Dear sophie80 and parents,
When was the last time you were bullied, physically, verbally or otherwise assaulted by a person with disability? How frequent?
When was the last time you were bullied, or physically, verbally or otherwise assaulted by a neuro-typical (aka normal) person? How frequent?
P.s. consider office back-stabbing, gossips, and bad-mouthing, queue-jumping, inconsiderate driving, etc. as part of above.
Parents, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people and the world around them. It is a spectrum because there is range of severity of traits from low-functioning to high functioning. This is not the same as general definition of IQ. There are ASD people with high IQ, but with severe sensory issues that prevent them for normal learning.
But this comment that I am posting is not about educating you on ASD. That you can do with WWW. I want to talk about living with differences, about embracing diversity. I want to talk about right-parenting.
ASD people have no negative effect on others
Firstly to allay your fears, parents, ASD is not infectious. ASD people, because of a general lack of self and environmental awareness, do not harm others. ASD people generally lack the “ego” that drives man to harm others, and create wars as results.
Parents, ASD children or adults DO NOT attack others. ASD children cannot express themselves because of their ASD. They have sensory processing issues, because of their ASD. They may not understand “danger”, also because of their ASD. Some times, these result in an overload, and ASD children may cry or hurt themselves uncontrollably – we call this a meltdown. There are methods to contain the meltdown, and it’s easy to learn.
But they seldom hurt others intentionally.
The hidden discriminatory nature in us
Let’s be honest, parents. We all have an inherent nature to differentiate “us” and “them”, we fear “things” we don’t understand. Some times this results in chauvinism, most times it’s discrimination. Singapore, Singaporeans and its government and policies are generally guilty of this.
Parents, most of the bully cases that you heard, or read from the newspapers – are those bullies ASD children, or are they neuro-typical but un-informed/mis-guided children?
The uninformed child probably has never been guided about living with differences. Maybe the child has been misguided, or has modeled after her equally uninformed, unwise parents and teachers, right from the day she was bornt, to kindergarten to full-fledge schools!
Parents of special needs children are not selfish. They are selfless.
Parents, do you have a special needs child? ASD, ADHD, dyslexic, etc? Do you know of any one, friends or relatives who are such parents? Do they come across as selfish to you?
By no wrong or choice of their own, some parents are bestowed with the most difficult task on earth – to bring up children with special needs.
- They work 100 times harder than other parents.
- Most of them can forget about building retirement nests, since they spend all they can afford on special educations.
- They thicken their skins, and ask for help of anyone who is (remotely) willing to help.
- They bear with all sorts of discriminations (some disguised as concerns) from general public, other parents, teachers, etc.
- They bear with discriminatory or insufficient government policies around people with disabilities (e.g. there is no mandatory special education in Singrapore, the government doesn’t provide sufficient early intervention program, there is no anti-discrimination law in Singapore, etc.)
These parents sacrifice so that their special needs children may, even if it’s an iota of hope, become independent and lead meaningful and productive lives.
Parents, do you still think these parents are selfish?
The main issue with ASD people is an inability to interact socially, and they include avoiding eye contact, lack of speech, lack of social awareness, inability to read social cues, etc.?
If you are a parent of an ASD child, do you isolate the child, or you try (whenever possible) to place the child near normal children, so that the child may learn to model after normal behaviour?
Most parents of special needs children send their kids to special education schools and will also expose the kids to normal environment (through normal schools), where they can.
Now, what will you do if you know there is a child with special needs in your child’s class?
ASD people have positive effect on children, if parents do the right thing.
Children, normal or otherwise, are like sponge that absorbs what adults teach, and what adults model. When children understand that their friends or classmates are lacking in some ways, they are presented with unique learning opportunities to help others and to understand that the world is made up of different people of religion, language, creed, culture, behaviors, etc. They learn compassion. They learn true wisdom, not one-upmanship.
In other words, they learn to embrace diversity without condescending motives. How is that a bad thing?
Parents, what will you do now? What do you think is the right thing to do, if your normal child asks you about it?
Sincerely.
