Side note: If 90% of the autistic kids in a school are having violent meltdowns, that school is not providing a suitable environment and the adults are clearly not qualified to be caring for them. Meltdowns don't happen just because, they are almost always the result of distress of some kind, so what that number actually tells me is 90% of the autistic children that teacher interacts with are in pain, which wouldn't be the case if they were qualified to be teaching autistic students.
Agreed. It's baffling to me when people treat meltdowns the same way they would a physical symptom of a physical disease, like they're just something that happens in isolation as a symptom of that thing. You see it a lot when it comes to medications that reduce behaviour problems in autism, like nobody's even bothering to question what it's doing to someone mentally that leads to that outcome. Like it doesn't even matter as long as it makes your annoying kid be quiet.
@@Potatoe-f6u Actually if they were treating it like a symptom CORRECTLY, they'd be looking for the "irritant" that triggered the "flare up". (Like with a food allergy, the allergic reaction doesn't just HAPPEN because the person is allergic, it's caused by an allergen being introduced.) So they're not even being competent about it in the physical illness sense either, it's basically like really bad doctors "treating the symptom and not the illness" but for a meltdown and neurodivergence.
Yeah she comes off as really narcissistic, she over emphasizes the importance of her rolls “Mama bear” and thinks her children are perfect probably because she sees her self in them.
also not everyone has such abject adulation for so-called "perfection", especially in children of all people who often learn through trial & error (not by, like, idk, being magical?). further, biting and other violence is a totally different axis than how excellent a child is: violence is objectively observable (though there is some subjectivity as to what one counts as violent), while excellence is wholly subjective. some people even see violence (or, some types of or aspects of violence) as excellent, so clearly an absence of violence is not a necessary part of all understandings of excellence or indeed "perfection". /rant
Dogs and children shouldnt be left alone, at all, especially in the very beginning. When we got our dog I called her into the room with me at all times so that there were no opportunities for a child to cross the dogs boundaries. I have five kids, ages infant-12 years, mostly autistic, and I was able to adopt a rescue dog and keep everyone safe. The parents and the rescue all failed here. I cannot imagine leaving my child prone to meltdowns, alone during a meltdown, and alone with the dog. The dog must have been panicking too, the whole thing is horrifying.
With this, even among autistic children it depends on the individual. Up until fairly recently I'd been exponentially more prone to shutdown than to meltdown (also, I am currently undiagnosed and pursuing diagnosis). We got our first dog when I was in 6th grade, a little black pug. For middle school I rode the bus home and was often, if not always, the first one home since my mom worked about half an hour away and my step-dad's job involved driving to different HEBs and delivering clip-strip stuff. So, my routine was to get home, use the landline to call my mom and tell her I made it, feed the dog, get a snack and then start hw. I never was a danger to her and sometimes either she or the cat I'd had since I was almost 6yrs old (who passed away 2yrs ago at 18yrs old) would sit in my lap while I did my work. I think it's important, before finalizing anything, if you're bringing an animal into a house with any child (disabled or otherwise) to have them meet and gauge how they interact, how the child approaches the animal and so on to see if the child is ready for a pet, and to see if the animal will cohabitate well with the child. Having a blanket rule that no families with autistic kids can adopt from them discounts those of us who are gentle, those of us who naturally shutdown instead of meltdown, those of us who DO meltdown but either seclude ourselves or only hit our own bodies. Not to mention, like Paige said, the parents should be supervising better, how are they just ignoring the fact that their child is melting down? What is going on that's causing the meltdown? Why aren't they prepared to mitigate and deal with meltdowns in a way that keeps everyone from getting hurt? Things like that should be on a case-by-case basis. Not every child is ready for or a good match for a pet, but every child that wants one should have the chance to see if it will work. *edit* also, I fully agree with Paige that if these rescues were really serious about ensuring the safety of their animals, regardless of level or type of ability, they need to do regular, un-planned check-ups. Someone could appear to be the most normal and loving when they interview for an animal, and then behind the scenes they're like a horror movie.
My dog was my baby sitter and I am autistic but I never caused pain to animals. Some kids do that and I believe that nueral typical kids have a higher rate of abusing animals. It's a warning sign for all people
Right, that's what I got out of it, too. "This child is verbal, therefore I don't expect him to be chaotic and dangerous." She's basically admitting that she would expect this behavior from a non-verbal child.
You have to say verbal these days, she's just being politically correct. But even when someone tries to be politically correct it's not good enough for you people. High functioning is what she should have said.
@@facthunt2facthunt245 @Facthunt2 Facthunt2 uh, just because someone is non-verbal dosent mean that they arent "high functioning" The terms "high functioning" and "low functioning" dont even really make sense anyways, as every autistic person has different struggles and limits to what they can or cant do. Just because someone cant talk dosent mean they arent intelligent.
@@facthunt2facthunt245 verbal and non-verbal are the correct terms, that doesn't mean that the sentence they are used in is immune to criticism. We're talking about what was implied, that a verbal person is safe for a dog than a non-verbal person, that is wrong. It's kind of like saying "the home had a child, but it was not a person of color so I let them adopt the dog" correct language, fucked up message.
I'm writing my thoughts before I hear paige's: the fault doesn't lie with the kid but with their parents. If you know your kid bites when they have meltdowns or to stim, why are you leaving your child alone with your dog? Where are YOU to prevent your kid from biting your dog? Also how do you know that the dog isn't going to literally bite back from being injured? Youre putting both your dog AND your child in harm's way. Parents are ultimately at fault, not the kids. The "mama bear" is a POS for pushing the blame on a kid, and even moreso for pushing the narrative that autistic kids are violent and can't have regard for others.
Every single bit of this. And even with this in mind, I have a cousin who is aggressive during meltdowns, but the personality of the dog they adopted (after several trial runs) was so compatible that he was more of a calming influence (for the most part. If he thought he wasn’t gonna be able to help, he’d disappear with a quickness) The main point here is that you should know your kid before you try to add to your family with a pet, and don’t just pick one for the asthetics. Adopt based on personality.
If the dog bites the kid, “some” people would say “Oh he’s just being a dog” “The kid was probably being rough with him” “He might have been through trauma”.
100%. With any animal and any child, you are supposed to have an adult present when interacting with it, at least until it settles in, especially if it’s a rescue that you have just brought home. The child and the dog should have never been put in this situation in the first place. And if your dog and child cannot interact together safely, don’t adopt the dog!
Ahhh the classic "blame the (disabled) child for the shitty adult's bad decisions". So much adult failure in this story. And also, the policy clearly violates anti-discrimination law anywhere in Canada. Not technically a hate crime, but it's easily the kind of thoughtless reactive decision that makes people lose human rights complaints. As an animal-lover, disabled person, and holder of a law degree, I'm frustrated and disappointed on so many levels....
As a add-on to this, my understanding is that autism falls into the category of "disability" under the US's ADA, which means that, yes, the policy would also be considered illegal under US law. As would refusing to adopt dogs to men in their 20s and 30s (although that would be a different law).
This is so wildly ironic to me given that 1. I’m an autistic adult who in-home fosters for a dog rescue (and I’m fucking great at it btw) and 2. I’m virtually certain that more than half of the people who run the rescue I’m with are autistic too.
This is so true! I strongly believe that many many women in rescue are undiagnosed ASD. I have fostered/rescued hundreds of animals, starting as a teen. To deny those with ASD as a potential home would not only be discriminatory to the human, but it would be a huge disservice to the animal. ASD humans have the ability to love and understand animals in a way that many NTs cannot.
Not autistic but I’m pretty convinced that autistic people do well with animals if not do better themselves with pets because animals are great and can be really calming or help give routine in the care of them. So I would think it’s better for autistic people to have pets rather than to not have pets?? Granted I’m biased for the idea of people having pets and should learn how to properly take care of animals.
I am the proud dad of two adults who are on the spectrum. He's a brilliant academic and she's a powerful artist. I raised my grandson, who is of course on the spectrum, and who is a pain in the neck for an able grandfather, and whom I love ferociously. Your post reminds me of the wild fierce moments of beauty and total success that are my rewards. Thank you for being fucking great.
@@Jazzatic2011 Honestly I think it might be because we don't have the social manual that everyone else seems to have, so we're used to building social interaction manuals by watching. We're "social polyglots" who learn neurotypical social stuff as a second "social language", so maybe that makes it easier to learn the non-human animals' cues too? And animals don't undergo bizarre rituals that are counterintuitive to instincts and have all these weird rules about "politeness"- I know that I have more in common with dogs and cats and fish than with other humans when I see something or someone interesting: I want to look and poke and investigate!
When I worked with autistic peers in high school, we had kids who would sometimes be aggressive and violent. HOWEVER, that was because the kids: 1) didn't have a good system at home or parents that could appropriately care for them 2) their needs were not being met/they didn't have proper accommodations 3) they were fucking unhappy because people talked to them like children 4) the program for them was run by someone who didn't seem to understand autism as much as an expert should 5) the program was understaffed and undertrained for the amount of work and number of kids they worked with and 6) the school when above their heads to get as many autistic kids as they could (despite not providing the resources for those kids) because it looked good on the outside (savior complex fuckwads) and because they got extra money for each autistic kid they had. This same school also cut the number of elective classes (in the majority general education section of the school) and shoved their entire school population in a very small number of them (40+ students per class, every class, all day). I remember MORE TIMES THAN I CAN COUNT ON BOTH MY HANDS times where we wouldn't have enough chairs/desks for students. And not just for the first day. Sometimes it was over a week because the teacher couldn't find something in their entire department. And then, they would also not take students' names off the attendance roster for classes even though they'd transferred out of the school LITERALLY MONTHS AGO because they got money for each kid they taught, keeping real names to get funds because of kids that are long gone to use somewhere else where we'd never see a dime (which, might I add, is fucking illegal, both the number of kids per class and keeping names on a roster to keep getting money). While I didn't have the ability to leave the school (despite all the horrible trauma I suffered because of the fucking admin, looking at you Dave) I left that program after 2 years because I was so uncomfortable with how it was run, and I knew literally nothing about autism and still knew something was wrong. So no, autistic people are not inherently violent. Fuck anyone who says otherwise. Do better, parents. Actually care about your children, why is this something I have to beg for it's your fucking job? Is it really so hard to just not abuse them? (Edited the text into paragraphs for easier reading
You, are an absolute ICON my friend thank you SO MUCH for sharing! 🥰 I deeply appreciate it. That sounds like an absolute nightmare holy- I am so sorry, as fellow autistic I don’t think I could’ve stood that. Well, I mean, ABA wasn’t any better. 💫 Let’s not abuse children and call it education or therapy 💫
@Addison Johnson what's worse is I was a student aide in the class. I wasn't even hired or paid. I went through all that shit for free and for a grade. One of the only good things I got out of that whole experience is that I realized that I might be autistic (haven't been diagnosed though so maybe not).
@@elix1133 oh cool!! Well, if you are, I hope you get a diagnosis soon, but we welcome you with open arms nonetheless! 💫 I hope the rest of them finally got what they needed, my very best to them.
Before I left to live on my own, we've had 17 family dogs. SEVENTEEN. (5 at a time at most) I have NEVER struck or hurt a dog. My neurotypical sister, however... I'd even argue that I took better care of the dogs at my mother's house than the rest of the family. When my mother kicked me out, my dog became depressive because my sister would be so mean to her and my mother would let the other dog attack and annoy her. Just because she was my dog. Not taking her with me is the biggest regret of my life. My point: this is not a case of autistic children = bad with animals. It's a case of children being bad with animals = BAD PARENTING.
This is gross. I would NEVER EVER EVER harm an animal, no matter how overwhelmed I feel. There are a ton of NT animal abusers too, so they should do better research.
I was thinking that too and then I was like… is there anything typical about animal abuse? Definitely doesn’t have to do with autism, but there’s gotta be some wrong with brain and emotional development to cause someone to abuse another being 😞
Stop adopting dogs as nannies to children, period. 🤦🏼♀️ There’s all these stories of like “autistic child bonds with dog and it’s a miracle because they BaD aT PeOpLe!” So all these parents who don’t care enough to help their child express their feelings and learn to cope, they hope a dog will fix them??
I read their defense and it was awful. Garbage rescue, but im not shocked. I managed an animal shelter and there were so many racist, prejudice and awful people in animal rescue.
I too have encountered some of the worst, most hateful and ignorant humans I've ever met in the animal rescue/sanctuary world. The more I hear from others, the more I realize this is actually a widespread problem. It doesn't get talked about enough and when it is brought up, those who support these orgs are quick to dismiss any allegations without a second thought. That's assuming they don't form a hate mob and start calling in death threats, of course. Ask me how I know.... (Actually don't, lmao. I don't really wanna talk about it. 😅)
I think there’s a thing about humans that care more about animals than other humans, I see prejudice in the vegan community too for the sake of animal rights but they don’t have the same passion for human rights
So… 2 autistic kids had a problem with the dogs their parents adopted and so now no autistic person can adopt a dog from this rescue? Do NT’s not abuse dogs? I fully blame the caregiver of the kids for not being able to read their kids well enough to know if pets are ok or not, and also for not doing a “trial run” with other dogs to see which personality styles clash or are compatible with the kids. My oldest had a rescued Pitbull from the age of 5 until the dog passed from an old-age stroke just a couple weeks ago (9 years) with zero issues. It’s a matter of figuring out what you, your child, and the dog can handle and what’s best. We had to return a rescue dog when my oldest was 3 because the dog had severe diarrhea when he was fed “people food” and my oldest (who was non-speaking at the time) kept sharing goldfish crackers with the poor pup… TL;DR: every person and every animal is different and you have to find a pet that is compatible with the *whole* family.
