You Need to Discipline that Child

I shared a photo the other day of my sweet son with his photos. His treasures.

In the picture Cooper was using a photo of his brothers to stim on his Kindle.

Pretty cut and dry. The caption read “Cooper and his babies.”

Gathered around him were more of his treasures.

Mail. More photos. A bookmark. Books. A train magazine.

You can’t tell from the photo but Cooper was in his glory.

I was making dinner. The baby was in his high chair. Sawyer was playing hockey in the front yard.

And Cooper was stimming.

He was happy. He was content. He was in that place he goes to after a long day of living in a confusing world.

A place that I am so happy he has to go too.

The photo received dozens of comments. Like most of my photos do.

‘He’s the sweetest brother.’

‘Surrounded by the ones he loves.’

‘I think Cooper is very happy having a baby brother.’

These are appropriate, normal responses to a photo like this one.

And then there was one more. One that snuck in. Days after I posted it. From a fake profile.

A profile with no followers. No friends. No photos to view. Which is pretty typical.

It read something like, ‘You do realize that it’s not cute when he does this. He is controlling your lives. You need to discipline that child. He clearly doesn’t have any. Do it now before it’s too late.’

There was a lot more but it was mostly nonsense.

Now this isn’t the first time that some parenting autism expert has told me that my child has no discipline.

But this is the first time I’m responding.

First, what? Seriously, what? These people aren’t in my home. They don’t know if my son is disciplined or not. They don’t live our life. Or know my son. They only know what I choose to share online.

Second, why would I ever, in my right mind, share photos or video of my son being disciplined publicly. I can’t even imagine the drama that would bring into my world.

And third, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, I refuse to discipline my son for being autistic.

I will not try to discipline the autism out of him. Nor will I punish him for being himself. If he loves photos and wants to line them up…than by all means little dude…line them up.

I will not discipline him for having a meltdown. I will not discipline him for stimming. Or flapping. Or humming. Or gathering up his treasures.

Nope. Never.

My son stims when he is happy. He stims when he is nervous. He stims when he is angry.

He stims when he is trying to communicate. Yup, you read that right.

When he stims he is able to go to a place that makes sense to him. And as his mom, I am so thankful he has this place. I just wish I could go there with him once in a while.

I have three simple rules about stimming in our home.

1. The stim cannot cause Cooper harm or increase his anxiety.
2. The stim cannot cause anyone in our home harm.
3. If the stim is making any member of our family crazy then we have to think of an alternative.

It’s that simple. If it doesn’t break any of the three rules, than stim away sweet boy.

This is your house too. Enjoy.

And just so ya’ll know, we do discipline Cooper when necessary. We do what works for him and our family. Which is a combination of time outs with visible timers.

And honestly, Cooper is a very well behaved little boy. He rarely needs to be disciplined. He’s a pretty easy going kid.

We are lucky parents.

Unless of course you see his autism as something negative. And if that’s the message you are trying to send…then we need to have a whole other conversation dear friend.

And if you ask me…I think anyone that rips apart a child online could use a little discipline themselves. Come on over. You can sit in the time out chair. I’ll set the timer.

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