to want to tell other parents that Autism is not contagious?

[ALMummy]

My ds has recently been diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. A couple of people with dc who I was friendly with suddenly melted away when I told them he was being assessed - before he was even diagnosed. He is not aggressive, just a bit quirky and it didn't seem to be a problem till I openly said he was being assessed.

I know the general consensus on here will be that it would not bother you if your friends child was autistic but this has not been my experience so far in rl.

Oh I would have been furious drowning in laundry. Do you know what though? I bet that is what 99% of people would say, that is what is so sad about it.

Pagwatch I hope I haven't said something that upset you. I didnt mean to say that DS is no different from anyone else because he is only mildly affected or anything like that. I really hope that is not what you thought I meant.

YANBU. How awful of people to be so narrow minded.

nah

I just mean that they are all just kids. Never quite sure why others don't see it like that.
Tis odd really.

I have been tempted to say on occasion that is it contagious just to get some idiot buffoon to go away - but that would be bad.
My fav response remains

" he has autism but with love and therapy he is improving all the time. You on the other hand seem destined to be a knob for all eternity"

That's great pagwatch, will try and remember that one . Back to the main point, YANBU, sorry forgot to put that down before.

I sometimes use ruder words than knob....

I honestly believe that if my child had been NT I would not have been prejudiced in the way I have experienced with ds. I would have been interested I think and probably asked a lot of nosy questions but it would not have affected how I thought about the parents and the child in question.

Good response pagwatch. I will that away for future use.

file that away.

Thats the kind of response that I've had from a couple of Mum's at ds new school. They are interested in what it means and how it affects ds. I think i'd be like that too - I hope so.

pagwatch I love that response!! I'll use that next time

disability freaks many people out. I've been amazed how even very good friends of ours have not been able to handle it. It makes them uncomfortable, so they'll just withdraw so they won't have to deal with the discomfort.

on the other hand, I have made some absolutely cracking lovely new friends through DS1, esp now that he's at school. So you lose some, you win some.

pagwatch will definately be using that one in the future!

I have also met some fantastic people and some existing friendships have become more established because of DS2. These are the people that mean something to me now.

I kept having a vision this morning of what that platform would be like if I was president, with my desperately holding onto ds, who would be flapping away, putting his hands over his ears, refusing to look at the crowd and being Very Silly!

I have a video from Legoland, when getting DS his "driving licence". All the other kids standing in a line and clapping nicely while DS runs up and down hauling manfully on the large cars they drive in order to get them all lined up together.

Pagwatch what a fab response! I am mentally storing it now for future use-much better than the cards I was given to hand out when ds had a flaky at the shops, as if you're going to do that like it's some kind of sideshow for everyone to watch. Have to keep reminding myself tho that until ds had diagnosis I knew very little about ASD so try to give others benefit of the doubt esp if they seem genuinely interested in finding out more. Sad tho that even family find it hard to deal with - MIL so embarassed will not take ds out cos of his behaviour - & he is at the mild end of the spectrum!

WM your MIL sounds awful. My MIL is overwhelmingly protective of DS. My sister however disappeared from view and has never even bothered to ring and find out the official diagnosis.

YANBU at all. I haven't experienced this as ds is only 14 mo so any issues like this won't show up yet (I assume anyway). I do like Pagwatches response.

It would break my heart into a thousand pieces to see my ds treated like this.

How strange! My sister is great, loves ds & is brilliant with him as are most of my family. dhs lot are another story-bil thinks he's 'weird' & actually says so but i want ds to have good relationships with family so i persevere & try to educate them all. My own brother says i use the label to excuse ds's behaviour. Well you cant choose your family can you? Thank goodness for friends

IMO you don't need people like that in your life. Their attitudes are generally born out of ignorance and fear of the unknown, and although you could be the one to educate them you shouldn't have to be.

Children are just children and if people are so narrow-minded that they cannot accept a child with a disability then that is their loss. Because not everyone thinks like that.

This weekend I had the privilage of meeting up with jimjams and her ds1 who is severely autistic.

And all I can say is, what an absolutely lovely little boy he is. . People who cannot see past the disability to the child that lies beyond are just shallow, and their lives are clearly empty.

Yes it's like zing one minute they're there then whoosh they're gone.

I see it as a filter. The people who have stayed (ds1 is 9 now, severely autistic) will always be there whatever happens in our life. And I've met some great people.

Don't even think about the ones who were too embarrassed/didn't know what to say/scared etc etc.

Oh hello wannabe just spotted your message. He was desperate to get on the train with you!

I think this is really really sad - my DD has a little "friend", well i am friends with his mum, they are only three so pretty much don't choose thier friends. This little boy has no dx yet, but i suspect, as does his mum that he will be on the spectrum somewhere. He can be aggresive actually and is VERY quirky, he is disruptive and totally leads my DD astray , not that she needs it. There have been times when i have wondered if i should encourage thier friendship, but that is only because of his aggression, he goes for the jugular everytime, iykwim. But he is such a lovely boy, has me in stitches most of the time, so why would i stop my DD being friends with him, even though SHE blatantly riles him up When i read the thread title, i thought YANBU but i can understand the concerns, but having read your post that these were friends before the dx i think you are totally NOT being unreasonable. What horrible shallow people, he didn't suddenly become a danger or "contagious" the minute he got his dx.

Really sorry to hear this OP, i guess this sort of thing often lets you knkow who your friends really are - i wouldnt want them on my xmas card list - even if i ever did send them out!

It is this assumption that autism equates to aggression that pisses me off. It is one of many, many aspects and not present in many autistic children anyway. My DS is probably the most gentle little boy I have ever known. He gets bullied at school but would not for a second even think to hit back. Yet no-one ever says "Oh autism, they are very gentle aren't they?". As many are. It is always the "aggression" that people are concerned about.

Almummy, i am sorry if my post implied that i was concerned about aggression in autistic children in general. I am concerned about aggression in my friends little boy because he can be VERY aggresive and has actually really hurt a couple of children That of course might be nothing whatsoever to do with his autism that he may or maynot even have. So i apologise if thats what my post implied, i didn't mean it too - im just a bit rubbish at expressing myself. I think my friends lad will be HFA too, he is scarily clever and leaves me with his abilities. He just has lots of traits that i have assoiciated with autism, the reason why i have noticed these is for a while i thought my DD was going down that path, but not high functioning.

I have only ever met one other autistic person, he was on a course i did years ago at college - he was there with SN but did some of the modules of the science course i was on - he certainly wasn't aggresive at all.

No it was not your post at all exasperatedmummy. It was the mention of aggression that led on to other thoughts I have about it, nothing wrong with your post . Lovely to hear that you manage to see past the aggression in this particular child. Wish there were more like you.

slightlycrumpled, what did that woman say when you said it wasn't contagious? Was she suitably chastened?

Have to say, a friend of ds1 who has ASD was the only person to help me out one day when I was very frazzled! dh was away, ds1 and ds2 were performing in a show, ds3 was being a toddler and ds4 a cranky newborn. We were attending the show, ds3 got bored in about 5 minutes and wanted to leave and ds1's friend who is only about 12, drove him around the schoolyard on his go-kart for 45 minutes. Saved my sanity!

My friend has a son who is in his teens now and who also is autistic.
When my daughter was little and we lived nearby he was the child who was the most gentle and willing to play for hours with dd.
He is a gorgeous lad now and still an absolute pleasure to spend time with.

His quirks are simply a part of who he is, i often think that if people would only take the time to get to know others rather than backing off as soon as they hear about someones differences the world would be a much better place.