@@elizabethhalt2096 A lot of kids have open access to snacks, or take their time eating... or leave them around... Better to get the dog out of harm's way than to have that as a continuous risk. Parents already have to stay on top of a lot.
@@elizabethhalt2096 Kids have a magic ability to pull snacks out of thin air sometimes, I swear. They're like squirrels but they hoard goldfish crackers and cheerios. (My personal record was a full hour with an offhand fistful of fruit loops that wasn't spotted by anyone before I sat down to eat them.)
Autistic vet student here 🙃 Having worked w all kinds of animal rescues- yes it's rough, and it's difficult to screen everyone as extensively as we'd like when there's an *endless* stream of pets that need saving. HOWEVER, like you said there were so many levels of precaution that were neglected here, from the parents especially. All kids need to be taught how to act around animals and highly supervised throughout. It pisses me off so much when people expect animals to have zero boundaries, ignore all their attempts to ask for space, and then blame the animal when they so much as growl or nip at a kid. In my experience too, most autistics (of all ages), myself included, have had intense empathy and connection to animals; and the times I've seen kids be straight up cruel to them, they've all been totally NT as far as I know. I could talk for hours about the animals I saw returned to pet stores 🤦 Something else I've learned over the years is not everyone in these lines of work are good and/or informed people. I'll always give credit for helping save animals, but this is some straight BS. Thanks for sharing
I'm glad to hear you're going to be a vet! I've been a groomer since 1982 and worked many animal jobs before then including picking up injured animals as the overnight ambulance worker for the SPCA. I develop relationships with the dogs I see for grooming. I do everything I can to make it easier for them. I only see one at a time so they don't have to be caged or hear a lot of other dogs. I have my shop where when they are on the table they can watch deer and squirrels out the window. Those parents did not do their job and protect the dog and their child. Any child may be a threat to an animal, they need to be taught how to interact with the animal.
Paige, thank you so much for showing me, that I, as an Autistic girl have a chance of growing up, getting a job, and live a life i (and everyone) deserve 🙏
What made me feel sick to my stomach was when she had said that mothers with autistic children think they are perfect, doesn't every mom? Like okay I get that no, no child is perfect. But jeez if that didn't sound like she was insinuating all autistic children. Like bro, what the dip.
Pausing at 8:07 to give my opinion It seems very weird to me that the person took 2 very specific cases as the basis of a pretty ableist policy. I mean, were those the only two families with autistic children that adopted? I kinda doubt that, I feel like it's more likely a case of confirmation bias... And that really sucks.
Okay so I'm leaving my comment and im interested to see if it'll change. I have ADHD(diagnosed, since a child.) And in my opinion, anybody who disciplines an entire group of people based off one or two peoples actions, *THAT IS ABLEIST* . Her saying she doesn't adopt out to anyone with Autism, to me, is ableist. I have ADHD and although it's not the same, there are a lot of overlapping symptoms, and I do struggle to regulate my emotions and ive always had violent outbursts, but the thing is, I've never once hurt anyone other than myself. I've either hurt myself, or broke something that was mine and didn't effect anyone but me. I've also had dogs in my life my entire life, and none of my outbursts have ever effected the dogs. Often, my dog is able to calm me down before I even get to the point where it's a full blown outburst, so she's actually prevented a lot of outbursts... Also, in my opinion, the lady wasn't doing due diligence if she truly did adopt out 2 dogs into homes that hurt them so bad they needed stitches within days. She should've looked into the family and had them meet the dog at the shelter, then at their house, and seen how everyone interacts with the dog, make sure the house is OK and they're able to take care of the dog, etc. If both children were so violent to the point where the dogs had cuts all over their heads and ears like described, you'd think that during due diligence the lady would've found out that the child has autism and has violent bursts, and she should've watched them interact longer, let the dog stay overnight and see how it goes, she should've done ALL of the above before adopting out a dog. Honestly, I also don't believe the story. Both kids hurt the dog in the same spot, in the same time frame? That's odd.
Yeah if she had said something like “I’ve had two kids of color hurt dogs so I won’t be adopting out to families with children of color” she’d be run out of town. She’s still discriminating!! And just think of all the families with “normal” kids who hurt dogs and the parents never say boo…. My brother had a friend in elementary school that our mom stopped him from playing with when the kid’s sister’s kitten “mysteriously disappeared” 😞
@@lindat7525 same, my dog can tell I'm upset before I even know. She will come snuggle with me, and try playing with me, and she will also start acting crazy to make me laugh and stuff, she's amazing.
The story is a bit hard for me to believe as well. I don't know much about shelters so maybe there's something I'm missing, but it's odd that in both cases the injuries looked so gruesome? It seems more likely that a kid having a violent meltdown would hit or throw smaller objects, something that wouldn't leave much of a visible injury on a dog. Strange that the injuries on the dogs were so story worthy in the only two times this happened. Also her implying that 99% of autistic children are violent makes this story even less believable, like she may be intentionally trying to paint autistics in a bad light.
"My friend says that this group of people is overwhelmingly aggressive and violent so i am not going to learn anything about them and instead am just going to turn away every single person in this group." It is awful that these dogs were put through this, and its also awful that someone is using it to justify wild generalizations about a group who are consistently maligned by people who dont bother to take the time to understand anything about them.
I do disagree with the whole: Autistic people are violent. Im Autistic but I was never really a violent person, and I rarely got angry. I only tended to get angry when people were ignoring my needs, my point was not getting across, or people were downright being rude and inconsiderate jerks towards me. My anger was justifiable rather than traits. Good Video Paige.
Autistic and adhd and im definitely pretty short tempered and often express myself via rage but i ain’t violent i mean sometimes i do throw things on the floor when im angry or smack my sisters(they NTs and we smack each other quite often she do too) but nothing more
I think as far as policies go, it's... Inconsistent? Like I don't understand why the owner thinks it is an issue with autistic children specifically. I think if that's a concern with rescue animals, it's best to have a policy that just says no homes with young children. Children are kind of terrible with animals typically. Even if they're not trying to be irritating to them, children tend to not understand boundaries with animals. Which is probably fine sometimes with a random healthy puppy. But not with a rescue. If a rescue and a family with a child are a good fit it's fine I guess, I just don't think it's wise typically. Idk.
Paige, thank you for being out there. I'm 52 and been struggling with mental health my whole life because I was a autistic nerdy girl growing up in the 70s and 80s. Thank you for being one of the awesome RUclipsrs who opened my eyes to the fact that I'm mental making me mask and fit in was mental. It's going to be a process for a formal diagnosis but I know and those who know me agree I'm on spectrum so different sure but not mental. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
On the surface, it seems like the children weren't taught how to process their meltdowns properly. Whether the responsibility falls to the parents, caretakers, or county workers (if applicable), autistic children should have the tools necessary to resolve their meltdowns without harming anyone. One trick I do is beat up my pillow and throw it around. It can take quite a bit! Alternately, I either rip up an old newspaper or throw ice cubes onto the pavement or into the bathtub.
And if they chew things as a stim, the parents could have easily provided a chew necklace. There are so many ways this could've easily been prevented. It also sounds like the parents didn't teach the kids not to hurt the puppers.
I feel like people on the internet are especially awful to us. I had someone tell me they hope I know I shouldnt have more kids because I'm autistic with five kids who are so far all autistic. I think thats eugenics Brenda, but okay. Autism month is the worst
That's because neurotypicals are afraid we'll outperform them. It doesn't matter which political party is in office, neither one doesn't care. I feel like we're being ganged up on by both sides. *sigh* We need our own country.
Asperger was a German who was a nazi who DID practice eugenics. Little wonder why they got rid of that diagnosis? Also, sad that people would say that to you about having more children.
They claim to hate autistic ppl yet they love Kanye or Eminem. In my country there’s a sayin”all autistics got access to a microphone”(when someone embarass themselves on social media/release a bad song) and im like thank God we do or else we wouldn’t have Kanye or Eminem
I don't think that way for autism specifically, but I do actually think that people with permanent genetic illnesses and disabilities shouldn't make kids (I dont think it should be forced by law either). For the same reason it is unethitcal to breed animals with genetic health issues (pugs for example). The offspring will have to suffer from it their whole life, and before that life was started it would have been neutral if it never was. As a human you also have the awareness of being doomed and helpless and not able to contribute anything if you wanted to. Plus if someone doesn't want to live through it, society wont give them that choice. Depending on the disability/illness it may even be worse for humans. And since human societies have so much less natural selection than animals in the wild (with advanced technology, welfare, disability benefits and healthcare, all are good by themself) we may have to somewhat compensate to keep our own genetics and humanity itself reasonably healthy. Its about many things, individual health and life quality, overall health in society (which affects how well it runs) and how well we are prepared for a possible disaster. I think my stance on eugenics is "only for ensuring base level health and function" and not for altering personality, appearance, talent etc. it can be taken way too far and abused for control. But it shouldn't be dismissed completely either.
Holy shit... I am autistic and my rescue dog is my whole world. When I was a child, I always had dogs. I have literally never not owned at least one dog. I was never abusive to any of them. They're my babies
Paige, I completely agree with your view on how dog rescues should involve extensive research and check-ins on families, but it is actually not the norm. I've rescued 5 dogs in my life, all from different rescues. And only one made us come and meet the dog prior to the adoption date. And again only one place, and it wasnt even an organization, proceed to do a check-up. I think it should be necessary, and fortunately I know my dogs are in a safe, loving home that can provide for them. it is not the norm in my experience, but I hope it will be in the future.
I agree. I’m in the states and the way I was raised, my parents thought it was ridiculous that a rescue we wanted to adopt from wanted to do a home inspection. It’s totally not the norm. Now that I’m older I understand why it’s done, and had a home inspection upon adopting my kitties, but even then, the rescue has never asked to check up on them now that they’re with me.
@@ClaireAKokE I'm in Canada and adopted a dog back at the end of December. The first time I met him was when I picked him up at a gas station parking lot at 4 am. But he came from Georgia so there was no way I'd have been able to meet him before adopting him. (We hardly have any local dogs to adopt here, so most people in my part of Canada buy from a breeder or adopt from the US.)
I'm in the northern US and I feel like it's somewhere in between these two experiences. My friend has fostered for a while. With her org., they do one home inspection and some times the potential adopters come to the foster parent's home to meet the animal first. They usually get follow up pictures (as fosters) and stuff but not sure if it's required. Unfortunately this once led to two kittens my friend fostered being placed in a hoarding situation. They examined his home, but not extensively. He moved his things out of the common rooms so they wouldn't see. He was known to be a hoarder who tried to adopt animals from different organizations, so after a week or so someone came and fully inspected the house and took the kittens away. My friend was heartbroken as she directly did the home inspection and felt like she failed the kittens. Luckily they now have a wonderful home where my friend has even gotten to pet-sit for their owners!
I snickered out loud multiple times from your blunt humor, you make infuriating topics actually pallitable to listen to, thanks so much for speaking out about this bs
the overgeneralisations these people make is beyond absurd to me. like absolutely of course don't give an animal to a child that will hurt it. but refusing ALL autistic children?? clearly this person has a limited understanding of autism. it's like if you gave an animal to a family with any child (nd OR nt) and the child hurts it. then same thing happens again a few years later. so you decide to not give animals to any families with children. it just sounds ridiculous
When I was an autistic child (not that anyone realised then) I was so gentle and sensitive with animals. I was the one safe person for a lot of traumatised animals, I think they sensed I was safe and they were often there for me and soothed me out of meltdowns and distress. I also feel awful for the animals in these stories, I hope they found safe and loving homes. It's always on the adults to take responsibility for the welfare of children and animals in their care. All your points are spot-on Paige.
With your point at 25:43, you could probably really get through to people who rescue dogs by comparing this situation to pitbulls and how they get stereotyped as an aggressive breed. Funnily enough, I have had two really bad experiences with pitbulls; as a kid I witnessed one kill a toy poodle, and another time a roommate asked if I could walk their pitbull and I had to restrain them when they tried to attack a stranger. Almost any dog rescuer will, rightly IMO, note that these experiences shouldn't be representative of all pitbulls and will recognize that in these instances the owners failed to be responsible for their animal. If they can understand that situation with a dog, it's kind of gross to me they can't understand why stereotyping like this is wrong when it's an actual human person.
I agree with you, and I've been attacked by a pitbull. You can't blame the breed. The dog that bit me had negligent owners who let it escape its pen (and likely mistreated it). The other two pitbulls I've had personal experiences with were furry angels who just harrassed me for belly rubs. If you raise your dog right, it will behave right. If you raise your human children right, they will also behave right.
Pot bulls used to be bred to protect children but aggression (and non aggression) can be bred in as little as three generations. Pit bulls have been bred for aggression for many years now and it can definitely be bred into a breed. Also the damage an aggressive pit bull can do compared to a schnauzer is much more severe. Aggression was bred out of wild foxes in just three generations by choosing only the ones who didn't try to bite, imagine to the impact to the opposite can do on domestic dogs... I rescue mutts, it's always easy to find a home for a pit bull. I don't like breed specific rescues.
I know the rescue that posted this horrible post, as it was reported by the CBC. Interestingly, one of the employee's was also going around claiming that she was going to sue for defamation; anyone for who called the rescue ableist. Given your explanation of the situation, it would sound like discovery would give us a lot of interesting deets.
