Something I Think About A Lot Whenever People Say That Their Children's Autism Just Showed Up Out Of

Something I think about a lot whenever people say that their children's autism just showed up out of nowhere, is that lots of autistic traits are considered normal for a while.

Picky eating, meltdowns, not picking up on social cues, and taking things literally are all typical child behaviors- up to a point. Autism is literally a developmental disorder, yet people expect it to be obvious from the get go.

Their symptoms didn't come out of nowhere, though. They were always there, they were just normal kid stuff for a while.

I wrote a fanfic to further expand on this idea. Here it is:

Gwen may have forgiven her dad for almost shooting her but there's no way in hell Hobie did. Gwen spent months away from home, and she spent most of that time with him. Hobie probably held her while she cried about what happened. There's no way he didn't verbally annihilate George Stacy when he dropped off that watch. Hobie is smart enough to know that George regrets what happened, but he absolutely does not forgive him for it.

It actually horrifies how normalized it is to ground children. And I'm not saying there's not a time and place for it, that being when it correlates to the offense. Natural consequences are great tecahing tools. I am saying that I find it disturbing how so often a parent's first instinct is to isolate their child from their support system whenever that child displeases them. And if that doesn't satisfy them, they'll take away anything they can think of that makes their child happy. Usually that's an electronic, since a kid can use that to contact their support system. I've been grounded and had my phone taken a few times. It only made me resent my parents more. It didn't teach me anything except how to take my phone back, hide it well, and replace it the day before I was set to get it back. My parents still don't know I did that.

In a world where there were no school shootings and teachers were paid well and Gen Alpha weren't a holy terror (through no fault of their own) I would love to be a preschool teacher. Maybe in another world those problems don't bother me and I'm teaching colors to adorable toddlers who call me Miss Via and love me.

At my birthday party we'll all take the raadsr and whoever scores the highest wins at autism.

Lately it's just me myself and the sudden deaire to whisper murple murple into the quiet of my bedroom