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Parents with Asperger’s: Part 2 – Positive Reinforcement

As much as the first part was negative, I will attempt to make this one much stronger and uplifting. While most of the links are blogs and personal websites, it is important to note that there ARE other places for positive support.

It is argued that even with support, some parents with Asperger syndrome simply may not be up to the enormous task. Raising a psychologically healthy child involves complex emotional interaction between parent and child, as well as the ability to avoid parental behaviors damaging to a child’s well-being. However it can be easily argued that many neurotypical parents have very poor parenting skills, and of course there are many parents on the autistic spectrum who have excellent parenting skills.

Some adults with Asperger’s syndrome rightly point out that many parents experience parenting difficulties as parents without being on the autism spectrum and that ‘aspies’ should not be singled out as being unable to be effective parents. Asperger syndrome parents should certainly not, be stereotyped or categorized as evil, uncaring, or intentionally abusive. If Aspergers syndrome does affect a person’s parenting skills, this would simply mean that appropriate support should be looked at, as it would be for a parent with anger management issues, depression or any other condition that could impact on their children’s lives.

That comes from Autism Help.org. If you would have looked at their site even a year ago, the negativity towards people having healthy relationships as adults would have shocked you. Luckily, due to changes in perception, this is no longer the case. Obviously, this is just a small snippet and doesn’t go into detail, but we ARE making headway.

There are sites across the web by parents who have come to discover their own Asperger’s. From Life with Asperger’s to Aspie World, you can see examples of parents talking about their lives, marriage, kids. Even some young adults just starting their journey in to parenthood are chiming in on their experiences.

There are some organizations for an Autistic convention, women, advocacy and education, not to mention, research.

It is my hope that we will be able to spread even more. To show that we can not only be good parents, but also, show that we can help neurotypicals some insightful ways to raise their children as well. (And maybe even be nationally recognized with news pieces on families like all of ours!)