Page I just found out last year I was autistic at first I didn't want to tell anyone but you have taught me so much about myself in ways schools and doctors have never been able to. You've helped my confidence so much and helped me to love myself so much more thanks
The fallacy this rescue used is called a faulty generalization. So, your examples were, for the most part, a perfect way to illuminate the problem with this fallacy. Great job, Paige!
At the end of the day, it isn't only autistic children that could be violent towards dogs. My not autistic nephews wrestle their dogs and used to smack them before their parents caught them.
I saw this post recently and I gotta say, as an autistic person who has worked with countless different animals, at rescues and zoos, and who now works part time at the animal shelter in my hometown, this royally pissed me off. My very first thought was that any child can do this to an animal. This behavior is *NOT* exclusive to autistic children. And as you brought up, it's obviously not exclusive to children if men in their 20s and 30s are the most likely to abuse animals. You went way more in depth in this video than my thoughts did when I first saw this post, not only with the autism part but also the animal part. I also love animals, could never imagine hurting one, and have had pets all my life. I literally sat on my cat when I was a toddler and he was not bothered. I never hurt him. If I had, my parents would have stopped it. Again with the responsibility being on the adults here...that's true for all situations involving an animal and a child, no matter what the child's neurotype is. That's what I still come back to
No kidding. I know a person who bit his dog as a toddler, and that person (now a man) has ADHD which was undiagnosed at the time, and no autism. And yet, funny, there isn't an ADHD/violence stereotype, even. And ADHD doesn't inherently make people more violent, anyway. And toddlers in general might think biting a dog is a good idea just because they see dogs biting each other or their toys. Because toddlers have a very rudimentary understanding of social anything, and in spite of their repeated cries of "MINE!", they don't even have a real concept of ownership (they just say that word because it's easy to say and generally conveys the idea of wanting to eat or hold something).
@@lsmmoore1 Yep. Branding all autistic people or all autistic children as somehow more violent than any other group is incredibly harmful and ableist. Children don't understand what's okay and what's not, regardless of their neurotype
Cruelty to animals is actually highly correlated with psychopathy, not autism. If memory serves, it's one of the leading childhood indicators that someone is a psychopath (along with, IIRC, bedwetting, arson and a few others). I frankly wonder if one or both of these children were psychopaths misdiagnosed as autistic because they were so poorly adjusted to society.
it is absolutely wild that instead of getting to know families better, their solution is bigotry?!?!?!? They just don't want to put in the work!!! ugh, this makes me so angry, I'm autistic myself and our family pets growing up did so much good for me in having someone around that didn't expect NT behavior from me...
this was on the local news and became the topic that my family was mad about for a week lol. it's a place in ontario and it's definitely illegal ! thanks for chatting about it
These stories strike me as lies more than failures of parents, I just do NOT see a dog sitting still and letting a kid bite them hard enough to injure. I say this as a dog owner, an autistic person, and as a parent of an autistic kid.
So true! A dog wouldn’t let that happen over and over I’m shocked I didn’t think about that lol 😂. (I’m also an autistic person, thought I’d throw that in there)
Actually, I have known dogs that will allow abuse without making a noise or attacking. Pit bulls are actually known for doing this if they aren’t trained toward violence. I thought it surprising to see this behavior in a rescue with an unknown history where the animal might be suffering with abandonment, anxiety or trauma but it wasn’t completely surprising that a dog might not react.
Sheep dogs stand up for themselves, they will growl and bark to communicate when they don't like your behavior. there is no way that didn't also try to bit a child that did that to them.
I'm having a *horrible* day at work right now and that deep breath in and out at the beggining almost had me cry. I really needed this thank you so much 🥺😮💨❤
My son is nonverbal and very very great with animals. He’s only 2 though so I constantly watch and he’s only with animals if I’m there too (and always will) I too am autistic but I’m verbal . Really don’t see what difference being able to talk makes Totally agree with you. My son has a sensory biting need so I know to have his “chewies” with us at all times.
I've known several instances of non autistic children hurting an animal. it just happens when parents don't parent and teach their kids you can't just hurt something and its wrong.
The policy is based on a mistaken assumption that all autistic people are the same and thus are dangerous, this is of course not true and she got very unlucky with the dogs being injured, she has no idea of context and the policy is discriminatory in nature and would be a reason for me to never use her as a supplier
I have two yr old twins and the neurotypical one is WAY more likely to hurt our new kitten because the one on the spectrum isn’t interested in him at all ❤ it goes with all children needing to be taught to respect animals and all parents need to be realistic about who their child is
This was exactly how I felt upon reading that post for the first time. I was able to adopt my doggo fairly easily from out of state and I checked in with them way more than they checked in with me. My girl didn't leave my sight in my place when I was home. If I wasn't at home, she was in her crate. I would make sure to come home throughout my day and let her out and take her for walks. Anyways, any negative behavior she has, I blame myself for. Yesterday a dog snuck up on us on a walk and she showed signs of aggression and we came straight home as I went into panic attack mode. She sat in my lap as I cried and she asked to be petted so I could calm down. In the US it's not uncommon for rescues to adopt out animals rather easily. My thoughts are still scrambled but hopefully some of that made sense.
I'm newly diagnosed as autistic. It explains so much of my 52 years of life. It explains so much about why people don't understand the things I say. Thank you for your channel
This entire situation simultaneously seems like blatant animal and child neglect :/ On behalf of both (mostly) the parents, as well as the rescue itself not taking further steps to ensure their adoptee animals are housed safely
People need to know that pet ownership is a privilege dependent on how people, autistic or not, treat their pets. As an autistic person, and a proud owner of two dogs (a Cockapoo and a Coonhound Mix), I honor that privilege every day by doing what I have to do to take care of them. And I would suffer any consequence, because of my actions, if anyone did ANYTHING to hurt them.
There was a shelter by my house when my family was thinking about adopting a dog that suddenly refused to let us see dogs once my mom said that my sister was autistic, so we needed to make sure we had a dog that was really good with kids. We then went to another shelter, which did not care that my sister was autistic, and got the sweetest, most loving, dumb dog that we could have possibly gotten. Never once had any major issues with the dog and my sister or either of their's safety. Imagine being that horrible??? can't relate.
My son has grown up with a dog and cats his entire life. He has never injured or assaulted them. Not once. Not in a melt down, not ever. He's been around many other pets, as almost every single other household in our friends and family circle also have at least one pet, in the case of my sister 5 cats. It's highly upsetting that someone can take the position that we shouldn't have our animals (the dog and the cat which passed away in November in her sleep were both rescues) because this terrible woman says his diagnosis makes us unworthy. When did it become acceptable to look at the disabled as if they aren't all unique individuals?!
So many parents are really freaking irresponsible about their children and potential pets. April is also Easter time🐇, which turns out to be the most dangerous time of year for rabbits. I follow a few rabbit rescue pages, and there are countless cases of parents buying their kid a new bunny, just because it's fluffy and cute and their kid wants one. They do this without doing ANY research on how to actually take care of such a high-maintence pet, and leave the bunnies to the kids, not knowing that the PRIMARY caretaker should be the ADULT. And surprise surprise, the poor thing gets abused, thrown out when it's too much of a "hassle", or the kid simply gets bored with it. Wouldn't surprise me if these parents really thought they were doing a kind and benevolent act by also just ... handing over some fluffy thing to their child with almost no deeper consideration besides "it would be good for them"😒Has much less to do with whether the kid's autistic, and much more to do with the fact that people don't THINK about this stuff long enough first. also a snake would be mega cool and I agree with putting it in the smaller spot. maybe it could be like,, coiled or in a very lose know or something idk
It also seems to go back to "if you've met one autistic person, then you've met one autistic person". No one would ever say "I don't want to give dogs to any blue/orange/purple people anymore because I've had too many bad experiences". There are certainly a lot of bad blue/orange/purple people out there, but it has nothing to do with them being blue/orange/purple. There's never any excuse for being lazy or prejudiced and not wanting to get to know someone as an individual. Generalizations about any group of people ends up being prejudicial. You're absolutely correct to blame the process and the people facilitating that process more than anything.
Popping down w initial thoughts and then I'll come back at the end: I think a better option would be for her educate herself a bit more and then have specific questions she asks all parents with children. Like, "How will you handle tantrums or meltdowns when they affect the dog's safety?" "What will you teach your kids about boundaries when you get this pet?" I get her concern, but these are just two cases and honestly, any kid might do this imo.
Yep. Agree 100%. Not enough questions were asked. Not enough supervision was done. And they should be screening every parent w kids bc NT kids hurt animals too.
I heard a similar story about an SPCA with a family trying to adopt a cat for their autistic child. One cat got scared when the child got loud and they refused to let them adopt any cat instead of introduce them to a calmer, older cat.
I love the idea of banning men in their 20s and 30s from having rescue dogs, based on the statistics. Not only is that lady's policy morally wrong, it's likely legally wrong. It's not a hate crime, but if this took place in the US it's still straight up illegal to discriminate in that way.
I made the mistake of reading more about the rescue. Woof… (no pun intended lol) Now I’m too mad and worked up to sleep. The rescue responded to a supporter on Facebook and called parents of autistic kids “nutters.” F that! And they deleted or demeaned anyone who disagreed with them. This person is 100% a gaslighter. They won’t see any point of view but their own and to top it off they have no respect or grace when it comes to speaking to others. They reply to all their bad reviews on Google and it’s scary. I know how temping it can be to defend your image, but if you’re a business, it’s really better to reply with something like “I’m sorry our services didn’t meet your expectations. Thanks for your input. We strive to do better in the future” in most cases, in my opinion
My family and I have owned dogs since I was a baby. Any kid has the capacity to hurt a dog. Pulling their tail, hitting them, biting them, pulling their fur, etc. To have autistic children be the spotlight of addressing children and their behavior with dogs is very biased. Most kids have tantrums. Most kids have poor emotion regulation. It’s part of growing up. Parents have a responsibility to teach their children and supervise their children’s interactions with others, animals and humans. If you know your child has a tendency to lash out or bite, or hit, or anything of that nature, you have to ensure there are precautions. If your child starts getting aggressive, melt down or otherwise, you need to intervene and keep both parties safe. When you get an animal, it’s your responsibility to ensure its safety. The fault lies not with the children, nor their autism, but with the situation and the handling of it.
Because of this no one will adopt a dog to me as an autistic adult. I don't even share my "diagnosis" (in quotes because not officially evaluated yet at time of posting) with them but they tell me I'm too quiet, fidgety, won't make eye contact with humans. So they won't adopt to me even though they think I'm qualified becausei exhibit autistic traits. So, the world sucks and hates us, the end. Thankfully this hasn't spread to the cat shelters in my area so I have Esa cats now.
I love that the whole message of this isn’t “I want my rescues to be safe” and instead “autistic people are violent and dangerous monsters that must be contained.” I am autistic and admittedly, I’ve had my struggles with violence in the past, but that’s because I went undiagnosed for 18 years and neither I nor my family knew what we needed to do to help me stay calm. Now, I’m getting a lot better with controlling it because I’m starting to learn about the accommodations I need and better coping skills. It’s what makes this post all the more absurd. I know, at least from my perspective, that I never liked getting violent in a meltdown, and I bet that >99% of other autistics would say the same. If we skip by the fact that this rescue hates autistic people with a passion and wanted to have way to vent and enforce their hatred, the whole conflict could have been avoided with the counter points in this video.
I think they just want their animals to be safe. Think about how distressing it was for the dog and that poor woman having to see those bite marks. The child was better off with a chew-toy not a pet.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. The rescue selected unfit parents. That's what happened. They should add to their criteria to minimize the chance of it happening again. Simply banning all autistic children is irresponsible and solves nothing. I have autism, and I have always had many different kinds of pets from an early age. One of my obsessions has always been animals. I could care for even very difficult pets. Any violence I experienced during a meltdown was always directed toward myself. My parents knew that. That's why they trusted me with delicate lizards and mice. The parents that the rescue had trusted simply weren't attentive or insightful enough to make a good decision when it came to getting a dog.
Reacue dogs are hard to handle in general and 99% of the time need a special enviroment with an experienced owner which is why it annoys me when ppl say "adopt dont buy". Adopting a dog isnt getting a free dog, if you have never owned a dog before adopting a dog might very well be a bad idea...we literally went to multiple shelters and all the shelters only had dogs with mental health issues and trauma as firsr time owners ur.not equipped to deal with this. We BOUGHT a german shepherd from an ethical breeder instead. Now i know how dogs work. Now i know what to expect. But even then, most shelter dogs have trauma. Most people who rescue dogs are even PROFESSIONAL DOG TRAINERS. A dog isnt a toy. Its not an accessories..
All too often i see violent meltdowns being excused. If someone was violent towards me I don't think I could tolerate it. Autism or no autism I'd have to fight back.
All excellent points! One that really stood out to me was that dogs should never have been left alone with any kid, for both the kids safety and the dogs safety! And you’re right, multiple visits should be made to see if the rescue dog is the right fit for any family.
My daughter has some pretty scary meltdowns, she has ODD as a comorbidity, but when that happens, I’m right there with her and the dogs usually go to another room because they are smart and sensitive creatures. She’s never once targeted the animals when she’s that disregulated. She has tools and skills to deal with the upset without hurting herself or anyone else. That’s because I got her the help she needed when she was little (her diagnosis is still forthcoming because the US healthcare system SUCKS) and I stayed consistent. I didn’t leave her alone in a room with our new rescue dog while she was having problems. Yeah, everything you said is correct! Why did the rescue even “know” that the children were autistic? This sounds like a whole bull-stuff FB story designed to target kids with autism because of this “rescuers” personal wrong opinions. Gross.
