It’s Spazurek. It’s in the title of this thread and in just about every post in the thread.
I see nothing in that thread that makes me concerned about Spazurek’s parenting. I understand that some people in that thread are seeking to persuade him that on balance he’d be better getting the child assessed now rather than waiting to see how things develop. And that’s fine.
But this pitting is just fucking contemptible NightRabbit. Your post is presumptuous, misleading and hysterical. It wouldn’t hurt you to read Cecil’s current column. I don’t know whether he’s got one on the use of affect/ effect, but that one too.
That’s right, I would, cause I am a bastard like that.
Yeah, way to miss everything I said. And Spaz says his SO says what?
It’s Spazurek. I was just trying to be helpful because earlier you said you had trouble finding his name. You can use this post as a handy reference in case you have similar trouble again. Or my previous post. Or the thread title. Or any of the several other posts in this thread where his name was mentioned.
Or were you just trying to score cheap points off shortening his name to “spaz”? If so, pardon my intrusion and carry on looking like an idiot.
Do you guys have a fight from a previous thread? Because, um, why? I passed off that first post and read it as bad sarcasm, but now you’re behaving rather abrasively.
Sorry. I have a thing about people mangling other people’s names into insults. Comes from growing up with an easily-mispronounced Slavic last name, I guess.
Also, I dropped the muffin pan on my foot this morning. Not Abby_Emma_Sasha’s fault. Apologies to her for taking it out on her, although I do wish she’d knock off with the “Spaz” stuff.
Wow, I have no idea what your problem is. My deal is what the significant other of the Spazz or whatever he is called is.
Do you wonder why he says “I” or “my” instead of “we”? Why is that if “they” are a couple? Just asking.
I have mixed feelings about this pitting. It’s completely understandable that Spazurek would be upset and even offended by the daycare teachers’ interpretation of his son’s behaviors at school. It’s a big ego blow when someone tells you that your child - that perfect, wonderful child you love so much - may have issues. I totally get that part, and I have no issue to remark on here with his planned actions regarding their conference.
But as he started to expand on his philosophies regarding testing, labeling, and treatment, which as he explained he held prior to becoming a parent, that’s when my head started to hurt. It’s fine to hold those ideas, but when trying to apply them to a living human being, that’s where philosophy falls short.
(I would like to note that I am speaking generically, not specifically about Spazurek’schild.)
We all have labels applied to us by society and by ourselves. It happens every day. We usually have more than one label. Labels are neutral descriptors of characteristics, behaviors, and conditions; our interpretation of those labels as they apply to us determines our outlook on life and our own feelings of satisfaction with ourselves as people. A person who has the label ‘autistic’ doesn’t only have that label, and it isn’t tattooed on the forehead so that society in general can read it and make a judgement. The label only has a negative impact if the people most important in the life of the child - the parents - teach him that it is a negative thing. We are classified and judged by other people we meet throughout our lives on our words, actions, and behaviors.
A person who is autistic may have behaviors that make it difficult for him to fit in with his peers. A two year old child is not aware that such behaviors exist, nor will he care. An older child and particularly an adolescent may care very much. Seeking treatment early allows the person to lessen or eliminate behaviors that will reflect negatively on him and cause him to be labeled in a negative way by his peers; waiting until the child is old enough to ask (not to mention self-aware enough to ask) for assistance can be damaging in that the behavior at that stage may be too ingrained to be changed, and the impact of negative labeling by peers is likely to have had enough impact to severely damage the child’s self-esteem.
It would, in my view, be as irresponsible for a parent not to seek treatment for a child who is autistic as it would be for a child who is diabetic. (Once again, speaking generically here.) It is a neutral condition - not a moral or value judgement - that is managed, not cured. And as in diabetes, treatment does not change the essential nature of the person being treated; he or she will still be the same person with the interests, affections, likes, dislikes, and personality differences that he or she had before treatment.
