scolding-don’t do it!

a letter I wrote to a para-

I’m writing so that I can increase communication with you and to help you better understand the effect scolding has on Maribel, and any child with high functioning autism or asperger’s. these students are very sensitive, hard on themselves, easily embarrassed and have lived a life of disappointing others because of the selfishness that is central to their disability. The more upset and anxious they are, the more self centered they become. this can seem very confusing, I’m sure you’ve seen maribel be very caring and compassionate. but when she’s triggered she loses most of that and she would much rather be the person that everyone likes- it’s just that her disability doesn’t allow that and scolding her only makes it worse. would you tell a blind person to try harder? she’s like a blind person in that she can not put herself in your shoes, or see your perspective, especially when she’s upset, tired, hungry or a cute peer is around.

please read the excerpt below related to students with ADHD who have similar difficulties and let me know if you have any questions:

So if the child spilled milk, is it time to scold the child? Or is it time to look at the child to see how their face fell and then say, “Oh, honey, I know you feel bad, but we all make mistakes.“ So think of the difference in the response with the spilt milk. You could comfort the child and say, “It’s okay.“ Now, how different will that child feel versus if they got scolded when they already feel bad?

So that becomes a very critical issue with ADHD, because these children as we understand more and more, feel so bad about themselves already that many of these kids hardly need scolding. They need comforting and then holding out the hope: “You can do it. I think you can do it and don’t feel bad. And I know you felt bad that maybe you lost your temper and you broke your sister’s toy, now you feel bad about it. I know you feel bad.“ Well, that would be a very common scenario. A child would actually do something, feel bad about it later, but the parent might only respond to the event, say the breaking of the toy, not realizing the child had a very set of mixed feelings about the whole thing. So do you discipline or do you support and say, “Look, I think you want to be good, and I’m going to help you do that.“ So holding and folding has to do with when you scold and when you support and how you do that in an understanding way for each individual child.

thanks