5 ms·

When my daughter was young, my wife and I were concerned, and we took her to a place that specializes in identifying and working with autistic children. In abo

When my daughter was young, my wife and I were concerned, and we took her to a place that specializes in identifying and working with autistic children. In about thirty minutes of observation, they said she's obviously autistic, and recommended that we begin bringing her for ~20 hours of intervention a week. We decided against it, because we thought it was excessive, and decided we didn't really want autism to be her entire life. Several years later, she's doing very well: good skills for life, good progress in her schoolwork, and good ability to deal with social situations. Yes, she's a little socially awkward, but she puts herself out there anyway, and makes no excuses. (She's aware of the evaluation and after reading a couple books about autism, thinks, yeah, that's probably what's up.) I know that's an anecdote, but can anyone imagine that she would have gained more from 20 hours per week of being told she has special problems with a special name, and needs professional help to overcome her many, many obstacles? I certainly can't.

idontknowifican 4y ago
this is a reflection on you, not your child. i was diagnosed with an ASD issue. my father was devastated, i can’t be “broken” because he clearly isn’t. i was shown by my fathers actions that my “affliction” wasn’t ok. if i was broken, he was, and that didn’t work for him. i said what my dad wanted to hear WRT if i had had more classes to cope, “a total waste” i agreed. in the end i spent half a decade in these classes learning how to understand what the other person is trying to say, not what their actions and subtext scream out. i did this as an adult, against my father thinking it was needed. after five years i can finally manage my emotions well enough and with enough expertise that it no longer causes me to loose friends and ostracize coworkers. think about the impact that your clear disdain for the “condition” and down playing of the value if the courses. imagine your daughter not “still struggling” and instead “able to deal with emotions in a non familial situation”. your fear is harming your perspective
- robocat 4y ago
  That sounds like you are denying their lived reality, perhaps even “projecting” your golden experience, saying that others can’t find different paths through complex human topics. Your opinion is fine, but denying the opinion of others is not. Here are two things that I have commonly seen: 1: getting labelled often leads to negative outcomes, in particular when others judge by a person’s label and not the person, and 2: psychologists and counsellors can sometimes create victims, trained codependency, and a variety of very negative outcomes. In this case the OP judged the cost of 20 hours per week of professional help to be high cost/risk, and they tentatively said it seems to be a reasonably good outcome (fantastic - given the diagnosis). Professional “help” can easily be harmful, and I think you should acknowledge that fact. Of course the opposite can happen when people ignore help, or deny problems, and then hurt themselves or others. The key point is that there is no golden standard where you can predict if professional help will work, or harm. PS: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- zdragnar 4y ago
  The parent post wasn't suggesting that she didn't have a problem, but rather that the suggested treatment by an organization whose sole purpose is to identify and treat these cases was not appropriate for her circumstances. They've essentially got a vested interest in over-diagnosing, and parent sniffed that out. It is entirely possible that, had she not improved, parent would have gone back, or found another source of treatment. I didn't see anything at all in the parent's post to indicate that they have a `disdain for the "condition"`. You might be projecting your own experiences a little too much.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
  > classes learning how to understand what the other person is trying to say, not what their actions and subtext scream out I know this is a total sidebar: Do you mind sharing a little more about these classes? Not knowing anything about this, my reaction on reading this was the exact opposite. As a kid, I was always naively trusting of people's words, and I would expend huge amounts of empathy on trying to understand them based on what they were saying. I feel like a large part of growing up and understanding people is being able to look past that — trust what they do, rather than what they say.

idontknowifican 4y ago

this is a reflection on you, not your child. i was diagnosed with an ASD issue. my father was devastated, i can’t be “broken” because he clearly isn’t. i was shown by my fathers actions that my “affliction” wasn’t ok. if i was broken, he was, and that didn’t work for him. i said what my dad wanted to hear WRT if i had had more classes to cope, “a total waste” i agreed. in the end i spent half a decade in these classes learning how to understand what the other person is trying to say, not what their actions and subtext scream out. i did this as an adult, against my father thinking it was needed. after five years i can finally manage my emotions well enough and with enough expertise that it no longer causes me to loose friends and ostracize coworkers. think about the impact that your clear disdain for the “condition” and down playing of the value if the courses. imagine your daughter not “still struggling” and instead “able to deal with emotions in a non familial situation”. your fear is harming your perspective

robocat 4y ago
That sounds like you are denying their lived reality, perhaps even “projecting” your golden experience, saying that others can’t find different paths through complex human topics. Your opinion is fine, but denying the opinion of others is not. Here are two things that I have commonly seen: 1: getting labelled often leads to negative outcomes, in particular when others judge by a person’s label and not the person, and 2: psychologists and counsellors can sometimes create victims, trained codependency, and a variety of very negative outcomes. In this case the OP judged the cost of 20 hours per week of professional help to be high cost/risk, and they tentatively said it seems to be a reasonably good outcome (fantastic - given the diagnosis). Professional “help” can easily be harmful, and I think you should acknowledge that fact. Of course the opposite can happen when people ignore help, or deny problems, and then hurt themselves or others. The key point is that there is no golden standard where you can predict if professional help will work, or harm. PS: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
zdragnar 4y ago
The parent post wasn't suggesting that she didn't have a problem, but rather that the suggested treatment by an organization whose sole purpose is to identify and treat these cases was not appropriate for her circumstances. They've essentially got a vested interest in over-diagnosing, and parent sniffed that out. It is entirely possible that, had she not improved, parent would have gone back, or found another source of treatment. I didn't see anything at all in the parent's post to indicate that they have a `disdain for the "condition"`. You might be projecting your own experiences a little too much.
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
> classes learning how to understand what the other person is trying to say, not what their actions and subtext scream out I know this is a total sidebar: Do you mind sharing a little more about these classes? Not knowing anything about this, my reaction on reading this was the exact opposite. As a kid, I was always naively trusting of people's words, and I would expend huge amounts of empathy on trying to understand them based on what they were saying. I feel like a large part of growing up and understanding people is being able to look past that — trust what they do, rather than what they say.