Aspies For Freedom

We have had so much of that, "he looks normal" when you try to explain that he doesn't understand something.
:mad:

I don't get you. Autism aside, it is part of learning with any kid. If no one tells him that you shouldn't put bottles on stairways, then it'll be longer for him to find out for himself.

I think its how the woman said it, not just that she pointed it out.
People can shout and treat you like your kid is naughty and stupid, and its infuriating.

I can't believe how trivial the bit of misbehaviour was that started this whole thing; putting a drink bottle on some stairs. Big @#$%in deal!

My kids could hardly or only just be described as aspergers. When they do stupid or naughty things in public my husband or myself are the ones who tell them off in no uncertain terms. My word, we come down on them like a tonne of bricks. As parents that is our job, and I believe strangers should leave it to parents to tell off kids if they do something wrong or stupid.

If parents make a habit of not chastising kids when they should, the discipline issue falls by default to the wider community, undermining the authority of the parents. I know that some kids, especially boys, are much harder to raise than others, but I also know that some kids who have psychiatric diagnoses also have parents who seriously neglect their duty to discipline and supervise their own kids. This is not a personal comment, it is a general comment.

Noetic, I was just stating what I think is a fact. If parents really "Drop the ball" when it comes to supervising and disciplining their own kids, their kids will most likely cause problems in the community at large, in school, the neighbourhood, at the shops, on the roads, getting young girls pregnant etc etc, and the community at large are forced to belatedly take on the parental role by punishing, fining, scolding or incarcerating the throwaway youth, and the community at large rather than the parents, is forced to pay the costs. If Western societies were more concerned with punishing parents who are negligent rather than punishing parents for smacking their kids, I think there would be fewer anti-social adults in our communities.

Once again I should state that I'm not acusing anyone in this thread of being a negligent parent, but I would certainly love to accuse a few parents in our neighbourhood of exactly that.

Also after prison, her kids did play truant again and she was in trouble with authorities yet again, so prison was no deterrent.

Would the mum who got sent to jail for her kids' truancy ever have made the move to seek assistance for her addiction if she hadn't been forced into a crisis situation?

I don't know why the authorities didn't just remove the kids out of her custody and foster them out or place them in an institution. Persumably if the kids were being properly supervised and cared for they might have a chance of getting some kind of education. The dope-head mum can spend the rest of her life trying to kick her habit, but the kids only have one childhood. They don't have a second or third chance to develop and learn and begin their lives.

I just don't have any sympathy at all for parents who have drug issues or mental health issues. Such parents I believe are often the kind who neglect their kids, but I still would hold them accountable for their mess. They chose to have kids.

Unfortunately one can't teach morality or a sense of responsibility.

Husband and I have sat thru some parenting classes, and at the end I felt I hadn't learnt much. We had to persuade a children's hospital milk room dietician to show us how to make up a formula milk bottle, just in case there was some reason why our baby could not be breast-fed. This was not taught in the parenting classes that we attended because the classes were run under WHO guidelines that forbid demonstration of formula procedures. So all the parents who sat thru those lessons missed out on learning the very important details of safe fomula feed preparation. I think it's a miracle that some babies survive when I look at the way their mothers wash the bottles.

Some left-wing politicians seem to think parenting classes are the solution to stopping the decline of Western civilisation. The trouble is the worst offenders are close to ineducable, or wouldn't be bother to turn up.

Oh to be in that ivory tower of yours, Lili! I know your opinion of people with mental health issues is quite low, but do you really believe this:

Many parents have 'mental health' problems at some time in their lives. I'd suspect depression is very common, it doesn't mean they will neglect their kids.

That is apparent  :roll: .

That's interesting Bonnie Ventura. I'd agree that foster care and institutions are not the solution, but I'd go further and say that increasing state meddling is not the solution, either. People are increasingly becoming less self-reliant, and instead looking to the state for their every need, including how and what to think. This is perpetuated by the state, to serve it's own ends.

Lili said "I just don't have any sympathy at all for parents who have drug issues or mental health issues. Such parents I believe are often the kind who neglect their kids, but I still would hold them accountable for their mess. They chose to have kids."

These people also negelct themselves, because they have serious problems and often get little help.
Sadly mental health issues can occur from the act of having children. Many women's first experience of depression will be the 1 in 10 who get post-natal depression. This can be severe and debilitating.

Alan, your comment about the State wanting people to be reliant on it - I would have agreed a few years ago, but Tony Blair has decided that people HAVE to be self reliant and has withdrawn benefits from many groups. Single parents now have to work once their child is five, previously it was when the child turned 16.
People on incapacity benefit, disability living allowance, and attendance allowance, are being pushed off.
The government, rightly or wrongly, now wants everyone to be off benefits, earning money and paying taxes.

"That is true to an extent, Amy; but also, other people are being encouraged to claim that previously wouldn't have. I can't recall the exact details, something to do with working family credits. So, families with incomes of nearly £40k a year get government help. The overall net impact is to put more people in a position where they can be bribed come election time; although there will be some losers, too."

Alan, I see some of the confusion, that "benefit" is another government swizz, high earning families are not getting benefits, and families are often worse off. All they did was change the tax ratings on take home pay, and gave it to people as a "benefit" instead.

"But that's not the main point I was making. I was trying to say that the government should keep it's nose out of people's lives when it comes to issues such as raising kids. This type of meddling just encourages people to look to the state for an answer to everything. It's not good for our society when people can not take responsibility for their own lives. Anyway, the government hardly set a good example; look at that Blunkett bloke! Then there's the cabinet minister's son drug dealing! And the advice is seldom sound: remember there was no harm in letting your kids eat beef from cattle with BSE! Sad"

There does have to be a balance though, one child a week is killed in the UK from child abuse, and many, many more are injured. There are many people asking for help from social services and being ignored. Or spending months on a "list" waiting for help. I don't think that is encouraged, in fact in my experience asking for help is discouraged by overworked and underfunded organizations.

If anyone cares to read my posts properly, they will understand that I criticised parents who neglect their kids, and parents who decide to have children even though they should know that they are at risk of being unfit parents because of pre-existing mental health problems.

Some parents do ideed decide to proceed to parenthood despite their own mental health issues. I remember reading about some longitudinal research that was done on "post-natal depression". Longitudinal studies are particularly useful because they can track causes of effects through time. They found that the women who had "post-natal depression" were in fact depressed when they were pregnant.

I've seen so many people make one stupid decision after another, or make the decision to wedge their heads firmly in the sand, and then they find themselves in a not-too-happy situation when the consequences pan out. I agreed with Dorothy Rowe when she wrote that "Psychologists and psychiatrists persist in treating us as if we were helpless victims of our biochemistry. This is a disastrous mistake".

"Longitudinal studies are particularly useful because they can track causes of effects through time. They found that the women who had "post-natal depression" were in fact depressed when they were pregnant."

That is a condition called "depression of pregnancy", and is caused by the huge hormonal changes of pregnany. Not all women with post-natal depression have depression of pregnancy, but some do.
As it is caused by pregnancy, they could not assume that they would have felt like that when pregnant, especially in a first pregnancy.
Some women may only develop it with a second or subsequent pregnancies.

I don't recall any category "Depression of pregnancy" being mentioned, but I must admit my memory is not perfect for every bit of research that I recall.

I never got any of those hormonal depressive effects that everyone is supposed to get 3 days after having a baby. Maybe because I never believed in it.

I'm happy to defer to Dorothy Rowe's opinions on the subject of depression. She's a widely respected authority.