We hear a lot from NT parents of autistic children. I was wondering: are there any autistics here that have NT children? If so, do you find NT children difficult to deal with? Are there special challenges that you face?
I don't have any special reason for asking, other than pure intellectual curiosity.
I do, and it is very challenging indeed.
Lurking... haven't posted much on this forum but was formally dx with AS yesterday by a Psychiatrist.
Anyway - I have a 2 y/o daughter who is NT and she's lovely but so strange (to me!). She displays imagination beyond my capacity and she teaches me things already. But, I also have a 4 y/o w/classic autism and he & I connect on a different level entirely.
I expect her to be very challenging when she gets older...
I am self-diagnosed AS.
My wife and two children are all three NTs . . . no diagnosis required!
The kids are now teenagers. They are difficult to deal with, but teenagers are difficult in general. It's impossible to say how the experience of raising them might have differed were I NT, or were they AS.
They were easier to relate to when they were little, but then that's true of most kids.
I don't understand them all that well, but most parents would say that of their teenagers.
It's an interesting question, but it might be hard to gather good data.
One can say this much: An AS parent will be more used to dealing with NTs in general than an NT parent will be with aspies. Thus . . . and this is just a wild guess . . . the former may have fewer problems than the latter. For example, I haven't gone nuts trying to figure out "what's wrong" with my kids, or giving them chelating agents to remove mercury, etc., etc.
My daughter has AS the same as me, but I work all day with preschoolers.
In my class currently, most are NTs, one has been diagnosed with Autism, two little boys are probable Aspies, and we have a girl and a boy with ADHD. I find at the 3-5 age group I have very few problems with any of the children, and most of them like me very much and I get on well with them.
I have trouble with NT children older than that, though, as they seem to begin picking up social cues and playing mind games from primary school age, which is difficult for me to follow.
Alison