As an autistic woman, I can confidently say that having a dog greatly improved my social skills and mental health as a child, and and taught me how to care for another being. And even when they passed away, the experience helped me learn how to handle grief and relate to people who were also going through loss. Plus, once my mom started bringing the dog with her to pick me up from school, the other kids started being nicer to me. I don’t think a dog should be left alone with a child under the age of 10 (or one who functions at a level lower than an average 10-year-old), however.
As someone in America: THE STATES SUCK and I also plan to move to Canada when I'm older because the chances of harsh discrimination and an early death grow higher with every passing day and I don't plan to take my chances.
The part about the volunteer at a school really irritated me. If she’s there to assist autistic children where it’s been predetermined that they need additional third party support, then yes perhaps 99% of the children she supports day to day have some behavioural/emotional difficulties and need… support 🤦🏼♀️ it’s a bit like an oncologist saying “all of the people I care for at work have cancer”. The woman was literally employed to care for people who fit a specific criteria ie what a lot of people would consider the “difficult autistic child” 🙄
15:47 This is so true. I already knew at the age of 5-6 that I was unwanted by my parents. I was literally convinced that: "It's better for everyone if they don't see my ugly face and don't hear my scratchy voice because everytime someone sees or hears me suffers due to the mere existence of me. It'll be better for everyone if I didn't exist"
My son Simon is on the spectrum, and we always had pets and never had horror stories. If there is anything, pets seek them and always hang around him as if he is snow-white in the forest. I totally agree with you on how petss should be introduced to any family.
my opinion before hearing paige's: I understand how this would be devastating to see. i don't think the children are at fault, though. i'm sure those kids absolutely LOVED those dogs and did not want to or intend on hurting them. i think the parents, knowing their children and knowing they can have aggressive and/or violent meltdowns, should have known better than to leave those kids (without supervision) with the dogs. during meltdowns, autistics (especially kids!!) are generally not in full control of the things they do or the ways they interact with the world around them. this can lead to doing things that you very much regret after the fact! i know that i and other people i know have hurt ourselves and/or broken objects while having meltdowns, and regretted it immensely later. refusing to give dogs to all families with autistic children because two autistic children had previously hurt their dogs is so messed up. i guess you shouldn't give dogs to ANY families with ANY children because i've heard of allistic children hurting dogs before. it's the same type of generalization used to oppress POC, LGBT+ ppl, etc. i have now finished the video and here are my thoughts: paige said pretty much all the same stuff as me but more in depth and much better explained! and obviously that makes sense considering she had a full video of explanation and i had a (large) paragraph. in other words, paige said all of my thoughts on this but better explained, and i agree with all of it.
I am autistic and my 15 year old step son is as well. We rescued a 5 yo GSD a little over a year ago. The rescue did absolutely no checks on us or our home. The dog, who now btw is amazing, was simply terrified. She acted as though she has never seen the outside. She was jumpy and reactive but sweet with most of us, but not with our 15 yo. She just didn’t like him. I too kept her leashed to my belt for the first few months. We were careful to only allow them together when we were around so we could teach them both how to treat each other. Now he is her favorite person. He is so crazy gently with her and she just jumps up and wags her tail when she sees him. Could that have gone a much different way? Absolutely. Thank you for making this video. As an autistic adult with both divergent and typical kids I have to say that having a dog is soo extremely helpful to all of our mental health but it most definitely takes work! Parents who allow this kind of thing are simply being neglectful. More people need to speak up when it happens and remind people that autism isn’t to blame, bad parenting is!
I'm an autistic dog mum. My boy is the happiest, most secure landseal I've ever met. I wouldn't be surprised if the stories this person told about the dogs were ableist propaganda lol.
I wouldn't be surprised, people make shit up when they hate us and can't find a reason why that acceptable enough to talk about with their friends. Especially since the two situations are worded so similarly, in that 2 kids bit dogs on the head and ears, as if that's just standard
At the very least, I don't believe the last bit about the rescuer talking to an autism "expert". Either that conversation never happened or that person is actually a regular teacher with little to no relevant training (AKA not necessarily an expert in _any_ field). Just the way it was worded was sus to me.
Before hearing your side, I don't agree with the policy. I believe that her policy should be something like not with children who have aggressive outbursts. Unless the child goes through "training" of their own. (Sorry couldn't think of a better word yet) but lots of kids have unpredictable behaviors not just people with mental health conditions
Yes, I also feel like we should blame the parents more here when they are the ones that know their child had violent meltdowns and parents who leave the dog alone with their child too at first.
While I don’t disagree with this idea autism isn’t a mental health condition in itself its a neurodivergence while comorbidities are common and nothing to be ashamed of we’ve been autistic since birth. There’s no healing from autism just acceptance despite the traumatic affects of an ableist clueless world. Autism shows in positive, negative, and neutral aspects of my identity so it just doesn’t feel like my mental health conditions do.
It doesn't even have to be "aggressive". At least with more fragile animals it can be enough that children just play with them in order to harm them. And they may also do something that annoys the animal enough to trigger an attack.
I'm a 14 year old autistic male and my whole life I have grown up with cats. I love cats. I do have meltdowns sometimes, usually triggered by my dad, but I would never attack my cats. My cats are like my siblings and I love them. Even when I was younger, I would never do anything of the sort. These were 2 different instances that happened to end poorly. It doesn't say anything about anyone else.
All the points your listed are all valid and true. We bought a dog when my son was 18 months, then he got diagnosed around 2 years old and just after 6 months of having our dog, he became violent but never actually hurt our dog bc I was always around, never left them alone ever! I protected my dog at all cost, so nothing ever escalated to point of extreme harm. I did consider re homing her at one point but we chose not too. I’m glad we ended up keeping her. She is our family but your right. I can’t understand how those ppl didn’t protect their dog. They are to blame! It’s negligence and they should never own a dog if they can’t take all measures to keep their dog safe. My son is much better and he is very kind to animals but it took along time of teaching him. Definitely was worth it!
I was so upset about this shelter... I left a review. I'm sure it's against the law to have a policy that they refuse families with autistic children. That's just blatant discrimination and is not protected under our charter. Freedom of expression does not include blatant discrimination and refusal of services.
i volunteer at a large animal rescue & the majority of the other volunteers and staff are neurodivergent or almost definitely neurodivergent :) it’s the kindest group of people i’ve ever been around and the animals are very well cared for and happy!!
I agree with it being the parents' responsibility to know their child and not leave their child alone during a melt down. Autistic or not, some people just shouldn't have pets. Being autistic does not mean you cannot be trusted with a pet. I do not know what adopting a dog is like in different states. Especially dogs from shelters that are not non-profit. However, I do know a lot about non-profit cat shelters. The one I am more familiar with relies on donations to save the lives of thousands of cats. They do not have the money to pay their team to visit people in their homes and do the kind of assessment you are describing. That would be awesome, but with the amount of homeless cats and the weird social view that cats are these tough creatures that can safely live outdoors (completely untrue) this kind of process would dissuade potentially good homes from adopting out of inconvenience. Some people still behave like a "Karen" simply because they are asked questions to decide whether the home is safe. Again, I don't know about other states, but the money and legality of what you proposed is simply not in the cards here in Florida. When the alternative is euthanasia, shelters have to make tough calls. But I truly wish that there could be more thorough placements. Also, if you read this, thank you for making your videos. I like hearing your opinions. :)
as someone on the spectrum with dogs being my biggest special interest this video is so important. lots of adults seem to have the idea that you can just get a dog and "that's that". children have no idea how to act around dogs and dogs who display "negative" behaviours (growling, snapping etc) are always blamed when someone gets hurt. these are normal dog communication tools. the signs that dogs are uncomfortable are often ignored because of the assumption that dogs should be happy with their boundaries being pushed, and also people not being educated on the signs of dog uncomfortability (whale eyes, stress panting, stiffness). this leads to escalation because dogs can't advocate for their needs with speech.
this is entirely the rescue and parents fault for not ensuring that the dogs and Childs needs were met and making sure neither of their boundaries were crossed. very sad for everyone involved. it also breaks my heart at the idea that autistic children don't deserve dogs
Happy late Autism Acceptance Day and Happy Autism Acceptance Month! I keep on forgetting about the exact day. >~< Love your Content Paige! Hope you’re doing well. Edit: After listening to the story and after listening to the points after. I have to agree with all the points made.
No apology necessary, the States are a disaster and I 💯believe this ignorant lady is probably from the US. Thank you for all your videos. I’ve learned a lot from you💗
Your video is absolutely amazing! I love you and your channel. You seriously helped me in my mental journey and opened my eyes on many things. Btw great tattoos! Love 'em all! ❤❤❤
I am a ND single mum and carer of two ND children. My 8yo son has ASD and ADHD. He can be harmful to his surrounds including people sometimes. It is not malicious. He has a lot of trouble regulating. I work with his OT and psych to help him find strategies and tools to come back down. We are getting better at avoiding triggers and de escalating situations before they explode. He has come so far in being able to vocaluse his feelings. He adores animals. I grew up with animals. I miss having a dog. But we don't. Because I know that I do not have the time and resources to give a pet what they deserve. So we don't have one. I think there is so much having a pet could bring the family. And he is so sweet and loving 99% of time. That dog would be so loved. But I cannot reasonably guarantee that I would always have the time it deserves. I hope that over the next few years we can get to a place where that is different. But I won't get a pet unless we do. And yet I still have so many people insisting I get him a pet for his benefit, despite me explaining my lack of time and resources 😒
I did not say my son was autistic when we adopted Sumi our cat as in Italy where we are nobody understands autism and I was afraid they would be reluctant to give her to us.My son is 22 he has grown up with cats and loves her to bits and her him.
This makes me so mad. I have been around animals my whole life. I wasn’t diagnosed as autistic until adulthood. I have a cat that I raised from birth, and she is the friendliest, most spoiled thing. I have raised several kittens and some puppies like that, mostly as a kid. I was taught to be gentle and how to bottlefeed them correctly if they needed to be. But, if I had been diagnosed as a kid, and places like this had known, I wouldn’t have been able to get a pet with my family? It’s discrimination, and so blatant too. It’s not the kids’ fault or an autism thing. One hundred percent, it’s a lack of parental supervision and/or parents not showing their kids how to be gentle and respectful with animals. Places need to do their research and check into the parents, not automatically assume that, since this disability was a common thread, that must be the problem.
I feel like I understand animals more than I do people. My extended family has always had many animals, both pets and farm animals. I wanted to be a vet at one point, but I decided against it because 1) I don't like blood, so I couldn't do surgery and 2) I would probably die if I had to put an animal down.
My opinion before hearing what you have to say: "The plural of anecdote isn't data. They claim an educational specialist said 99% of autistic children have outbursts and can be violent - 99% of CHILDREN do. Using these anecdotes to make an unconstitutional, illegal policy that discriminates against all autistic children is ridiculous. Similarly, there is always a chance that an adopted dog will be abused, and it almost surely happens more often, worse, and is unreported with other adopters." Adjustments after hearing your opinions: I agree with you.
Side note: If 90% of the autistic kids in a school are having violent meltdowns, that school is not providing a suitable environment and the adults are clearly not qualified to be caring for them. Meltdowns don't happen just because, they are almost always the result of distress of some kind, so what that number actually tells me is 90% of the autistic children that teacher interacts with are in pain, which wouldn't be the case if they were qualified to be teaching autistic students.
Could not agree more!!!
yes as an autistic myself, i don’t JUST have meltdowns, something bad is happening
Thank you!
Agreed. It's baffling to me when people treat meltdowns the same way they would a physical symptom of a physical disease, like they're just something that happens in isolation as a symptom of that thing. You see it a lot when it comes to medications that reduce behaviour problems in autism, like nobody's even bothering to question what it's doing to someone mentally that leads to that outcome. Like it doesn't even matter as long as it makes your annoying kid be quiet.
@@Potatoe-f6u Actually if they were treating it like a symptom CORRECTLY, they'd be looking for the "irritant" that triggered the "flare up". (Like with a food allergy, the allergic reaction doesn't just HAPPEN because the person is allergic, it's caused by an allergen being introduced.)
So they're not even being competent about it in the physical illness sense either, it's basically like really bad doctors "treating the symptom and not the illness" but for a meltdown and neurodivergence.
It's amazing how often adults act carelessly and then come to the conclusion that the consequences are a disabled child's fault.
Not only child. Someone disadvantaged, such as an old person, a refugee, ... good old never ending story.
This is meant ironicaly. "Good old story".
"Don't all moms think their child is perfect?" Uhmmm... no. Some parents are actually realistic, Mama Bear.
And some parents are abusive it’s like everyone who’s written generalized quotes about mothers forgets that reality entirely.
My kids a little jerk at least 50% of the time, i want to know what Kool Aid that lady is drinking.
@@ravenof1985 The autism koolaid it comes with the package of being on the spectrum
Yeah she comes off as really narcissistic, she over emphasizes the importance of her rolls “Mama bear” and thinks her children are perfect probably because she sees her self in them.
also not everyone has such abject adulation for so-called "perfection", especially in children of all people who often learn through trial & error (not by, like, idk, being magical?). further, biting and other violence is a totally different axis than how excellent a child is: violence is objectively observable (though there is some subjectivity as to what one counts as violent), while excellence is wholly subjective. some people even see violence (or, some types of or aspects of violence) as excellent, so clearly an absence of violence is not a necessary part of all understandings of excellence or indeed "perfection". /rant
Dogs and children shouldnt be left alone, at all, especially in the very beginning. When we got our dog I called her into the room with me at all times so that there were no opportunities for a child to cross the dogs boundaries. I have five kids, ages infant-12 years, mostly autistic, and I was able to adopt a rescue dog and keep everyone safe. The parents and the rescue all failed here. I cannot imagine leaving my child prone to meltdowns, alone during a meltdown, and alone with the dog. The dog must have been panicking too, the whole thing is horrifying.
