A Plea For Awareness from @mamaasp – Mon 7th April 2014 #ThisIsAutism
By Jeannette | April 7, 2014
It’s the start of the Easter school holidays, an out-of-routine time for SN children, a break from school.
For many, many children, the school path is not an easy one.
I experienced this within mainstream with D, I remember one teacher describing D as “flighty”, despite her autism diagnosis. There just didn’t seem to be the understanding, despite assurances to the contrary.
For T – who is extremely good at “masking” his concerns and frustrations during his school day – there have also been issues with his school, because they couldn’t “see” any problems, their initial reaction was that of “of course, all we see is a clever little boy”.
This Is Autism
Tonight’s guest post comes from @mamaasp, a heartfelt post. A plea for more awareness for the children who, on the exterior might be coping, but inside they’re struggling, wanting to ask for support but not knowing how.
“My son is in a world that thinks he is not worthy!
Our society thinks that he needs no support as he is very bright!
He is the square peg being forced into a round hole, why?
His brain thinks differently and out of the box, is this encouraged?
Even in 2014 he is not treated equally ,just because you can not see a disability does not mean it is not there and indeed is not as important.
I want the best for my son and that has come with a great price to pay, I am now seen as the enemy!
I would like those that think that ..to think how they would feel in my situation, if it was their son would it be good enough! No I did not think so.
I want my son to be the best he can be! Unfortunately sometimes he feels he is not worthy, that he needs to change to fit in to our society, to be accepted.
He has learned this already at the age of 9! That is so sad!
Some people feel that because he is very bright, he is fooling us and not trying hard enough!
This must be soul destroying for him as he in fact works so much harder than he is ever giving credit for!
We need so much more acceptance and awareness of Autism spectrum disorders.
Without training and support children like my son will drown and may become damaged in a mainstream school. Behaviour is sometimes seen as attention seeking, but should be viewed as communication that something is not quite right!
“….Or until we all wear the same lenses, children could be failed!” (Dr Ross Greene)
Dr Greene, who runs the fantastic Lives In The Balance website, insists that “kids do well if they can” and if they are not doing well, there is always a reason for it.
If we all believed that, life would be so much better for all concerned!
I want to make this better for our children, but I can’t do it alone.
Will you help me please?”
2 Comments
rebecca beesley on 26th April 2014 at 9:32 pm.
woah this is such a parallel to our son (also 9). So sad that like you say in 2014 it is still happening! We had a headteacher that said to the doctor in a meeting ‘Are you sure he has aspergers and that it isn’t just bad behaviour?’ I could not believe the ignorance from someone who really should have known better. I always battled for my son to reach his own potential but no-one else seemed to care about that because he wasn’t falling behind academically. We home-schooled for 3 yrs and now he is somewhere that stretches him academically and accepts him for who he is and he is thriving now.
Jeannette on 1st May 2014 at 9:47 am.
It is so vital that our children receive an education from someone who “understands”, it is such a shame that schools can choose to bypass a diagnosis because they think the child is “fine” and “coping”. We have had this experience in primary mainstream for both T and D, I hope secondary school for T will improve.