from toddler age, and just kept reinforcing. Despite being unable to voice it, something stuck as ND dc never drew on my sofa again (I would tap on the paper and say "on paper only", then point to the sofa and say "Look messy, we want this clean." Then when we went back to art again, I would tap on the paper and dc understood.
NT dc however had to be told more than afew times having a rebellious streak, but eventually got the message.
I think where possible when saying "no", explaining the "why" has really helped with both of my dcs. I have gotten down ontp their level, held their hand and said "why" we don't do something. My parents didn't do that, they would just shouted "no" without any child friendly explanation.

This is really sad. Does he go to school?

He didn’t for 18 months as the LA couldn’t find him a place and we had to go to tribunal. He has recently started at a SEN school.

@abracadabra1111 perhaps you could stop saying "genuine autism".... It doesn't help give the impression that you are interested in learning more about autism.

This child has a diagnosis of autism. You can dispute that and decide that the parents have pulled the wool over professionals eyes, or bought an diagnosis from a dubious source, if you have evidence for that. But that is nothing to do with other people like me who have a child with autism.

You clearly intensely disapprove of your relative's parenting, regardless of the diagnosis of the child. What else is there to discuss or learn about??

Fwiw, no autistic child is the same as any other and each will need parenting differently. Clearly it's never "ok" to hurt other children, whether accidentally, unintentionally due to autism, or deliberately due to bad behaviour. Surely you don't need to be told that or have people agree with you on that?

It is sad, but I know many, many families with autistic children in a similar boat. And the judgement of others is encouraged by threads like this, with people talking about parents of autistic children just making ‘excuses’.
I know I shouldn’t engage as there’s nothing I can say to stop people judging. It’s in their nature I guess.