Parenting classes & autism?!

[highlandspringerdog]

Ok.
This is just a shameless rant. But I need to get it out -

This is a plea to "experts" working with families dealing with autism to face up to some basics:

1. Autism is not caused by parenting style. The same kid will have autism whether raised by a hippy, a sergeant major, or a wolf.

1. We are judged morning noon and night by people in shops, on trains, by other parents, sometimes even our own families - we expect better from you. You're meant to actually know about autism.

1. Don't suggest parenting classes. Just don't.

1. Don't punish our children. It suggests you're an ignorant wankstain.

1. We are doing our best. We are operating at a level of strategising and forward planning that top military commanders can only dream of.

1. Our children are not all the same. We are the experts about our own individual children, we know what works and what doesn't - believe me, we've tried everything. Trust us when we say that won't work. It is us & our lovely kids who will pick up the pieces and rebuild from the ruins if you insist on your way and you are wrong. Think, always think very carefully - it is a child's life you are playing with.

Over and out.

I had to go on a parenting course before DS was allowed to be referred for assessment. Apparently it was all due to me parenting him wrong, working full time, putting him the wrong kind of nursery etc etc.
I had to endure a 1:1 parenting course lasting 12 weeks with the most patronising and saccharine woman i have ever met. She arranged a family meeting with my parents behind my back (they looked after ds while i worked) and told me that i needed to work set days and set hours which was just not possible (frontline nhs). She was a twat.
Luckily school and all other professionals saw clearly that he had asd and got lots of stuff in place for him. The gp referred him for assessment with no trouble at all. I just wish at the time that i had had the strength to tell her to FOTTFSOFTFOSM.
I did the cyngets course last year after a 3 year wait and it was useful. I would have been more useful back in 2010 when i was really struggling but i had to go on the normal parenting course instead.

Not if it's in place of an autism diagnosis!

My local CAMHS told a family recently that they are finding it difficult to weed out the families who are seeking an autism diagnosis just so that they can claim DLA!!!

WTAF!! As if anyone would spend years jumping through hoops, begging and pleading for help. Being judged and put down by families and so called professionals !!!

I think not!!

I wanted to go in there and shout, do you not think that anyone who has spent 2 years fighting to get an appointment here might actually be worried about their child!!

Fuckwits!!

I am not against parenting courses per say, they do have a place in society but parents should be listened to first!! Its not difficult to sort out a concerned/stressed parent from one that doesnt give a shit!!

Sorry for the colourful language!!

O my god. Hideous! It's like t he idea of having a baby so you can get a council house - as if!!

I'm not against all parenting classes, though I do think some of them are run by shysters with nothing of use to impart, but I've heard so many families going through the process be offered them - or worse - told they have to have them before diag process even starts! The obvious implication is that there is no problem with the child, it's just the parents who are lacking, when in fact parents of a child with autism are among the strongest, most resourceful parents I've ever met - we have to take an intelligent and creative approach to the most Haida of tasks and so we raised our game long before these wankers and thirt patronising looks and parenting class offerings came long!
Rant rant rant rant

We went on a course (webster stratton adapted for children with SN).

It was actually really useful. Not so much for me (i had lots stuff in place anyways) but my husband who changed subsequently a lot of his ways of dealing with Dd.

I'm sure a properly targeted parenting course, dealing with issues for families with autism, amongst other things, would be fab!

But forcing us to do the Triple P course before we could even be 'assessed', and then only 'assessing my daughter for 30 mins maximum, and ignoring my concerns etc, is not the right approach!

We are shortly going on a autism workshop for 1/2 a day, and I'm going to go to a half day for family carers of people with autism (hubby and DD both have Asperger's). I'll gladly take any help or support I can receive now. But what happened to us wasn't right at the time, and frankly taught us nothing new! Before even being referred we'd tried every trick out there etc. but because she is a girl, at the high functioning end, and it's reasonably subtle a lot of the time, we've had to really battle. All the signs have been there but no one put them together, even her teacher who has a sister with aspergers didn't see it!

I totally get your frustrations highland! Of course some parents of NT children will need some help and support, and there is a need for parents to get practical help like courses, but many have to shoved on them as a way of palming them off to another department!

My local CAMHS told a family recently that they are finding it difficult to weed out the families who are seeking an autism diagnosis just so that they can claim DLA!!!

Especially as you don't need a dx to claim DLA, so why would benefit seekers go to all that bother of seeking a dx when they could do it without?

Yep!! This is the same authority that still has me on a waiting list to attend a cygnet course and the idiots have paid to train me to deliver the damn course!!!

They are currently refusing to pay me to deliver it though, the EPs and SALTS get to deliver in the work time but littke old me is expected to do it for nowt!!

