Vent

First, let me apologize for this.  I'm totally going to vent right now.

I am so tired of people getting on the opinion bandwagon and beating other people with it.

Recently I lurked in a special needs parents discussion board and watched as a woman was attacked for venting about her problems with taking her son with Aspergers and Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD) to the store.  She was so frustrated with her son who is 12.  He's huge and he had a meltdown when he observed someone in the 10 items or less lane with 15 items.  He yelled and became violent over something that his mom said "was nothing."  She was really having a hard time with him and really needed to vent.  She went to, in my opinion, the place that should have been safe. 

Unfortunately the discussion board was where she was attacked for her final conclusion to her vent: she needed to find someone to babysit her 12 year old every time she went to the store.  The problem is that someone who is very vocal in the autism world, Temple Grandin, has been lecturing everywhere that people need to stop sheltering their kids from the world and get them out to experience things so that they are used to it and it becomes normal, like everyone else.  She said they all need jobs and functions in the world, and they can't have that without being exposed to the world.

First let me point out that I agree with Ms. Grandin.  Yes, children should be exposed to normal behavior in environments that every other child their age are exposed to.  They need to be able to go to the supermarket.  They have to be able to do these things so that they can function as part of society.

The problem I had was with people attacking this poor woman who was already down.  As parents of children with special needs, we should all know better.  Most of us have had the ignorant comments
when we have taken our kids out in public.  If our kids have a behavior that is socially unacceptable, we've been there.  We've been kicked while we are down.  We've had to listen to some lady tell us that our kid wouldn't throw himself on the ground if we would just spank him.  We've heard someone tell us that we should just make our kid eat something else besides the 3 foods that they are willing to consume.  We've all heard something that made us just want the other person to spend an hour in our shoes and watch them break down like we do.  We should know better.

This poor woman who was simply venting, not logically working out solutions for her problem, just expressing her frustration in a place where someone should understand, was cruelly attacked.  She was made an example of a horrible mother who wasn't doing anything to teach her child.  Temple Grandin was quoted as if her words are infallible simply because she has autism.  I'm not saying that her opinions are not valid, but she should not be treated this way by the same people who tout the catch phrase "if you've met one person with autism, you've met just one person with autism."  Ms Grandin is just one person with autism. 

We who have been in this world for a while have seen opinions change.  I was one of the "crazy" people who put her kid on the GF/CF diet before it was the popular treatment of the month.  It was right up there with the scary chelation  (I have no idea how to spell that) treatment that kids died when their parents implemented it incorrectly.  People thought it was that bad.  Now everyone is trying it. 

I'm not saying that Ms. Grandin is wrong.  I've been one of the stubborn ones who took her son with texture issues to restaurants so that he knows how to do it.  I've taken my kid to church every week knowing that he hates it when the praise team is slightly off...and they were often off.  We deal with it because this is a real life that he has to learn to live in.  Still, there are times when dealing with it sucks.  When my kid picks up a trash can at Soak City and throws it because he doesn't want to leave, it's rough and I'm scared one day he is going to hurt someone.  I can't always handle it.  I sometimes break down.  Sometimes I want to give up.  Sometimes I want to hide my kid at home where I can control everything.  Life sucks sometimes.  Sometimes I need to vent these frustrations, too.  I recently did that with a friend when I was just tired of being beat up by my son. 

My problem is with the people who were beating this woman over the head with the words of Temple Grandin.  Yeah, she is going to have to work with her son on things that go wrong in the world, but she was frustrated and needed support, not someone to tell her everything that she was doing wrong and telling her that she was what is wrong with the special needs world.  Shut up and listen a minute.  The poor woman is by herself in the world with this boy who is growing and learning to deal with the rest of the world.  It's hard. 

For those of you who don't have any idea what we are dealing with on a daily basis because you don't have a child on the spectrum, I'm sorry to have to tell you this but, we already ignore you most of the time.  We've learned to do that because you don't get it but many of you tend to have an opinion anyway.  Most of the time I'm thanking God that you don't have to deal with what I do every day, then walking away before I start lecturing you on what autism is and the behavioral interventions that I'm putting into place (mostly because chances are good that I've more systematically implemented strategies for the problem that you are witnessing than you have ever had to with your child, if you even have one).

I just realized as I was typing this that the whole thing is so very similar to problems in the church.  How many times do we beat people while they are down?  Sure, our point may be directly from scripture and be absolutely right, but nothing about our "correction" of the other believers is said in love and humility.  We beat each other up because we are right and they are wrong and we can prove it.  Then when people who are not believers give us their opinion about something, we ignore them because they don't understand.  They don't know what the Bible says, so they couldn't possibly get it.   It's true, we need to check everything that people who are not believers say to us with our standard, the Bible, but sometimes they say things that are worthwhile but we don't listen because we don't really want to take the time to check it and we like the way we do things anyway.

What we all need is a good dose of humility and to bathe our words in love.  None of us knows everything.  No matter what we have experienced, no matter what we have seen, no matter what we have read, none of us knows everything.  Last time I checked, I'm not God.  I don't know everything, and honestly, I don't want to know everything.  A few more things, maybe, but not everything.  That's way too much work. When someone is wrong, don't attack them.  When someone is hurt, hurt with them.  Isn't there something like that in the Bible?  I remember reading something like that in Romans 12....