With this, even among autistic children it depends on the individual. Up until fairly recently I'd been exponentially more prone to shutdown than to meltdown (also, I am currently undiagnosed and pursuing diagnosis). We got our first dog when I was in 6th grade, a little black pug. For middle school I rode the bus home and was often, if not always, the first one home since my mom worked about half an hour away and my step-dad's job involved driving to different HEBs and delivering clip-strip stuff. So, my routine was to get home, use the landline to call my mom and tell her I made it, feed the dog, get a snack and then start hw.
I never was a danger to her and sometimes either she or the cat I'd had since I was almost 6yrs old (who passed away 2yrs ago at 18yrs old) would sit in my lap while I did my work.
I think it's important, before finalizing anything, if you're bringing an animal into a house with any child (disabled or otherwise) to have them meet and gauge how they interact, how the child approaches the animal and so on to see if the child is ready for a pet, and to see if the animal will cohabitate well with the child.
Having a blanket rule that no families with autistic kids can adopt from them discounts those of us who are gentle, those of us who naturally shutdown instead of meltdown, those of us who DO meltdown but either seclude ourselves or only hit our own bodies. Not to mention, like Paige said, the parents should be supervising better, how are they just ignoring the fact that their child is melting down? What is going on that's causing the meltdown? Why aren't they prepared to mitigate and deal with meltdowns in a way that keeps everyone from getting hurt? Things like that should be on a case-by-case basis. Not every child is ready for or a good match for a pet, but every child that wants one should have the chance to see if it will work.
*edit* also, I fully agree with Paige that if these rescues were really serious about ensuring the safety of their animals, regardless of level or type of ability, they need to do regular, un-planned check-ups. Someone could appear to be the most normal and loving when they interview for an animal, and then behind the scenes they're like a horror movie.
100% agree.
My dog was my baby sitter and I am autistic but I never caused pain to animals. Some kids do that and I believe that nueral typical kids have a higher rate of abusing animals. It's a warning sign for all people
Cat's shouldn't either.
When she said “this child was verbal” what she really meant was I see this child as more human and more normal, what an awful way to think
Right, that's what I got out of it, too. "This child is verbal, therefore I don't expect him to be chaotic and dangerous." She's basically admitting that she would expect this behavior from a non-verbal child.
You have to say verbal these days, she's just being politically correct. But even when someone tries to be politically correct it's not good enough for you people. High functioning is what she should have said.
Same thought.
NTs often use very demeaning terms when describing autistic people
@@facthunt2facthunt245 @Facthunt2 Facthunt2 uh, just because someone is non-verbal dosent mean that they arent "high functioning"
The terms "high functioning" and "low functioning" dont even really make sense anyways, as every autistic person has different struggles and limits to what they can or cant do. Just because someone cant talk dosent mean they arent intelligent.
@@facthunt2facthunt245 verbal and non-verbal are the correct terms, that doesn't mean that the sentence they are used in is immune to criticism. We're talking about what was implied, that a verbal person is safe for a dog than a non-verbal person, that is wrong.
It's kind of like saying "the home had a child, but it was not a person of color so I let them adopt the dog" correct language, fucked up message.
I'm writing my thoughts before I hear paige's: the fault doesn't lie with the kid but with their parents. If you know your kid bites when they have meltdowns or to stim, why are you leaving your child alone with your dog? Where are YOU to prevent your kid from biting your dog? Also how do you know that the dog isn't going to literally bite back from being injured? Youre putting both your dog AND your child in harm's way. Parents are ultimately at fault, not the kids. The "mama bear" is a POS for pushing the blame on a kid, and even moreso for pushing the narrative that autistic kids are violent and can't have regard for others.
Every single bit of this. And even with this in mind, I have a cousin who is aggressive during meltdowns, but the personality of the dog they adopted (after several trial runs) was so compatible that he was more of a calming influence (for the most part. If he thought he wasn’t gonna be able to help, he’d disappear with a quickness)
The main point here is that you should know your kid before you try to add to your family with a pet, and don’t just pick one for the asthetics. Adopt based on personality.
If the dog bites the kid, “some” people would say “Oh he’s just being a dog” “The kid was probably being rough with him” “He might have been through trauma”.
Agreed
100%. With any animal and any child, you are supposed to have an adult present when interacting with it, at least until it settles in, especially if it’s a rescue that you have just brought home. The child and the dog should have never been put in this situation in the first place. And if your dog and child cannot interact together safely, don’t adopt the dog!
That's basically what Paige said! You guys are clearly on the same page. 😄
Ahhh the classic "blame the (disabled) child for the shitty adult's bad decisions". So much adult failure in this story. And also, the policy clearly violates anti-discrimination law anywhere in Canada. Not technically a hate crime, but it's easily the kind of thoughtless reactive decision that makes people lose human rights complaints. As an animal-lover, disabled person, and holder of a law degree, I'm frustrated and disappointed on so many levels....
As a add-on to this, my understanding is that autism falls into the category of "disability" under the US's ADA, which means that, yes, the policy would also be considered illegal under US law. As would refusing to adopt dogs to men in their 20s and 30s (although that would be a different law).
This is so wildly ironic to me given that 1. I’m an autistic adult who in-home fosters for a dog rescue (and I’m fucking great at it btw) and 2. I’m virtually certain that more than half of the people who run the rescue I’m with are autistic too.
This is so true! I strongly believe that many many women in rescue are undiagnosed ASD. I have fostered/rescued hundreds of animals, starting as a teen. To deny those with ASD as a potential home would not only be discriminatory to the human, but it would be a huge disservice to the animal. ASD humans have the ability to love and understand animals in a way that many NTs cannot.
Not autistic but I’m pretty convinced that autistic people do well with animals if not do better themselves with pets because animals are great and can be really calming or help give routine in the care of them. So I would think it’s better for autistic people to have pets rather than to not have pets?? Granted I’m biased for the idea of people having pets and should learn how to properly take care of animals.
I am the proud dad of two adults who are on the spectrum. He's a brilliant academic and she's a powerful artist. I raised my grandson, who is of course on the spectrum, and who is a pain in the neck for an able grandfather, and whom I love ferociously. Your post reminds me of the wild fierce moments of beauty and total success that are my rewards. Thank you for being fucking great.
@@Jazzatic2011 Honestly I think it might be because we don't have the social manual that everyone else seems to have, so we're used to building social interaction manuals by watching. We're "social polyglots" who learn neurotypical social stuff as a second "social language", so maybe that makes it easier to learn the non-human animals' cues too?
And animals don't undergo bizarre rituals that are counterintuitive to instincts and have all these weird rules about "politeness"- I know that I have more in common with dogs and cats and fish than with other humans when I see something or someone interesting: I want to look and poke and investigate!
@@neoqwerty i wholeheartedly agree with your first paragraph. the second one is part of why i question my asd diagnosis.
When I worked with autistic peers in high school, we had kids who would sometimes be aggressive and violent. HOWEVER, that was because the kids:
1) didn't have a good system at home or parents that could appropriately care for them
2) their needs were not being met/they didn't have proper accommodations
3) they were fucking unhappy because people talked to them like children
4) the program for them was run by someone who didn't seem to understand autism as much as an expert should
5) the program was understaffed and undertrained for the amount of work and number of kids they worked with and
6) the school when above their heads to get as many autistic kids as they could (despite not providing the resources for those kids) because it looked good on the outside (savior complex fuckwads) and because they got extra money for each autistic kid they had.
This same school also cut the number of elective classes (in the majority general education section of the school) and shoved their entire school population in a very small number of them (40+ students per class, every class, all day). I remember MORE TIMES THAN I CAN COUNT ON BOTH MY HANDS times where we wouldn't have enough chairs/desks for students. And not just for the first day. Sometimes it was over a week because the teacher couldn't find something in their entire department.
And then, they would also not take students' names off the attendance roster for classes even though they'd transferred out of the school LITERALLY MONTHS AGO because they got money for each kid they taught, keeping real names to get funds because of kids that are long gone to use somewhere else where we'd never see a dime (which, might I add, is fucking illegal, both the number of kids per class and keeping names on a roster to keep getting money).
While I didn't have the ability to leave the school (despite all the horrible trauma I suffered because of the fucking admin, looking at you Dave) I left that program after 2 years because I was so uncomfortable with how it was run, and I knew literally nothing about autism and still knew something was wrong.
So no, autistic people are not inherently violent. Fuck anyone who says otherwise. Do better, parents. Actually care about your children, why is this something I have to beg for it's your fucking job? Is it really so hard to just not abuse them?
(Edited the text into paragraphs for easier reading
You, are an absolute ICON my friend thank you SO MUCH for sharing! 🥰 I deeply appreciate it. That sounds like an absolute nightmare holy- I am so sorry, as fellow autistic I don’t think I could’ve stood that. Well, I mean, ABA wasn’t any better. 💫 Let’s not abuse children and call it education or therapy 💫
@Addison Johnson what's worse is I was a student aide in the class. I wasn't even hired or paid. I went through all that shit for free and for a grade. One of the only good things I got out of that whole experience is that I realized that I might be autistic (haven't been diagnosed though so maybe not).
@@elix1133 oh cool!! Well, if you are, I hope you get a diagnosis soon, but we welcome you with open arms nonetheless! 💫 I hope the rest of them finally got what they needed, my very best to them.
@@hah-no.
Yeah that system needs to be banned and shut down, like *IMMEDIATELY!*
Before I left to live on my own, we've had 17 family dogs. SEVENTEEN. (5 at a time at most)
I have NEVER struck or hurt a dog. My neurotypical sister, however... I'd even argue that I took better care of the dogs at my mother's house than the rest of the family. When my mother kicked me out, my dog became depressive because my sister would be so mean to her and my mother would let the other dog attack and annoy her. Just because she was my dog. Not taking her with me is the biggest regret of my life.
My point: this is not a case of autistic children = bad with animals. It's a case of children being bad with animals = BAD PARENTING.
Why were u kicked out!?!?
This is gross. I would NEVER EVER EVER harm an animal, no matter how overwhelmed I feel. There are a ton of NT animal abusers too, so they should do better research.
I had the same thought about NT animal abusers!
I was thinking that too and then I was like… is there anything typical about animal abuse? Definitely doesn’t have to do with autism, but there’s gotta be some wrong with brain and emotional development to cause someone to abuse another being 😞
The fact nd ppl are shown as aggressive and violent is sickening, when literally any type of kids could have done that. Thats all on the parents.
Exactly.
@@ohrats731 Actually neurotypical people are perfectly capable of being evil.
Stop adopting dogs as nannies to children, period. 🤦🏼♀️ There’s all these stories of like “autistic child bonds with dog and it’s a miracle because they BaD aT PeOpLe!” So all these parents who don’t care enough to help their child express their feelings and learn to cope, they hope a dog will fix them??
I read their defense and it was awful. Garbage rescue, but im not shocked. I managed an animal shelter and there were so many racist, prejudice and awful people in animal rescue.
True so many people who are garbage in this world. I am glad you stay strong.
🧗♀️
I think I've seen some homophobic rescues too.
I too have encountered some of the worst, most hateful and ignorant humans I've ever met in the animal rescue/sanctuary world. The more I hear from others, the more I realize this is actually a widespread problem. It doesn't get talked about enough and when it is brought up, those who support these orgs are quick to dismiss any allegations without a second thought. That's assuming they don't form a hate mob and start calling in death threats, of course. Ask me how I know....
(Actually don't, lmao. I don't really wanna talk about it. 😅)
I think there’s a thing about humans that care more about animals than other humans, I see prejudice in the vegan community too for the sake of animal rights but they don’t have the same passion for human rights
So… 2 autistic kids had a problem with the dogs their parents adopted and so now no autistic person can adopt a dog from this rescue? Do NT’s not abuse dogs?
I fully blame the caregiver of the kids for not being able to read their kids well enough to know if pets are ok or not, and also for not doing a “trial run” with other dogs to see which personality styles clash or are compatible with the kids.
My oldest had a rescued Pitbull from the age of 5 until the dog passed from an old-age stroke just a couple weeks ago (9 years) with zero issues.
It’s a matter of figuring out what you, your child, and the dog can handle and what’s best.
We had to return a rescue dog when my oldest was 3 because the dog had severe diarrhea when he was fed “people food” and my oldest (who was non-speaking at the time) kept sharing goldfish crackers with the poor pup…
TL;DR: every person and every animal is different and you have to find a pet that is compatible with the *whole* family.
Couldn't agree more
2 autistic kids had a problem AND a professional said 99% of autistic kids are violent, obviously it must be the autistic kids.
Why couldn't you separate the dog when your child was eating? Sorry for not understanding just seems like a simple issue to fix?
@@elizabethhalt2096 A lot of kids have open access to snacks, or take their time eating... or leave them around... Better to get the dog out of harm's way than to have that as a continuous risk. Parents already have to stay on top of a lot.
@@elizabethhalt2096 Kids have a magic ability to pull snacks out of thin air sometimes, I swear. They're like squirrels but they hoard goldfish crackers and cheerios.
(My personal record was a full hour with an offhand fistful of fruit loops that wasn't spotted by anyone before I sat down to eat them.)
