Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, is a developmental disorder. The academic intellect of Children with Asperger’s can be average or above average and in young children, the first signs are frustrations, anxiety, ADHD and sensory issues. Teenagers with Asperger’s Syndrome have a difficult time relating to others socially and struggle to form friendships because of their difficulty in understanding others’ gestures or feelings. They often copy others behaviours in how they should act and should behave and can be easily influenced. They engage in one-sided conversations about their favourite interests and their peers often lose interest. Their movements can be rigid and their instinct of self preservation and awareness of danger is lacking.
When a parent receives a report from a Psychologist that diagnoses one’s child with Asperger’s Syndrome, there is a mild relief that the child will be intellectually bright but will have social problems. Most parents have no idea how big a problem that a social disorder can be for their child. In March 2020. I knew instinctively that my Asperger’s child was going to be the one that would be easily influenced into following the rules of Covid and wouldn’t be able to assert whether the rules would be beneficial to her or not. It was one of the main reasons I went out on the street to try alert others into the dangers ahead for vulnerable children. It was my right to instruct the school in how they should treat and educate my child while under their care, not the other way round. It’s very important to me that my daughter gets the best opportunity to be educated to be her best self of body and mind. And kids with Asperger’s need good direction and good guidance. It didn’t matter what new virus was doing the rounds. I knew the ‘social distancing’ rule and ‘masks’ were going to cause her anxiety and exasperate her social difficulties with her peers. These past couple of years has been a shock to my system in realising that the once trusted education environment and it’s promised security and support has been annihilated for Asperger’s kids and indeed all children, under the guise of a Corona Virus. And this left vulnerable children in a very volatile position. It also leaves the Parents of vulnerable children struggling to find the right and proper education systems and services to enable the fullness of their children’s potential.
Every parent wants to know that their child can be educated in order to aim for independence in their future. They don’t really understand the implications for their child being, ‘Socially Awkward.’ To be fair, the words themselves sound inoffensive and almost trendy. To be socially awkward sounds quite similar to ‘Social distancing’, as if it’s all very pro-choice and comes assertively from the person who is ‘Socially Awkward’, instead of the very real and cognitively challenged critical thought area of the brain unable to function to its real potential.
Most people are familiar with Autism, where the person has obvious and significant difficulties while interacting with others. It is easy for a parent to spot Autism in the early childhood years, because of the obvious developmental problems. Whereas Asperger’s is much harder to recognise in young children. Their conversation is spontaneous, short, intrusive and silly and can be aligned as childish or even rudeness. This is all very well when Asperger’s kids are in primary school, but teenage years and secondary school and college can be very challenging and excruciatingly lonely for the Asperger teen. They sometimes have an inability to move away from somewhat childhood and rigid conversation among their peers and the ‘cool’ teens of today have little patience to encourage or include the ‘not so with it friend.’ But Asperger’s kids are not stupid, they do get that ‘they are different’, so they work much harder to try and fit in.
But these days it seems that all children are suffering debilitating social and verbal skills. So what’s happening to our kids today? The mental health services have public waiting lists of twelve to twenty four months. Children are more insecure than ever before and are suffering with depression. Suicide in children has risen drastically. Why in these last couple of years have our children developed irrational fears? Could it be that the Authoritarian rules in schools that order kids to ‘Do As I say, Do not challenge,’ are suppressing our children’s own imagination and curiosity of the World and diminishing their own vital critical thought and instinct? This subtle bullying confuses all children and it’s no wonder that teens appear lost and look to their Social Media for guidance and advice, which of course, misrepresents what a happy teen looks and behaves like.
The smartphone has been one of the most underestimated Social Conditioning tool for children everywhere. I believe that it is just as addictive as drugs and alcohol and can be as damaging to teens personalities and behaviours. This is really a serious reality and it maybe time for parents to take back control of their Children and their smart phones. These are dangerous tools and limits need to placed on them for all children under eighteen years of age. Coupled with the changes to our kids whole education and social lives these past three years, the phone is disabling children to develop their own sense of Self.
Jean xx
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