Yeah. Good Times.: "All Kids Do That"

So, there's this hashtag on twitter: #youmightbeanautismparentif, where we get to say awesome things like "#youmightbeanautismparentif you're heading to the doctor to see if your foot is broken b/c it was in the way of a chair thrown mid-meltdown" (from Amy) and "#youmightbeanautismparentif Your heart aches with the meltdowns while others only see a 'behavior problem'" (from Laurie). Naturally most of the things I threw out there were sarcastic, but occasionally not. And the thing about twitter is, I've got 2700+ followers, and not all of them have experience with autism, so oftentimes I would get a response along the lines of "that's not autism specific, that's just a kid thing."

That kind of bugged me. And I'm really sorry to my friends who have said things like this, I hope you don't take this personally, and please don't apologize for it because I'm pretty sure you mean well, but the thing is... it's not the same. It may be a "normal kid thing" to constantly lose your jacket at school, but when my autie kid does it it's a completely different experience than when my NT kid does. And so I tend to get really defensive when I see people respond in that way.

So then I thought.... I shouldn't be getting defensive, I should be educating. After all, how much did I know about autism 10 years ago? I can't expect everybody to understand what we go through if they have no personal experience with it. And anyway, it's my (new) obligation as an autism blogger to inform and educate; after all, we change the world, right?

So, I would like to present to the world this series of posts, explaining why these things aren't the same. I hope that what I do here can bring us all together in a greater understanding of autism and of typical kid behavior, in order to learn about what we all go through. It is never at all my intention to judge or to shame or to blame anybody for their experiences; I understand that we are all unique people with our own unique experiences, I just want to bring more understanding to all my readers.

If you have any questions or comments or anythings, please don't hesitate to contact me on twitter at @jillsmo or email me at jillsmo at gmail.com.

"All Kids Do That"