Autistic vet student here 🙃 Having worked w all kinds of animal rescues- yes it's rough, and it's difficult to screen everyone as extensively as we'd like when there's an *endless* stream of pets that need saving. HOWEVER, like you said there were so many levels of precaution that were neglected here, from the parents especially. All kids need to be taught how to act around animals and highly supervised throughout.
It pisses me off so much when people expect animals to have zero boundaries, ignore all their attempts to ask for space, and then blame the animal when they so much as growl or nip at a kid. In my experience too, most autistics (of all ages), myself included, have had intense empathy and connection to animals; and the times I've seen kids be straight up cruel to them, they've all been totally NT as far as I know. I could talk for hours about the animals I saw returned to pet stores 🤦 Something else I've learned over the years is not everyone in these lines of work are good and/or informed people. I'll always give credit for helping save animals, but this is some straight BS. Thanks for sharing
I'm glad to hear you're going to be a vet! I've been a groomer since 1982 and worked many animal jobs before then including picking up injured animals as the overnight ambulance worker for the SPCA.
I develop relationships with the dogs I see for grooming. I do everything I can to make it easier for them. I only see one at a time so they don't have to be caged or hear a lot of other dogs. I have my shop where when they are on the table they can watch deer and squirrels out the window.
Those parents did not do their job and protect the dog and their child. Any child may be a threat to an animal, they need to be taught how to interact with the animal.
Paige, thank you so much for showing me, that I, as an Autistic girl have a chance of growing up, getting a job, and live a life i (and everyone) deserve 🙏
What made me feel sick to my stomach was when she had said that mothers with autistic children think they are perfect, doesn't every mom?
Like okay I get that no, no child is perfect. But jeez if that didn't sound like she was insinuating all autistic children. Like bro, what the dip.
I agree, but what do you expect off of Facebook?!
"PLEASE be parents" is my favorite quote of this video
Pausing at 8:07 to give my opinion
It seems very weird to me that the person took 2 very specific cases as the basis of a pretty ableist policy. I mean, were those the only two families with autistic children that adopted? I kinda doubt that, I feel like it's more likely a case of confirmation bias... And that really sucks.
Exactly! I was immediately wondering 'erm?' if over the span of these 15 years there were only TWO families with an autistic child.
It's not ableist to put the animal first. Nobody is entitled to animals.
Wtf!!! My daughter is amazing with animals! Not to mention how many autistic kids have service dogs! This is ridiculous and very upsetting.
Okay so I'm leaving my comment and im interested to see if it'll change. I have ADHD(diagnosed, since a child.) And in my opinion, anybody who disciplines an entire group of people based off one or two peoples actions, *THAT IS ABLEIST* . Her saying she doesn't adopt out to anyone with Autism, to me, is ableist.
I have ADHD and although it's not the same, there are a lot of overlapping symptoms, and I do struggle to regulate my emotions and ive always had violent outbursts, but the thing is, I've never once hurt anyone other than myself. I've either hurt myself, or broke something that was mine and didn't effect anyone but me.
I've also had dogs in my life my entire life, and none of my outbursts have ever effected the dogs. Often, my dog is able to calm me down before I even get to the point where it's a full blown outburst, so she's actually prevented a lot of outbursts...
Also, in my opinion, the lady wasn't doing due diligence if she truly did adopt out 2 dogs into homes that hurt them so bad they needed stitches within days. She should've looked into the family and had them meet the dog at the shelter, then at their house, and seen how everyone interacts with the dog, make sure the house is OK and they're able to take care of the dog, etc. If both children were so violent to the point where the dogs had cuts all over their heads and ears like described, you'd think that during due diligence the lady would've found out that the child has autism and has violent bursts, and she should've watched them interact longer, let the dog stay overnight and see how it goes, she should've done ALL of the above before adopting out a dog.
Honestly, I also don't believe the story. Both kids hurt the dog in the same spot, in the same time frame? That's odd.
So agree with your dog(s) being able to de-escalate the situation. My littlest guy comes to touch me and try to snuggle when I'm upset.
Yeah if she had said something like “I’ve had two kids of color hurt dogs so I won’t be adopting out to families with children of color” she’d be run out of town. She’s still discriminating!! And just think of all the families with “normal” kids who hurt dogs and the parents never say boo…. My brother had a friend in elementary school that our mom stopped him from playing with when the kid’s sister’s kitten “mysteriously disappeared” 😞
It’s absolutely ableist !!! Hard agree.
@@lindat7525 same, my dog can tell I'm upset before I even know. She will come snuggle with me, and try playing with me, and she will also start acting crazy to make me laugh and stuff, she's amazing.
The story is a bit hard for me to believe as well. I don't know much about shelters so maybe there's something I'm missing, but it's odd that in both cases the injuries looked so gruesome? It seems more likely that a kid having a violent meltdown would hit or throw smaller objects, something that wouldn't leave much of a visible injury on a dog. Strange that the injuries on the dogs were so story worthy in the only two times this happened. Also her implying that 99% of autistic children are violent makes this story even less believable, like she may be intentionally trying to paint autistics in a bad light.
"My friend says that this group of people is overwhelmingly aggressive and violent so i am not going to learn anything about them and instead am just going to turn away every single person in this group."
It is awful that these dogs were put through this, and its also awful that someone is using it to justify wild generalizations about a group who are consistently maligned by people who dont bother to take the time to understand anything about them.
I do disagree with the whole: Autistic people are violent. Im Autistic but I was never really a violent person, and I rarely got angry. I only tended to get angry when people were ignoring my needs, my point was not getting across, or people were downright being rude and inconsiderate jerks towards me. My anger was justifiable rather than traits.
Good Video Paige.
Exactly! My sister and so many other autistic people have never been inexplicably angry and never never violent!
Autistic and adhd and im definitely pretty short tempered and often express myself via rage but i ain’t violent i mean sometimes i do throw things on the floor when im angry or smack my sisters(they NTs and we smack each other quite often she do too) but nothing more
I’m autistic but I’m non violent I’ve never had a history of violence
I can be violet but would never hurt an animal on purpose
My violence is a response to people ignoring my needs (most of the time)
Also autistic and nonviolent.
I think as far as policies go, it's... Inconsistent? Like I don't understand why the owner thinks it is an issue with autistic children specifically. I think if that's a concern with rescue animals, it's best to have a policy that just says no homes with young children. Children are kind of terrible with animals typically. Even if they're not trying to be irritating to them, children tend to not understand boundaries with animals. Which is probably fine sometimes with a random healthy puppy. But not with a rescue. If a rescue and a family with a child are a good fit it's fine I guess, I just don't think it's wise typically. Idk.
Paige, thank you for being out there. I'm 52 and been struggling with mental health my whole life because I was a autistic nerdy girl growing up in the 70s and 80s. Thank you for being one of the awesome RUclipsrs who opened my eyes to the fact that I'm mental making me mask and fit in was mental. It's going to be a process for a formal diagnosis but I know and those who know me agree I'm on spectrum so different sure but not mental. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Good luck on your process, remember that self-diagnose is valid too! Knowing why things are so hard makes such a difference
On the surface, it seems like the children weren't taught how to process their meltdowns properly. Whether the responsibility falls to the parents, caretakers, or county workers (if applicable), autistic children should have the tools necessary to resolve their meltdowns without harming anyone.
One trick I do is beat up my pillow and throw it around. It can take quite a bit!
Alternately, I either rip up an old newspaper or throw ice cubes onto the pavement or into the bathtub.
That's why I like martial arts. ✊👊🤛😁
ah i beat up my pillows too at first when i heard about this i feel the adreline which is not common cause i am alexithymic
I do push-ups or other sortsa exercises ^^
helps me to not bite or hit myself, plus im getting some exercise in so definitely a win-win
And if they chew things as a stim, the parents could have easily provided a chew necklace. There are so many ways this could've easily been prevented. It also sounds like the parents didn't teach the kids not to hurt the puppers.
The govt is not responsible for raising your children.
I feel like people on the internet are especially awful to us. I had someone tell me they hope I know I shouldnt have more kids because I'm autistic with five kids who are so far all autistic. I think thats eugenics Brenda, but okay. Autism month is the worst
That's because neurotypicals are afraid we'll outperform them. It doesn't matter which political party is in office, neither one doesn't care. I feel like we're being ganged up on by both sides. *sigh* We need our own country.
That IS eugenics Brenda ommfgsgsbsigdv 🤣🤣 people have no shame 😬😬
Asperger was a German who was a nazi who DID practice eugenics. Little wonder why they got rid of that diagnosis? Also, sad that people would say that to you about having more children.
They claim to hate autistic ppl yet they love Kanye or Eminem. In my country there’s a sayin”all autistics got access to a microphone”(when someone embarass themselves on social media/release a bad song) and im like thank God we do or else we wouldn’t have Kanye or Eminem
I don't think that way for autism specifically, but I do actually think that people with permanent genetic illnesses and disabilities shouldn't make kids (I dont think it should be forced by law either). For the same reason it is unethitcal to breed animals with genetic health issues (pugs for example). The offspring will have to suffer from it their whole life, and before that life was started it would have been neutral if it never was. As a human you also have the awareness of being doomed and helpless and not able to contribute anything if you wanted to. Plus if someone doesn't want to live through it, society wont give them that choice. Depending on the disability/illness it may even be worse for humans.
And since human societies have so much less natural selection than animals in the wild (with advanced technology, welfare, disability benefits and healthcare, all are good by themself) we may have to somewhat compensate to keep our own genetics and humanity itself reasonably healthy. Its about many things, individual health and life quality, overall health in society (which affects how well it runs) and how well we are prepared for a possible disaster. I think my stance on eugenics is "only for ensuring base level health and function" and not for altering personality, appearance, talent etc. it can be taken way too far and abused for control. But it shouldn't be dismissed completely either.
Holy shit... I am autistic and my rescue dog is my whole world. When I was a child, I always had dogs. I have literally never not owned at least one dog. I was never abusive to any of them. They're my babies
Paige, I completely agree with your view on how dog rescues should involve extensive research and check-ins on families, but it is actually not the norm. I've rescued 5 dogs in my life, all from different rescues. And only one made us come and meet the dog prior to the adoption date. And again only one place, and it wasnt even an organization, proceed to do a check-up. I think it should be necessary, and fortunately I know my dogs are in a safe, loving home that can provide for them. it is not the norm in my experience, but I hope it will be in the future.
I think it might be more common in Canada but idk
I agree. I’m in the states and the way I was raised, my parents thought it was ridiculous that a rescue we wanted to adopt from wanted to do a home inspection. It’s totally not the norm. Now that I’m older I understand why it’s done, and had a home inspection upon adopting my kitties, but even then, the rescue has never asked to check up on them now that they’re with me.
@@ClaireAKokE I'm in Canada and adopted a dog back at the end of December. The first time I met him was when I picked him up at a gas station parking lot at 4 am. But he came from Georgia so there was no way I'd have been able to meet him before adopting him. (We hardly have any local dogs to adopt here, so most people in my part of Canada buy from a breeder or adopt from the US.)
I'm in the northern US and I feel like it's somewhere in between these two experiences. My friend has fostered for a while. With her org., they do one home inspection and some times the potential adopters come to the foster parent's home to meet the animal first. They usually get follow up pictures (as fosters) and stuff but not sure if it's required.
Unfortunately this once led to two kittens my friend fostered being placed in a hoarding situation. They examined his home, but not extensively. He moved his things out of the common rooms so they wouldn't see. He was known to be a hoarder who tried to adopt animals from different organizations, so after a week or so someone came and fully inspected the house and took the kittens away. My friend was heartbroken as she directly did the home inspection and felt like she failed the kittens. Luckily they now have a wonderful home where my friend has even gotten to pet-sit for their owners!
I snickered out loud multiple times from your blunt humor, you make infuriating topics actually pallitable to listen to, thanks so much for speaking out about this bs
the overgeneralisations these people make is beyond absurd to me. like absolutely of course don't give an animal to a child that will hurt it. but refusing ALL autistic children?? clearly this person has a limited understanding of autism.
it's like if you gave an animal to a family with any child (nd OR nt) and the child hurts it. then same thing happens again a few years later. so you decide to not give animals to any families with children. it just sounds ridiculous
When I was an autistic child (not that anyone realised then) I was so gentle and sensitive with animals. I was the one safe person for a lot of traumatised animals, I think they sensed I was safe and they were often there for me and soothed me out of meltdowns and distress.
I also feel awful for the animals in these stories, I hope they found safe and loving homes. It's always on the adults to take responsibility for the welfare of children and animals in their care.
All your points are spot-on Paige.
With your point at 25:43, you could probably really get through to people who rescue dogs by comparing this situation to pitbulls and how they get stereotyped as an aggressive breed. Funnily enough, I have had two really bad experiences with pitbulls; as a kid I witnessed one kill a toy poodle, and another time a roommate asked if I could walk their pitbull and I had to restrain them when they tried to attack a stranger. Almost any dog rescuer will, rightly IMO, note that these experiences shouldn't be representative of all pitbulls and will recognize that in these instances the owners failed to be responsible for their animal. If they can understand that situation with a dog, it's kind of gross to me they can't understand why stereotyping like this is wrong when it's an actual human person.
I agree with you, and I've been attacked by a pitbull. You can't blame the breed. The dog that bit me had negligent owners who let it escape its pen (and likely mistreated it). The other two pitbulls I've had personal experiences with were furry angels who just harrassed me for belly rubs. If you raise your dog right, it will behave right. If you raise your human children right, they will also behave right.
