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We Don't Have A Gun Problem; We Have A Brain Problem
Self ^ | 05/25/14 | Self

Posted on 05/25/2014 11:21:16 AM PDT by Yaelle

We don’t have a gun problem in this country. We have a brain problem. And it is going to get worse.

After reading just some of this killer’s autobiography, only up to age 12, I am starting to believe that we need to STOP MAINSTREAMING kids with asperger’s or highly functioning autism.

And I have a son with it, same age as this guy. His childhood parallels my son’s except: I DIDNT FORCE HIM INTO SCHOOL. By 4th grade he was homeschooled all the way through. You will not see my son in the news for killing people.

First, the similarities: the frustrations that caused tantrums in this guy were like the same ones that did it for mine: things not going the way he thought they would, even small things. Very hard for step parents to understand, but moms make it a little easier, maximizing what they do like and eliminating or minimizing what they don’t. The same joys in athletic pursuits when they CAN keep up, and in Pokemon and video games, where there are not subtle cues to try to understand, just straight forward logic. Kids on the spectrum excel at these and engender admiration from the other kids.

The difference: when he started to come to the age of logic, he saw himself as FAILING. He looked around him with that Aspie logic, saw that he was unable to be popular like the other boys (probably far less of those than he realized even were), and tried his hardest to copy them. But nothing he tried worked. He was missing all social skills, and sadly, he was the only one who couldn’t see or sense this. My son was not in a world where he had to see himself measured against “peers” who are really not peers at all. Inside, the world is very different for neurotypicals.

Yet his parents, out of both ignorance of and disinterest in autism, kept shoving their little square peg boy into the round holes of school, public and private.

About a tenth of the male population at his age and younger is on the autism spectrum. Most are shoved into public schools and may well feel similar to him. The bullying and even just social ignoring they are receiving could lead these guys to logically click off as this one and the Sandy hook guy did. People with autism can click off their emotions easier than the rest of us, especially when young.

These kids need to be schooled with others with social deficits. Not the criminal guys on their way to Juvie, just other kids with spectrum or learning disorders who have trouble socially. This way, they can have friends and more understanding between them. Maybe even gender separation after fifth grade as well as intense coaching on social cues, and learning what the non-spectrum people can “sense” and how to make up for that lack.

I see hope if we as a nation can actually do concrete things to help our young boys with autism understand reality. This boy did not. My heart aches for the misunderstood, mocked boy he once was, just like my son. But when I saw that my son’s description of his third grade “friends” didn’t match up with the sheer avoidance of him I saw in the school, I took him OUT OF SCHOOL. And it was a religious private school, too. Children are children. No one helped this boy early on. No one realized this was going to be a powderkeg situation.

NOW WE KNOW. Kids with autism need to be in separate schools or classes, where they can honestly be taught about their differences, encouraged to have play dates with like mindeds, and believed in. THOSE WHO WERE MURDERED IN SANTA BARBARA WOULD BE ALIVE TODAY if this killer had been treated appropriately. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t have friends or girlfriends. He could have learned this at 12 instead of turning against the whole world.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: autism; mentalhealth
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To: Yaelle

Did you read the kid’s “manifesto?” It’s really an autobiography.

The kid’s family is using Asberger’s as an excuse for their failing him, and it’s disgusting. What’s the evidence that Elliot Rodger had Asberger’s or even any kind of learning disability? Read what he wrote.

As a child, he had a few friends and play dates — just not the “cool kid” friends he wanted. He went to both private school and public school, and finally graduated from a continuation high school, where he went because he was unhappy being the smallest, bullied kid in a big public high school.

If you read what he wrote (and believe it), it’s clear that this kid’s problem was that his dad, SO CONCERNED NOW, utterly abandoned him as a boy and a teen.

He had a happy childhood with birthday parties, travel, and an intact family.

When his parents divorced, his world collapsed. There are no happy memories recounted after that (except going to the premiere of the fourth “Star Wars” movie.)

