Comments on: (Not So) Cute Little Boxes

By: Katherine C. (Ana54)

Katherine C. (Ana54) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:37:05 +0000

This is kind of late to reply to this, but my mother did it to me, except not with regular things like driving and cooking and cleaning. She just wanted me to learn at my own pace. It’s my lack of motivation that made me so dysfunctional. But now I’m medicated so I’m much better; I can actually sit down and write my books.

By: Kaiserin Kai

Kaiserin Kai — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:26:02 +0000

My High School did that to me. They kept saying “We can’t put her in harder classes, they’ll stress her out too much”.
I was dying, in the classes they put me in, I would finish my work in 10 minutes and spend the rest of the class counting the cracks on the celing.
They also tried to talk my parents into sending me to a special program instead of college..
I am so glad my dad is not like that. He fought to get me into harder classes (Which I got As in BTW) and they supported my desision to go to college, (I’m at college right now and I am doing well).
While that little box is supposed to help, more often than not, it hurts the person inside of it instead. My Dad understood that and for that I am forever grateful.

By: Fleecy

Fleecy — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:19:29 +0000

Hi, Sadderbutwisergirl. (I recognise your name from the autistics.org board)

I’m sorry you seem to be getting put in one of those “(not so) cute little boxes”
I’m not personally familiar enough with you/your family to make any kind of judgment call on driving/job things specifically, but in general I think if a person is “in-tune” with themselves, familiar with their strengths, weaknesses, etc. they are the most reliable person to guess whether something will be “too much” for them or not, like a job, of course there would be exceptions to this. But in general. The only way to know for sure about a job thing, or a driving thing, though, would be to try it. Sometimes in a safer environment than the real thing, like driving school (people don’t just go straight to driving in traffic, first they see if they can learn to operate the car, then they work up to driving on roads, etc…)

By: Sadderbutwisergirl

Sadderbutwisergirl — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:23:02 +0000

That sounds kind of familiar because my mom is doing that to me. She isn’t letting me get a job ecause she’s saying that it will be too much for me. She’s also not letting me enroll in a driving course (I want this because I’ll be old enough for my permit in July and a driving course is one of the requirements) because she’s saying that I can’t manage my anger well enough to be trusted behind the wheel of a car. This is ironic because both my brothers think that my mom lashes out at them for less reason than I do and that she does worse things to them when she gets angry. What do you think of this?

By: mumkeepingsane

mumkeepingsane — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:11:46 +0000

You’re right of course. I hope I’m not one of those ‘box’ parents. I definately understand the need to let my children spread their wings. Please understand, though, that these parents really are trying to do what’s best. The worrying that we do makes it really hard to let go. Hopefully, parents will read what you’ve written and take a look at how they approach these things with their children.