This such a good comparison, I will definitely remember it!
Pot bulls used to be bred to protect children but aggression (and non aggression) can be bred in as little as three generations. Pit bulls have been bred for aggression for many years now and it can definitely be bred into a breed. Also the damage an aggressive pit bull can do compared to a schnauzer is much more severe. Aggression was bred out of wild foxes in just three generations by choosing only the ones who didn't try to bite, imagine to the impact to the opposite can do on domestic dogs... I rescue mutts, it's always easy to find a home for a pit bull. I don't like breed specific rescues.
I know the rescue that posted this horrible post, as it was reported by the CBC. Interestingly, one of the employee's was also going around claiming that she was going to sue for defamation; anyone for who called the rescue ableist.
Given your explanation of the situation, it would sound like discovery would give us a lot of interesting deets.
Page I just found out last year I was autistic at first I didn't want to tell anyone but you have taught me so much about myself in ways schools and doctors have never been able to. You've helped my confidence so much and helped me to love myself so much more thanks
The fallacy this rescue used is called a faulty generalization. So, your examples were, for the most part, a perfect way to illuminate the problem with this fallacy. Great job, Paige!
At the end of the day, it isn't only autistic children that could be violent towards dogs. My not autistic nephews wrestle their dogs and used to smack them before their parents caught them.
That’s awful
Maybe your sibling and nephews need supernanny
@@sophiebyers5496 Well, they're way better now.
@@emerycorner That’s good
They might be undiagnosed.
I saw this post recently and I gotta say, as an autistic person who has worked with countless different animals, at rescues and zoos, and who now works part time at the animal shelter in my hometown, this royally pissed me off. My very first thought was that any child can do this to an animal. This behavior is *NOT* exclusive to autistic children. And as you brought up, it's obviously not exclusive to children if men in their 20s and 30s are the most likely to abuse animals.
You went way more in depth in this video than my thoughts did when I first saw this post, not only with the autism part but also the animal part. I also love animals, could never imagine hurting one, and have had pets all my life. I literally sat on my cat when I was a toddler and he was not bothered. I never hurt him. If I had, my parents would have stopped it. Again with the responsibility being on the adults here...that's true for all situations involving an animal and a child, no matter what the child's neurotype is. That's what I still come back to
No kidding. I know a person who bit his dog as a toddler, and that person (now a man) has ADHD which was undiagnosed at the time, and no autism. And yet, funny, there isn't an ADHD/violence stereotype, even. And ADHD doesn't inherently make people more violent, anyway. And toddlers in general might think biting a dog is a good idea just because they see dogs biting each other or their toys. Because toddlers have a very rudimentary understanding of social anything, and in spite of their repeated cries of "MINE!", they don't even have a real concept of ownership (they just say that word because it's easy to say and generally conveys the idea of wanting to eat or hold something).
@@lsmmoore1 Yep. Branding all autistic people or all autistic children as somehow more violent than any other group is incredibly harmful and ableist. Children don't understand what's okay and what's not, regardless of their neurotype
Cruelty to animals is actually highly correlated with psychopathy, not autism. If memory serves, it's one of the leading childhood indicators that someone is a psychopath (along with, IIRC, bedwetting, arson and a few others).
I frankly wonder if one or both of these children were psychopaths misdiagnosed as autistic because they were so poorly adjusted to society.
it is absolutely wild that instead of getting to know families better, their solution is bigotry?!?!?!? They just don't want to put in the work!!! ugh, this makes me so angry, I'm autistic myself and our family pets growing up did so much good for me in having someone around that didn't expect NT behavior from me...
this was on the local news and became the topic that my family was mad about for a week lol. it's a place in ontario and it's definitely illegal ! thanks for chatting about it
These stories strike me as lies more than failures of parents, I just do NOT see a dog sitting still and letting a kid bite them hard enough to injure. I say this as a dog owner, an autistic person, and as a parent of an autistic kid.
So true! A dog wouldn’t let that happen over and over I’m shocked I didn’t think about that lol 😂. (I’m also an autistic person, thought I’d throw that in there)
Actually, I have known dogs that will allow abuse without making a noise or attacking. Pit bulls are actually known for doing this if they aren’t trained toward violence. I thought it surprising to see this behavior in a rescue with an unknown history where the animal might be suffering with abandonment, anxiety or trauma but it wasn’t completely surprising that a dog might not react.
Sheep dogs stand up for themselves, they will growl and bark to communicate when they don't like your behavior. there is no way that didn't also try to bit a child that did that to them.
This is the thought I had as well. It is like the gross racist posts about people with dreads being dirty.
I'm having a *horrible* day at work right now and that deep breath in and out at the beggining almost had me cry. I really needed this thank you so much 🥺😮💨❤
My son is nonverbal and very very great with animals. He’s only 2 though so I constantly watch and he’s only with animals if I’m there too (and always will) I too am autistic but I’m verbal . Really don’t see what difference being able to talk makes
Totally agree with you. My son has a sensory biting need so I know to have his “chewies” with us at all times.
I've known several instances of non autistic children hurting an animal. it just happens when parents don't parent and teach their kids you can't just hurt something and its wrong.
The policy is based on a mistaken assumption that all autistic people are the same and thus are dangerous, this is of course not true and she got very unlucky with the dogs being injured, she has no idea of context and the policy is discriminatory in nature and would be a reason for me to never use her as a supplier
I have two yr old twins and the neurotypical one is WAY more likely to hurt our new kitten because the one on the spectrum isn’t interested in him at all ❤ it goes with all children needing to be taught to respect animals and all parents need to be realistic about who their child is
Two years old is too young to be diagnosed.
This was exactly how I felt upon reading that post for the first time. I was able to adopt my doggo fairly easily from out of state and I checked in with them way more than they checked in with me. My girl didn't leave my sight in my place when I was home. If I wasn't at home, she was in her crate. I would make sure to come home throughout my day and let her out and take her for walks. Anyways, any negative behavior she has, I blame myself for. Yesterday a dog snuck up on us on a walk and she showed signs of aggression and we came straight home as I went into panic attack mode. She sat in my lap as I cried and she asked to be petted so I could calm down. In the US it's not uncommon for rescues to adopt out animals rather easily. My thoughts are still scrambled but hopefully some of that made sense.
I'm newly diagnosed as autistic. It explains so much of my 52 years of life. It explains so much about why people don't understand the things I say. Thank you for your channel
This entire situation simultaneously seems like blatant animal and child neglect :/ On behalf of both (mostly) the parents, as well as the rescue itself not taking further steps to ensure their adoptee animals are housed safely
People need to know that pet ownership is a privilege dependent on how people, autistic or not, treat their pets. As an autistic person, and a proud owner of two dogs (a Cockapoo and a Coonhound Mix), I honor that privilege every day by doing what I have to do to take care of them. And I would suffer any consequence, because of my actions, if anyone did ANYTHING to hurt them.
There was a shelter by my house when my family was thinking about adopting a dog that suddenly refused to let us see dogs once my mom said that my sister was autistic, so we needed to make sure we had a dog that was really good with kids. We then went to another shelter, which did not care that my sister was autistic, and got the sweetest, most loving, dumb dog that we could have possibly gotten. Never once had any major issues with the dog and my sister or either of their's safety. Imagine being that horrible??? can't relate.
“I think that’s a hate crime, babe” merch alert
My son has grown up with a dog and cats his entire life. He has never injured or assaulted them. Not once. Not in a melt down, not ever. He's been around many other pets, as almost every single other household in our friends and family circle also have at least one pet, in the case of my sister 5 cats. It's highly upsetting that someone can take the position that we shouldn't have our animals (the dog and the cat which passed away in November in her sleep were both rescues) because this terrible woman says his diagnosis makes us unworthy. When did it become acceptable to look at the disabled as if they aren't all unique individuals?!
So many parents are really freaking irresponsible about their children and potential pets. April is also Easter time🐇, which turns out to be the most dangerous time of year for rabbits. I follow a few rabbit rescue pages, and there are countless cases of parents buying their kid a new bunny, just because it's fluffy and cute and their kid wants one. They do this without doing ANY research on how to actually take care of such a high-maintence pet, and leave the bunnies to the kids, not knowing that the PRIMARY caretaker should be the ADULT. And surprise surprise, the poor thing gets abused, thrown out when it's too much of a "hassle", or the kid simply gets bored with it.
Wouldn't surprise me if these parents really thought they were doing a kind and benevolent act by also just ... handing over some fluffy thing to their child with almost no deeper consideration besides "it would be good for them"😒Has much less to do with whether the kid's autistic, and much more to do with the fact that people don't THINK about this stuff long enough first.
also a snake would be mega cool and I agree with putting it in the smaller spot. maybe it could be like,, coiled or in a very lose know or something idk
It also seems to go back to "if you've met one autistic person, then you've met one autistic person". No one would ever say "I don't want to give dogs to any blue/orange/purple people anymore because I've had too many bad experiences". There are certainly a lot of bad blue/orange/purple people out there, but it has nothing to do with them being blue/orange/purple. There's never any excuse for being lazy or prejudiced and not wanting to get to know someone as an individual. Generalizations about any group of people ends up being prejudicial. You're absolutely correct to blame the process and the people facilitating that process more than anything.
Popping down w initial thoughts and then I'll come back at the end: I think a better option would be for her educate herself a bit more and then have specific questions she asks all parents with children. Like, "How will you handle tantrums or meltdowns when they affect the dog's safety?" "What will you teach your kids about boundaries when you get this pet?" I get her concern, but these are just two cases and honestly, any kid might do this imo.
Yep. Agree 100%. Not enough questions were asked. Not enough supervision was done. And they should be screening every parent w kids bc NT kids hurt animals too.
I heard a similar story about an SPCA with a family trying to adopt a cat for their autistic child. One cat got scared when the child got loud and they refused to let them adopt any cat instead of introduce them to a calmer, older cat.
I love the idea of banning men in their 20s and 30s from having rescue dogs, based on the statistics. Not only is that lady's policy morally wrong, it's likely legally wrong. It's not a hate crime, but if this took place in the US it's still straight up illegal to discriminate in that way.
Excellent response, Paige. I'm glad that you were able to look at it from all sides and give all available input. :)
I made the mistake of reading more about the rescue. Woof… (no pun intended lol) Now I’m too mad and worked up to sleep. The rescue responded to a supporter on Facebook and called parents of autistic kids “nutters.” F that! And they deleted or demeaned anyone who disagreed with them. This person is 100% a gaslighter. They won’t see any point of view but their own and to top it off they have no respect or grace when it comes to speaking to others. They reply to all their bad reviews on Google and it’s scary. I know how temping it can be to defend your image, but if you’re a business, it’s really better to reply with something like “I’m sorry our services didn’t meet your expectations. Thanks for your input. We strive to do better in the future” in most cases, in my opinion
My family and I have owned dogs since I was a baby. Any kid has the capacity to hurt a dog. Pulling their tail, hitting them, biting them, pulling their fur, etc. To have autistic children be the spotlight of addressing children and their behavior with dogs is very biased. Most kids have tantrums. Most kids have poor emotion regulation. It’s part of growing up. Parents have a responsibility to teach their children and supervise their children’s interactions with others, animals and humans. If you know your child has a tendency to lash out or bite, or hit, or anything of that nature, you have to ensure there are precautions. If your child starts getting aggressive, melt down or otherwise, you need to intervene and keep both parties safe. When you get an animal, it’s your responsibility to ensure its safety. The fault lies not with the children, nor their autism, but with the situation and the handling of it.
The humour at the end was golden ✨ Always a pleasure watching your videos, Paige 💙🙇♀️
Because of this no one will adopt a dog to me as an autistic adult. I don't even share my "diagnosis" (in quotes because not officially evaluated yet at time of posting) with them but they tell me I'm too quiet, fidgety, won't make eye contact with humans. So they won't adopt to me even though they think I'm qualified becausei exhibit autistic traits. So, the world sucks and hates us, the end. Thankfully this hasn't spread to the cat shelters in my area so I have Esa cats now.
Paige I couldn’t agree with you more. I hope all those who watch this video will share it. Your message is important.
I love that the whole message of this isn’t “I want my rescues to be safe” and instead “autistic people are violent and dangerous monsters that must be contained.” I am autistic and admittedly, I’ve had my struggles with violence in the past, but that’s because I went undiagnosed for 18 years and neither I nor my family knew what we needed to do to help me stay calm. Now, I’m getting a lot better with controlling it because I’m starting to learn about the accommodations I need and better coping skills. It’s what makes this post all the more absurd. I know, at least from my perspective, that I never liked getting violent in a meltdown, and I bet that >99% of other autistics would say the same. If we skip by the fact that this rescue hates autistic people with a passion and wanted to have way to vent and enforce their hatred, the whole conflict could have been avoided with the counter points in this video.
I think they just want their animals to be safe. Think about how distressing it was for the dog and that poor woman having to see those bite marks. The child was better off with a chew-toy not a pet.
@@facthunt2facthunt245That is incredibly ableist.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. The rescue selected unfit parents. That's what happened. They should add to their criteria to minimize the chance of it happening again. Simply banning all autistic children is irresponsible and solves nothing. I have autism, and I have always had many different kinds of pets from an early age. One of my obsessions has always been animals. I could care for even very difficult pets. Any violence I experienced during a meltdown was always directed toward myself. My parents knew that. That's why they trusted me with delicate lizards and mice. The parents that the rescue had trusted simply weren't attentive or insightful enough to make a good decision when it came to getting a dog.