Well, have you? Have you ever been told by someone working closely with your child that you should have him evaluated and decided not to? Teachers, daycare providers, pediatricians? Either for emotional or physical development issues - or perhaps a medical issue that someone thought could be lurking?
We’ve done evals at the recommendation of the people who work closely with our kids three times now. Once for a speech evaluation for my son when his language skills at 2 1/2 weren’t up to par. And they weren’t, but they weren’t bad enough that the experts though intervention was necessary. It was tough to reset expectations. Twice when our two children were evaluated for the gifted and talented program.
Abby_Emma_Sasha, although I don’t presume to think you were attempting to purposefully annoy anyone with the name abbreviation, I would consider taking her request under consideration. I misinterpreted it along with you, don’t worry.
If I was less emotional in general, I would have said this. Bravo.
People are such bleeding hearts. There’s nothing to defend about his “decision”-- and he’s gone back and forth on the idea of having his son evaluated, but ends on the proclamation that he will if he sees need, which he doesn’t, and that leads me to believe that he plans against it.
I’ve had family members, seemingly infallible, confront physical and mental disease. It’s a truly wrenching experience. But nowhere in the process would I advise against testing, evaluations, diagnosis tools… out of some philosophical aversion to labels. It’s placing your own intellectual hubris before the basic health of your loved ones. It’s disgusting, it’s an outgrowth of being “overeducated”, and there’s no excuse for it.
Wow, quite a thread. Mind if I share?
When my son was 2 years old, my pediatrician suggested I should seek some help for “speech concerns” for him, and had me call my local Regional Center. It wasn’t just the speech delay that spooked her- it was the utter lack of eye contact, the lack of immediate response to his own name, and some other stuff. She has seen thousands of kids in her career and she has a good eye.
So I set the stuff up, figuring that because my older son had some articulation delays, that this was the same thing and no big deal. Wrong. The speech gal brought another gal on a subsequent visit and they gave me their opinion- autism.
I went into shock. I actually couldn’t hear anything they said after that fucking word- it was like I was flying backwards in a wind tunnel.
And so I froze, for almost six months. I had never experienced clinical depression before, so I had no idea what was wrong with me. I thought depression meant that you were really sad. I wasn’t sad, I was perpetually stunned- able to drag through my day doing the minimum to care for myself and my kids, but able to do NOTHING in the way of coming to grips with his diagnosis or seeking out any services or early intervention (except for having the diagnosis confirmed by the best medicos on the west coast- I was hoping for a refutation, of course…).
Those six months we lost, my son will never get back. Early intervention is absolutely vital for successful treatment of autism, and I am it’s strongest proponent. But I understand the paralysis that can result from a horrifying, misunderstood diagnosis.
My son has benefited enormously from early intervention with ABA & speech therapy. He is almost six now, and he is barely recognizable as being on spectrum. His speech is clear and his grasp of language and comprehension is astounding; he is able to read the facial and other social cues in peers that the rest of us take for granted; and he has always been fully integrated in a typical classroom rather than special education. We did everything we could to make sure that he was able to successfully and easily interact with his peers.
As to the OP- those daycare workers have probably got a good read on things- autism is very much a disorder that impacts social interaction with peers, and they see the child with peers all day, every day.
It’s a tough thing, and while I hope that every parent starts early intervention and ABA as fast as they can, I totally understand what it’s like to be stunned into inactivity by this diagnosis.
No, of course not, that is completely beside my point. Compare the OP and EJsGirl’s post. One is a parent and the other is not. Notice how one of those posts is a vitriolic condemnation and the other is understanding. They both recommend testing, but one post comes from experience, and the other, well from the self-righteousness that only comes from a lack of experience.
And screaming at him helps, how? If I were **Spazurek ** my response to your OP would be “Fuck you! You know practically nothing about me or my kid! How dare you judge me like that!”
If your goal was to actually convince **Spazurek ** to take his kid to be evaluated, you’ve failed miserably. If your goal was to experience the delicious thrill of self-righteousness, you’ve succeeded.