As you can imagine I told them to f..k the f..k off .

I agree the wrongly targeted generic parenting courses are completely the wrong path for most children with sn. I was told by our paed that camhs would not see us unless I went on triple p. I'd already attended two parenting courses, one for children with speech and language difficulties and a sn parenting course at my sons special school, so I asked what was triple p likely to offer that targeted courses weren't! She bypassed it after that and refered straight to camhs.

I am now doing a challenging behaviour course with my local camhs learning disabilities team which is incredibly useful and helping me loads. On our first day we were told by them that all challenging behaviour is distressed or stress behaviour and most conventional discipline techniques will make it worse. I knew this but it was great hearing them say it too

The three course I've done over the years have helped me understand ds loads but they have all been correctly targeted to his needs.

Agreed.

I'm waiting for someone to suggest we attend a parenting course. I can see that there are different types and I will happily attend not necessarily comply with useful ones aimed at sn.

Ones based on the premise that we are inadequate parents will be met with withering derision. told to do one

We're just at the the beginning of what I can see will be a long,life sapping process before we achieve dx. Would anyone be prepared to do a list of courses which are useful (I don't know what the cygnet course is,for instance) and the names of general parenting ones?

I've met several parents of children with sn who are a long way down the dx route,children well supported sn schools,have worked extremely hard for years and they STILL get recommended for parenting courses. This happens when the expert really has run out of ideas or just doesn't have sufficient knowledge of the child's needs.So it seems to me that while there are times and courses which can be useful,there is also poor practise among some experts and that definitely needs to be challenged.

Also the SN threads are keeping my sanity intact,I ahve no idea how i would have coped over the past 2 terms without this brilliant bit of MN

The most useful courses I did were the NAS Help seminars. They were particularly helpful because each one focused on a specific topic (anger, siblings, social stories, sensory etc) so I could just go to the ones that were relevant to our situation. They were free back when I did them, but there's a charge now. I'd hope they were as good now as they were back then. Details here.

I also registered with a lot of local disability agencies and charities and got on a lot of their courses. Contact A Family ran some excellent ones. I always advise newbies to get on as many mailing lists as possible so they'd be first in line when course are offered, because places go very quickly.

Bizarrely, I'm the only 'autism parent' I know who's never been offered Earlybird or similar LA courses, which just goes to show how bloody neglected we were back in the early days. Just as well I had the nous to find stuff out for myself, but it is worrying to think how many parents might rely on professional advice to give them the info they need to support their children .

Guggenheim
As with everything it probably varies from county to county but the general parenting courses in my area are the Solihull course, Triple P and Webster Stratton. I've not done any of them but feedback from other parents is that Webster Stratton is good and Triple P is good for older children. I lived in a different county when i was forced to do a course and i did one called Family Links i think it was.
The Cygnets course is an ASD parenting course and is offered to parents of children with a diagnosis and aged 8+ where i live. They struggle to find people to run the course so i ended up waiting 3 years for it. By that time i had figured it out for myself. They also offer the Early Bird and Early Bird+ but your child has to have a diagnosis for you to attend these courses in my county.
We don't seem to have any other courses run by other cacharities etc where i live, however DS goes to school in the next county and they have loads of courses for parents and you don't always have to have a diagnosis.

I pulled out of an Early Bird course because the people running it had a "one size fits all" approach. Similar to Frusso, my DC is not particularly a visual learner (prefers to be given a verbal list of schedules for each day) and takes little notice of visual planners. Even when I've pointed this out, so-called professionals have insisted that (when younger) he should use pecs. He didn't take any notice of them. In a similar situation at school, the Salt has suggested signing, even though he is fully verbal and never paid any attention when people sign. In fact, signing confuses him. Completely agree that we are the experts on our individual children and people should respect, not patronise, us.

Agree. There's often an assumption of 'Aw bless, they can't help it can they?', but a lot of our kids DO have abilities that aren't stereotypical, and they can be manipulative. That's the key - training needs to move away from the stereotypes, and accept that all of our children are different, with a wide range of presentations. They need to recognise that so that they can support parents to support their children, as individuals.

Not ASD here but I was offered a SALT parent course for preschoolers. Both parents were expected to come to the six week (1 1/2 hours per week). course... in the day finishing just before school pickup time seven miles away. It was made clear preschoolers would not be welcome and no crèche provision would be provided. As the mum of two preschoolers and one school age kid with no family around and a husband who worked, we didn't go. I did look at getting a nanny then saw sense and spent the money on private SALT!

I'll go on a parenting course run by 'them' when they agree to attend an ASD course for the same number of hours, run by 'me'.

I went on a fantastic parenting course that was run by people who were parents of autistic children. It really helped me understand what was going on for my kids. Made a huge difference.