Please stop and think

Small list of what i hear about Elijah:

"Spank the child, he will learn". Only problem, what happens when you spank your child and it sends him into a seizure like fit?

"Autistic children are possessed by a devil"..haha..the stupidest one i have herd yet, obviously said by an uneducated  person who clearly knows nothing of developmental delays or anything about the brain

"We have never been close to him because he doesn't reach out to us" ..yeah because developing relationships is solely the child's responsibility

"sure i can baby sit, but will he be ok?" and then proceed to give me a 100 reasons why they clearly would not be a good choice

Trust me there are many many more, but i hate to think about them, because in my human flesh..it bothers me. People who do not care to try to see my son the way i do, or want to take the time to reach out.

They are out there and i encounter them all the time. It gets tiresome. Many parents get bitter when they have a autistic child, bitter at the world, who ,seems to constantly be judging them and obviously their poor parenting style. And its really hard sometimes. Because their is no greater judge of myself than me.  I just wanted to write this because i witnessed one of these happenings the other day, i watched it happen to someone else. I watched their shoulders slump, tears in their eyes and walk away defeated, because yes, part of what your saying is true. My child is "imperfect" and "different". But what you don't realize judgmental voyeur is, just to get my child to the store i spend 45 minutes dressing him while he kicks and screams, on the way to the store he falls asleep because he just spent 7 hours of therapy time that one day, which means i will be up until the wee hours of the morning with him. again. We are at the store shopping because my son is experiencing regression, and started eating (yes eating) our furniture and now we have to buy safe furniture, that will be expensive and non toxic so if he starts eating this furniture he at least wont be poisend. And by the time we get home we have therapy again tomorrow at 8am. So please, please, please before you judge, stop, don't open your mouth. because you don't know what those words will mean to a parent. Who battle every day to recover their child, who lose sleep, money and their life to meetings and therapy and being consistent and never allowed to be weak. Just stop, because God gave that child to that parent for a reason, and you do not have a special needs child for a reason. Just maybe God knew what he was doing.

I can not tell you how hard that was to watch, because its has happened happened to me...the first time it happened i burst into tears and ran out of the store with 2 kids in tow. And i cant bring myself to go back. So watch your words, your feeling all bold and cool now, but really your just a jerk.