So your response to me, a parent who has had experience having my children evaluated was out of what? Just snarkiness?
Look, as a parent I get my fill of people without kids telling me how I should raise my kids. Some of it is quite laughable - particularly around here. But this one isn’t. This one isn’t someone saying “I don’t understand why parents can’t keep their babies from crying in Target” or “You just reason with your three year old and he’ll understand that he needs to go to bed when told.” This one is sad. Here we have a guy who:
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Doesn’t have a lot of experience with kids, other than his own.
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Doesn’t even have that much experience with his own kid, as the kid spends eleven hours a day in daycare on weekdays (not judging, mine were nine hour a day daycare kids - I’ve been there. There were days my interaction with my kids was getting them up and ready, getting them dinner, and getting them to bed).
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Apparently has his kid in a pretty good daycare. I may be extrapolating, but the daycare he describes is at least as good as mine, and possibly better. And mine had someone with a degree in child development or elementary ed in every classroom.
It really doesn’t take a parent to say “maybe people who see more kids and see your kid interacting with kids for eleven hours a day in ways you don’t, see something you don’t get a chance or have the background to see. And maybe that is something, or maybe that is nothing - but its irresponsible to dismiss it completely out of some philosophical belief.”
You know, I’d agree with all of you who recommend immediately making an appointment for an evaluation if not for Spazurek’s account of the evidence the daycare teachers gave and their experience.
Their evidence that this 2.5 year old child is possibly autistic (frankly, a term that they are not qualified to toss around, even if they might be warranted in suggesting testing) is that he carries stuff around, has dropped something and looked at it, takes his shoes off and won’t put them back on, hasn’t achieved 3 year old milestones (before he’s even turned 3), and a few other things that directly contradict the parents’ observations. Spazurek goes on to say that the daycare providers are not the sort that are super-qualified; in fact, one has just started taking education classes (as opposed to some daycare providers who have undergraduate or graduate degrees in education or child development).
Now, I’m taking Spazurek’s word at face value and I obviously have never met the kid. But if it were me, with the situation he’s presented, this would warrant a visit to the pediatrician for a second opinion at most at this point. I’d actually be curious if the daycare providers had recently had a workshop or some directives on identifying autistic kids. Daycare providers (and preschool teachers, and gradeschool teachers) are not the be-all, end-all in making these sorts of recommendations. Most are not formally trained in this and, yes, although they may have years of experience & observation to fall back on, they also have their own biases that are in play.
I’m not saying the teachers’ recommendations shouldn’t be investigated (whether that’s through formal evaluation or a mention to the child’s doctor), but I definitely don’t think this is anything even close to a qualified guess about what, if anything, is going on with this child.
We’re guilty of many things on the Dope, but I don’t think this is a fair cop. I would say the reaction Spazurek got in the other thread was coming from people who are afraid that he is going to let his personal distaste get in the way of doing what is right for his child, and in doing so cause irreparable harm to his child. This isn’t a situation of personal preference; this is the quality of life of a human being we’re talking about.
I will probably regret getting involved in this, but here goes. I see your point about how everything that Spazurek says is “I”, “my”, etc.
But what I do NOT get, is why you keep saying something like the above - Spazz or whatever he is called. It’s Spazurek, which is much shorter and like the other poster says, all over the place in this thread. Is there a reason you are not referring to this person as Spazurek? That’s what we don’t understand.
this came up on me in another thread - when I hit ‘reply’, I’m focused on the reply window, not on the whole buncha posts above it, can’t even see the thread title. I almost always shorten up names. less for me to type. Don’t intend it to be an insult. I, too, woulda shortened up this one’s name to ‘spaz’ 'cause that’s about all of it that I would recall. yours, maybe I’d shorten to “Ms” probably (except in this case, I actually quoted you). hell, I even shorten up WeirdDave mostly 'cause that whole iebeforee crap.