Tuesday, October 27, 2015

I heard our daughter come home today and ask our younger son, "Did you hear what's going on? It makes me really mad."  My wife had a similar reaction when she told me about it earlier in the day, and our younger son's response when I had told him before his sister came home was a predictably incredulous, "Why???" 

It seems that someone read my blog and decided that the ways in which I have described restraining Anthony when he gets violent are--I will take liberty with these assumptions--malicious or dangerous, and reported me to the authorities that deal with such matters.  My own emotions when I heard this included a little bit of anger, a fair amount of bewilderment, and a lot of sadness.  My wife and I concluded that whoever this person is, he or she obviously doesn't know us, and surely didn't take the time to read much of the blog.

So I guess this post is ultimately for that person and any others who might inexplicably (to my mind) do the same thing--although this completely blindsided me, so I don't expect it to happen again. 

Anthony didn't come with a user manual.  Having an autistic child doesn't make people experts on them, except to the extent that they have learned from experience what works.  In Anthony's case, when he is violent, he is similar to a criminal attacker.  But, of course he is our son and the sibling to our other children.  How does one handle an attacker when not hurting the attacker is paramount?  I imagine most any parent would put the same amount of thought into it that I have.

However, again, I am not necessarily an expert on the matter. I am quite happy to hear from anyone who has ideas for subduing an attacker in a non-injurious way.  But please feel free to do so in the form of a comment, rather than in a manner that has even the slightest potential to cause us unnecessary trouble.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I believe there is a word for people like that: troll

Pam said...

I'm so shocked and sad to read this whoever made such assumptions is clearly off their rocker they have no idea what it's like. I have been thankful to read James blog his honest post have only taught me that they love Anothny and do their level best to care for him.