Reacue dogs are hard to handle in general and 99% of the time need a special enviroment with an experienced owner which is why it annoys me when ppl say "adopt dont buy".
Adopting a dog isnt getting a free dog, if you have never owned a dog before adopting a dog might very well be a bad idea...we literally went to multiple shelters and all the shelters only had dogs with mental health issues and trauma as firsr time owners ur.not equipped to deal with this.
We BOUGHT a german shepherd from an ethical breeder instead. Now i know how dogs work. Now i know what to expect. But even then, most shelter dogs have trauma. Most people who rescue dogs are even PROFESSIONAL DOG TRAINERS.
A dog isnt a toy. Its not an accessories..
FB can taste OBLIVION! As a autistic myself I call bull crap on those post. We are human too!
All too often i see violent meltdowns being excused. If someone was violent towards me I don't think I could tolerate it. Autism or no autism I'd have to fight back.
All excellent points! One that really stood out to me was that dogs should never have been left alone with any kid, for both the kids safety and the dogs safety! And you’re right, multiple visits should be made to see if the rescue dog is the right fit for any family.
My daughter has some pretty scary meltdowns, she has ODD as a comorbidity, but when that happens, I’m right there with her and the dogs usually go to another room because they are smart and sensitive creatures. She’s never once targeted the animals when she’s that disregulated. She has tools and skills to deal with the upset without hurting herself or anyone else. That’s because I got her the help she needed when she was little (her diagnosis is still forthcoming because the US healthcare system SUCKS) and I stayed consistent. I didn’t leave her alone in a room with our new rescue dog while she was having problems.
Yeah, everything you said is correct! Why did the rescue even “know” that the children were autistic? This sounds like a whole bull-stuff FB story designed to target kids with autism because of this “rescuers” personal wrong opinions. Gross.
As an autistic woman, I can confidently say that having a dog greatly improved my social skills and mental health as a child, and and taught me how to care for another being. And even when they passed away, the experience helped me learn how to handle grief and relate to people who were also going through loss.
Plus, once my mom started bringing the dog with her to pick me up from school, the other kids started being nicer to me.
I don’t think a dog should be left alone with a child under the age of 10 (or one who functions at a level lower than an average 10-year-old), however.
The dog improved your life but did you improve the dogs life?
“Does she work at an ABA office?” You crack me up, and I learned a bit from the video. Thanks for posting
As someone in America: THE STATES SUCK and I also plan to move to Canada when I'm older because the chances of harsh discrimination and an early death grow higher with every passing day and I don't plan to take my chances.
The part about the volunteer at a school really irritated me. If she’s there to assist autistic children where it’s been predetermined that they need additional third party support, then yes perhaps 99% of the children she supports day to day have some behavioural/emotional difficulties and need… support 🤦🏼♀️ it’s a bit like an oncologist saying “all of the people I care for at work have cancer”. The woman was literally employed to care for people who fit a specific criteria ie what a lot of people would consider the “difficult autistic child” 🙄
15:47 This is so true. I already knew at the age of 5-6 that I was unwanted by my parents. I was literally convinced that: "It's better for everyone if they don't see my ugly face and don't hear my scratchy voice because everytime someone sees or hears me suffers due to the mere existence of me. It'll be better for everyone if I didn't exist"
Gotta say, i love the meme-ish editing with the zoom-ins and such. Another fantastic video, keep it up Paige!!
My son Simon is on the spectrum, and we always had pets and never had horror stories. If there is anything, pets seek them and always hang around him as if he is snow-white in the forest. I totally agree with you on how petss should be introduced to any family.
my opinion before hearing paige's: I understand how this would be devastating to see. i don't think the children are at fault, though. i'm sure those kids absolutely LOVED those dogs and did not want to or intend on hurting them. i think the parents, knowing their children and knowing they can have aggressive and/or violent meltdowns, should have known better than to leave those kids (without supervision) with the dogs. during meltdowns, autistics (especially kids!!) are generally not in full control of the things they do or the ways they interact with the world around them. this can lead to doing things that you very much regret after the fact! i know that i and other people i know have hurt ourselves and/or broken objects while having meltdowns, and regretted it immensely later. refusing to give dogs to all families with autistic children because two autistic children had previously hurt their dogs is so messed up. i guess you shouldn't give dogs to ANY families with ANY children because i've heard of allistic children hurting dogs before. it's the same type of generalization used to oppress POC, LGBT+ ppl, etc.
i have now finished the video and here are my thoughts: paige said pretty much all the same stuff as me but more in depth and much better explained! and obviously that makes sense considering she had a full video of explanation and i had a (large) paragraph. in other words, paige said all of my thoughts on this but better explained, and i agree with all of it.
i had a rly bad morning and it makes me happy that you posted
I love how Paiges clothes are getting so stylish lately
I am autistic and my 15 year old step son is as well. We rescued a 5 yo GSD a little over a year ago. The rescue did absolutely no checks on us or our home. The dog, who now btw is amazing, was simply terrified. She acted as though she has never seen the outside. She was jumpy and reactive but sweet with most of us, but not with our 15 yo. She just didn’t like him. I too kept her leashed to my belt for the first few months. We were careful to only allow them together when we were around so we could teach them both how to treat each other. Now he is her favorite person. He is so crazy gently with her and she just jumps up and wags her tail when she sees him. Could that have gone a much different way? Absolutely. Thank you for making this video. As an autistic adult with both divergent and typical kids I have to say that having a dog is soo extremely helpful to all of our mental health but it most definitely takes work! Parents who allow this kind of thing are simply being neglectful. More people need to speak up when it happens and remind people that autism isn’t to blame, bad parenting is!
I'm an autistic dog mum. My boy is the happiest, most secure landseal I've ever met. I wouldn't be surprised if the stories this person told about the dogs were ableist propaganda lol.
Landseal 😭
I wouldn't be surprised, people make shit up when they hate us and can't find a reason why that acceptable enough to talk about with their friends. Especially since the two situations are worded so similarly, in that 2 kids bit dogs on the head and ears, as if that's just standard
At the very least, I don't believe the last bit about the rescuer talking to an autism "expert". Either that conversation never happened or that person is actually a regular teacher with little to no relevant training (AKA not necessarily an expert in _any_ field). Just the way it was worded was sus to me.
Before hearing your side, I don't agree with the policy. I believe that her policy should be something like not with children who have aggressive outbursts. Unless the child goes through "training" of their own. (Sorry couldn't think of a better word yet) but lots of kids have unpredictable behaviors not just people with mental health conditions
Yes, I also feel like we should blame the parents more here when they are the ones that know their child had violent meltdowns and parents who leave the dog alone with their child too at first.
While I don’t disagree with this idea autism isn’t a mental health condition in itself its a neurodivergence while comorbidities are common and nothing to be ashamed of we’ve been autistic since birth. There’s no healing from autism just acceptance despite the traumatic affects of an ableist clueless world. Autism shows in positive, negative, and neutral aspects of my identity so it just doesn’t feel like my mental health conditions do.
It doesn't even have to be "aggressive". At least with more fragile animals it can be enough that children just play with them in order to harm them. And they may also do something that annoys the animal enough to trigger an attack.
I'm a 14 year old autistic male and my whole life I have grown up with cats. I love cats. I do have meltdowns sometimes, usually triggered by my dad, but I would never attack my cats. My cats are like my siblings and I love them. Even when I was younger, I would never do anything of the sort. These were 2 different instances that happened to end poorly. It doesn't say anything about anyone else.
All the points your listed are all valid and true. We bought a dog when my son was 18 months, then he got diagnosed around 2 years old and just after 6 months of having our dog, he became violent but never actually hurt our dog bc I was always around, never left them alone ever! I protected my dog at all cost, so nothing ever escalated to point of extreme harm. I did consider re homing her at one point but we chose not too. I’m glad we ended up keeping her. She is our family but your right. I can’t understand how those ppl didn’t protect their dog. They are to blame! It’s negligence and they should never own a dog if they can’t take all measures to keep their dog safe. My son is much better and he is very kind to animals but it took along time of teaching him. Definitely was worth it!
I was so upset about this shelter... I left a review. I'm sure it's against the law to have a policy that they refuse families with autistic children. That's just blatant discrimination and is not protected under our charter. Freedom of expression does not include blatant discrimination and refusal of services.
i volunteer at a large animal rescue & the majority of the other volunteers and staff are neurodivergent or almost definitely neurodivergent :) it’s the kindest group of people i’ve ever been around and the animals are very well cared for and happy!!
I agree with it being the parents' responsibility to know their child and not leave their child alone during a melt down. Autistic or not, some people just shouldn't have pets. Being autistic does not mean you cannot be trusted with a pet.
I do not know what adopting a dog is like in different states. Especially dogs from shelters that are not non-profit. However, I do know a lot about non-profit cat shelters. The one I am more familiar with relies on donations to save the lives of thousands of cats. They do not have the money to pay their team to visit people in their homes and do the kind of assessment you are describing. That would be awesome, but with the amount of homeless cats and the weird social view that cats are these tough creatures that can safely live outdoors (completely untrue) this kind of process would dissuade potentially good homes from adopting out of inconvenience. Some people still behave like a "Karen" simply because they are asked questions to decide whether the home is safe. Again, I don't know about other states, but the money and legality of what you proposed is simply not in the cards here in Florida. When the alternative is euthanasia, shelters have to make tough calls. But I truly wish that there could be more thorough placements.
Also, if you read this, thank you for making your videos. I like hearing your opinions. :)
The intro was so funny! It put me in such a good mood
Hi I am 21 living with autism it's hard for people like us to do day to day stuff
Thanks you page
can attest, fellow autistic 21-year-old. can attest.
as someone on the spectrum with dogs being my biggest special interest this video is so important. lots of adults seem to have the idea that you can just get a dog and "that's that". children have no idea how to act around dogs and dogs who display "negative" behaviours (growling, snapping etc) are always blamed when someone gets hurt. these are normal dog communication tools. the signs that dogs are uncomfortable are often ignored because of the assumption that dogs should be happy with their boundaries being pushed, and also people not being educated on the signs of dog uncomfortability (whale eyes, stress panting, stiffness). this leads to escalation because dogs can't advocate for their needs with speech.
this is entirely the rescue and parents fault for not ensuring that the dogs and Childs needs were met and making sure neither of their boundaries were crossed. very sad for everyone involved. it also breaks my heart at the idea that autistic children don't deserve dogs
Happy late Autism Acceptance Day and Happy Autism Acceptance Month! I keep on forgetting about the exact day. >~<
Love your Content Paige! Hope you’re doing well.
Edit: After listening to the story and after listening to the points after. I have to agree with all the points made.
No apology necessary, the States are a disaster and I 💯believe this ignorant lady is probably from the US. Thank you for all your videos. I’ve learned a lot from you💗
Your video is absolutely amazing! I love you and your channel. You seriously helped me in my mental journey and opened my eyes on many things.
Btw great tattoos! Love 'em all! ❤❤❤
I am a ND single mum and carer of two ND children. My 8yo son has ASD and ADHD. He can be harmful to his surrounds including people sometimes. It is not malicious. He has a lot of trouble regulating. I work with his OT and psych to help him find strategies and tools to come back down. We are getting better at avoiding triggers and de escalating situations before they explode. He has come so far in being able to vocaluse his feelings. He adores animals. I grew up with animals. I miss having a dog. But we don't. Because I know that I do not have the time and resources to give a pet what they deserve. So we don't have one. I think there is so much having a pet could bring the family. And he is so sweet and loving 99% of time. That dog would be so loved. But I cannot reasonably guarantee that I would always have the time it deserves. I hope that over the next few years we can get to a place where that is different. But I won't get a pet unless we do. And yet I still have so many people insisting I get him a pet for his benefit, despite me explaining my lack of time and resources 😒
I did not say my son was autistic when we adopted Sumi our cat as in Italy where we are nobody understands autism and I was afraid they would be reluctant to give her to us.My son is 22 he has grown up with cats and loves her to bits and her him.
Really liked your analogies about "two things or two occurrences". Really puts the shelter's decision into perspective.
Not Paige suddenly uploading a new video the day I finish a communications essay on how to support autistics for Autism Acceptance Month 😆
Don't apologize Paige, I live in the states and IT is a mess.
This makes me so mad. I have been around animals my whole life. I wasn’t diagnosed as autistic until adulthood.
I have a cat that I raised from birth, and she is the friendliest, most spoiled thing. I have raised several kittens and some puppies like that, mostly as a kid. I was taught to be gentle and how to bottlefeed them correctly if they needed to be.
But, if I had been diagnosed as a kid, and places like this had known, I wouldn’t have been able to get a pet with my family? It’s discrimination, and so blatant too. It’s not the kids’ fault or an autism thing. One hundred percent, it’s a lack of parental supervision and/or parents not showing their kids how to be gentle and respectful with animals. Places need to do their research and check into the parents, not automatically assume that, since this disability was a common thread, that must be the problem.
I feel like I understand animals more than I do people. My extended family has always had many animals, both pets and farm animals. I wanted to be a vet at one point, but I decided against it because 1) I don't like blood, so I couldn't do surgery and 2) I would probably die if I had to put an animal down.
My opinion before hearing what you have to say: "The plural of anecdote isn't data. They claim an educational specialist said 99% of autistic children have outbursts and can be violent - 99% of CHILDREN do. Using these anecdotes to make an unconstitutional, illegal policy that discriminates against all autistic children is ridiculous. Similarly, there is always a chance that an adopted dog will be abused, and it almost surely happens more often, worse, and is unreported with other adopters."
Adjustments after hearing your opinions: I agree with you.