Summary

A mother shares her experiences and challenges of raising a teenage daughter with autism, focusing on the struggles with bullying, the importance of understanding and inclusion, and the resilience of her daughter.

Abstract

The article titled "From Struggles to Strengths: Parenting a Teenager With Autism" delves into the personal journey of a mother navigating the complexities of her daughter's autism spectrum disorder (ASD) alongside ADHD. The daughter, described as high-functioning, faces daily challenges such as sensory overload and difficulty with social cues, which often lead to misunderstandings and bullying. Despite these obstacles, she is portrayed as a loyal and forgiving friend with a strong sense of justice. The mother emphasizes the importance of patience, education, and creating an inclusive environment. The family has faced severe incidents, including sexual harassment, which have necessitated multiple school changes to ensure her safety and well-being. Even in a new all-girls school, the daughter encounters social media bullying, prompting the mother to advocate tirelessly for her child while balancing the need for social interaction and protection. The article calls for greater kindness, inclusion, and awareness of neurodiversity, highlighting the hope and strength found in the face of adversity.

Opinions

The mother rejects the label of "victim" for her daughter, instead emphasizing her strength and resilience.
She believes that neurodiversity should be celebrated as a natural variation in human cognition, not viewed as a deficit.
The mother acknowledges the difficulty in teaching her daughter to "read the room" due to her lack of impulse control and challenges with social interactions.
She expresses that while her daughter can be challenging to befriend, she possesses admirable qualities such as loyalty and the power of forgiveness.
The mother is critical of the schools' inability to effectively address bullying and ensure the safety of students like her daughter.
She is reluctant but determined to advocate for her daughter, recognizing that without her intervention, no one else may stand up for her.
The article suggests that restricting social media use, while protective, would also deprive the daughter of important social connections and learning opportunities.
The mother holds out hope for a more inclusive and understanding society that values the contributions of individuals with autism.
She invites readers to share their experiences with autistic individuals and contribute to the conversation on neurodiversity, aiming to foster a more welcoming and supportive community.

From Struggles to Strengths: Parenting a Teenager With Autism

Navigating bullying, acceptance, and resilience with love and understanding

Reflection and Open Letter to Parents: 2nd of February 2024

One of my daughters has been bullied her whole school life. I choose not to use the term “a victim of bullying” because she is not a victim.

She is strong and resilient, and has had to show up each day; even though the odds are low, her day will end well.

She is fourteen years old, with ADHD and is on the spectrum

She is incredibly high-functioning, and her challenges are invisible to the naked eye.

Kids like my daughter experience the world in their own unique way.

Sometimes, the world gets a bit overwhelming for them, like a sensory overload, and we must recognise when that’s happening.

It isn’t easy — as hard as people try to create a culture of understanding and empathy, in our schools and among our friends.

It’s about understanding that we all need to have patience, and take the time to educate ourselves and our children about the beauty of diversity and inclusion.

Neurodiversity is not a deficit; it’s just a different flavour of human cognition, like how some people prefer chocolate ice cream and others vanilla!

However, like many teenagers with her diagnosis, her most significant challenge is being able to read the room

I use this term often with her because I want to teach her that assessing an environment or situation is beneficial, before racing in like a bull in a china shop — only to regret your behaviour afterwards instantly.

No matter how often we discuss this topic, her lack of impulse control usually takes over.

As a result, some of her most common behaviours look like:

Constantly calling out in class
Mouthing off to someone who was not intending to be mean to her
Mouthing off when someone is intending to be mean to her
Not understanding when someone is joking
Asking way too many questions rather than letting others speak
Interrupting conversations
Not understanding when her presence isn’t welcomed
Making jokes about serious topics
Commenting at inappropriate times and places

As her mother, I get it. She can be a lot to handle. It isn’t easy being friends with a kid like her.

What makes autistic children extra special?

She is a fantastic friend.

She loves hard, upholds loyalty better than a pet, and will stand up for any injustices.

One of her most admirable qualities is her power of forgiveness.

She has been placed in many situations where her loyalty has been betrayed, and her kindness taken advantage of. Yet she finds the strength to swallow her hurt, move forward, and look forward to better times.

She has been to four schools because, as her parents, we wanted to find the right environment where she could learn and be safe.

She left her last school because she was threatened with violence by groups of boys, for no other reason than they were reprimanded for complaints she was forced to make against them.

She loves hard, upholds loyalty better than a pet, and will stand up for any injustices.

On a school camp, they told her to go down a bush path, where one of the boys sat waiting with his penis out. This was a planned and pre-meditated situation that they placed her in, with the sole purpose of getting a cheap laugh amongst their peers.

It wasn’t funny for my daughter. It was a form of sexual harassment.

A teacher witnessed what happened and reported the boys. The fallout was to threaten my daughter with violence, to warn her about ever making a complaint against them again.

In discussions with the school heads, we were told that the school could not guarantee her safety. We were also told by the principal (a woman who tirelessly helped our family and our daughter with the support that went above and beyond her job description), that “this was the worst group of students she had ever seen in a year in her whole career.”

As much as she wished to expel the entire grade level, she could not do that. So she suggested we find another school for our kid.

We decided that being at a school with boys was a huge distraction for our daughter, and mid-way through the school year, we enrolled her in a girl’s school.

This new school was well aware of our daughter’s challenges. It had a whole department for other girls who also needed individual learning support, and a well-being department for the girls who needed more assistance.

They told us they had many other girls with similar challenges to ours.

The first few weeks at her new school started out fine

It always does.

She was happier than we had seen her in a long time — until she wasn’t.

Even this new school, which appeared to be a utopia for girls like our child, could not reign in the sniggers, eye rolls, and outright bitchy behaviour.

I never wanted to be the mother who always sent emails to the schools, or made phone calls to discuss issues.

It’s a role I resent.

I want to stay off the radar and not be the constant flashing light on hold, or on the phone, waiting for the heads of school to listen to the latest situation that has presented itself.

But if I don’t advocate for my daughter, who will?

It’s not the sniggers and eye rolls I have had to call up about. It’s the online vitriol that my daughter has had to endure.

It’s the social media groups that she has been added to where her picture has been posted as fodder for torment.

It’s the prank phone calls that she received, and then moved on to me having to answer throughout the day.

But if I don’t advocate for my daughter, who will?

It’s the videos that some of these girls took of her without her knowledge, that were made into Tiktoks and posted for the world to see.

Could a solution be to restrict my daughter’s social media usage?

In some ways, that is a great idea, but it’s a double-edged sword.

My daughter wants to be perceived as normal.

She wants to do everything other neurotypical girls her age do.

She must also learn when people are joking and when something is serious.

Watching social media videos brings her immense joy and laughter. Some days, that is the only time she laughs or smiles.

Social media is also how the kids in her world communicate. It’s how plans are made and invitations to parties are sent. It’s this generation’s version of sitting on the phone for hours and de-stressing from the day.

I can’t take that all away from her just because I want to protect her.

So, I do what any other parent in my shoes does.

I try to be patient, listen, give advice where I can, and fight for her when she can’t.

I hug her (if she lets me), and I tell her it will get better.

I have hope because someone needs to.

It would be amazing if we all were champions of kindness and inclusion, keeping our minds and hearts open to learning about neurodiversity.

It’s the little things we do and say that can make a big difference in making everyone feel welcome and valued, and that’s all I wish for my daughter.

Have you interacted with an autistic person? What was your experience like?

What’s a fact you know about this disorder?

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