This morning I was cruising around the blogosphere, and I came across a post on Temple Grandin and her comments about manners. The reason I was looking specifically for Temple's comments on manners was that my son has had two incidents this week where he became emotionally dysregulated and had outbursts. These are generally far and few between now that he is older, and he is learning and using techniques from Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking Superflex program, which my son's classroom teacher and speech therapist have introduced to his regular third grade classroom in a weekly session, with posters and regulatory strategies for many of the Unthinkables. I am of the firm belief that my children need to be taught manners. Of course, teaching manners is different for a child on the spectrum. I also would not allow my child to annoy or disturb other people in public. While I try to anticipate some of the triggers that might lead to a meltdown and prevent them, I was not always successful. No one can be 100 percent successful, but we all try. It was harder when he was younger and didn't have the ability to verbalize the overstimulation from noises or people. I have been very lucky to have met a lot of very compassionate people who did not judge us when he would suddenly meltdown. But there were always those people, for some reason it is the mothers, who gave us "the look". You know the one I'm talking about. It sends the message "why can't you control your child?" I always wondered what they were actually thinking. And now I know.
In the comments to the Temple Grandin post there was a comment from Smockity Frocks,
I just wrote what I meant to be a humorous post about an encounter I had at the library with a little girl and her over indulgent grandmother trying to pressure one of my girls to give over the computer.
I ended up with 3 different commenters defending the pair because of the girl's "signs of autism".
http://www.smockityfrocks.com/2010/02/in-which-...
I don't know what the girl's condition was, but I DO know that Grandmother could have done more to redirect her very annoying behavior.
This, of course, piqued my interest. So I clicked on the link to find a post entitled:
After reading the post, I realized, this is what those moms' "look" means. The judgmentalness and lack of compassion, mocking tone of and contempt for this little 4 year old girl who was obviously on the autistic spectrum by the excellent description of her hand flapping, inappropriate social behavior, her perseveration on waiting patiently and reminding herself, and her Grandmother's very obvious behavioral approach that was appropriate for her emotional age, well, it smacked me in the face. The Brits call it "gob smacked". And that was just the post. I tried to excuse this woman's behavior as ignorance. But then I read the comments.That's when my blood boiled. After the first 22 comments that are basically high fiving her, someone very nicely brought up that the little girl probably had autism. And so did the next commenter. Her reply again highlights her judgmentalness and lack of empathy yet again. Upon reading comment 25 with her excellent approach and explanation of autism and this child, I thought, yeah, maybe she'll get it. Then she said,I still don’t understand why the grandmother never once offered to distract her by reading an actual BOOK to her while they waited. It really did seem to me that the goal was to get rid of my daughter so her precious could have her way.
What? did she really just say that after a great explanation of how hard it is for a very young child with autism to wait patiently? What a...I read on. I got to DeputyHeadmistress. She's the one with the original blog about manners, btw. She states that the Grandmother lied and tried to manipulate Smockity's girls. What. A. Crock. There is nothing that would indicate this in the original post. This woman says she is the mother of a special needs child. That is when she shares her post on Temple Grandin's manners discussion, which is taken completely out of context. Great manners there, DeputyHeadmistress. And Smockity agreed with her. The commenters continue, with an excellent explanation at 29, then a few agreeing with the OP, and finally I got to Jennifer at 35. I could have kissed her when she spoke of the judgmentalness of the OP! The best part of her comment was,I don’t think you were really demonstrating patience. You might have been on the outside. But inside you were very frustrated. Nothing wrong with that. But I found it interesting that you were boasting of your patience and receiving lots of praise for it. Sounds a little like the same scenario as the lollipop sweetums waiting for the computer. Ironic huh?
YES! SCORES! And how does Smockity answer her? Is she introspective? Does she step back and take a serious look at her behavior? No, she answers by saying,How supportive and encouraging of you to stop by and chastise me for my boastfulness. I guess that bit about mothers “working together and supporting and encouraging one another” doesn’t apply to you.
First of all, I “assumed” it was a grandmother because the girl called her by the name “Grandma”, but maybe part of her “disability” is calling people by inappropriate names and I am just too dumb and judgmental to know that.
And no, if the girl had been 2 and a half, I wouldn’t have expected less of her or her grandmother. I have reared six 2 and a half year olds so far and I do not allow them to get their own way because I feel they are more precious or special than others.
Lastly, I wonder if you realize the irony in calling me out for being judgmental. Pot? Meet Kettle. I don’t think you are being very patient with me. How do you know whether or not I have a disability that prevents me from tolerating bratty behavior?
GOB SMACKED!
Smockity, you are devoid of compassion or empathy. You are one of the most sanctimonious judgmental mothers I have had the displeasure of meeting by reading your blog. Would it have been so hard to have said to the Grandmother, "My daughters just started using the computer and will be using it for a while." instead of sitting there, giving the Grandma and little girl "the look". We know it when we see it.
And all this while reading a Bible. How appropriate.
And that's why I posted your blog on Facebook at 10:38 a.m. And I am so happy to say I am Blogger Zero, and your post, Smockity Frocks, has gone viral, all over Facebook and Twitter and the blogosphere.
May I help you with your ball point pen?
Here is a compilation of posts on Smockity Frocks.