His father remarried. The kid didn’t get along with his stepmother, and he was banished from his father’s house. Not just abandoned — rejected.

So he was raised by his mom and World of Warcraft, which he played to the exclusion of everything else.

He agonized about always being the shortest, slightest boy in his class. So where was his dad to teach him other ways to be a man besides being six foot two, which wasn’t possible for this kid? How about, take him to church? Or teach him to tear down a transmission?

My guess is the kid couldn’t even change a tire on the Beemer his identity was so wrapped up in. Thanks, Dad!

What does any of this have to do with Asberger’s? Or Hollywood liberals, or guns, for that matter?

This terrible crime is about a father abandoning his boy to be raised exclusively by women (his mom and teachers) and videogames.

Somebody needs to call this family — especially the father — on using genuine mental illness and learning disabilities to cover their a** for utterly failing their child.


21 posted on 05/25/2014 12:36:53 PM PDT by Blue Ink
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To: Yaelle

What you said is correct...


22 posted on 05/25/2014 1:18:48 PM PDT by ExCTCitizen (I'm ExCTCitizen and I approve this reply. If it does offend Libs, I'm NOT sorry...)
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To: Blue Ink

Mr Rodger’s son had been “diagnosed at an earlier age of being a highly functional Asperger Syndrome child”,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27562917


23 posted on 05/25/2014 1:30:36 PM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" is more than an Army Ranger credo it's the character of America.)
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To: Will88

Kids with autism sometimes get put on meds - for anti anxiety, anti psychotics (they aren’t psychotic). ADHD, whatever.


24 posted on 05/25/2014 1:33:05 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: TigersEye

Thanks a lot. Parenting a child with autism, even “highly functioning,” is very hard. And parents are busy and just follow doctors and school districts blindly.


25 posted on 05/25/2014 1:34:46 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Blue Ink

I didn’t read the whole thing. I stopped around age 12. But I was greatly affected by it as I read so many parallels with my son’s childhood that I felt compelled to share my thoughts.

When I heard that the Sandy hook shooter had been dx’ed with asperger’s, I didn’t even really care. He was so inhumanely sick that I didn’t care what diagnoses he had ever been given.

This one, because of the autobiography, affected me. I can see that autism WAS TRULY THE BASE OF HIS PROBLEMS. And I did not read much about the Sandy Hook killer, but I am willing to consider that his social disorder might have been an origin of causality in his rampage as well.

Because this Santa Barbara killer carefully described his life from his perspective, and because I know my son and know the discrepancies between his descriptions of his childhood and my own recollections, I see clearly how autism was the problem, not parental attention.

Could the parents have done things better, knowing how disaffected an unpopular, sensitive autistic child can become? Yes, but they didn’t realize it.

Should kids with autism be in regular high schools and middle schools? Probably not. It doesn’t do them or anyone any good. Unless they had their own safe classrooms, and both sets of kids were taught to be sensitive to the differences of the others.


26 posted on 05/25/2014 1:46:44 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Yaelle

It has sen reported here in CA. that this young man WAS in school
through high school for kids with learning disabilities of course in a public
school system (which he was in) lord only knows what the hell kind of
education that is!!!! His parents WERE financially able to get him a
private school if they could NOT homeschool!!!!!


27 posted on 05/25/2014 1:50:45 PM PDT by Kit cat (OBummer must go)
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To: Kit cat

sen=been


28 posted on 05/25/2014 1:54:52 PM PDT by Kit cat (OBummer must go)
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To: Kit cat

He was mainstreamed all the way at least to age 13. Haven’t read more but I doubt he was in a safe private place where he was not forced to be mainstreamed thereafter.

I think these kids should not be in the general population if it isn’t sure that they are ok inside. They are socially so far off, and we need to start paying attention to this, and not only sat tests.


29 posted on 05/25/2014 1:57:54 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Yaelle

How do you eventually socialize them???? Most of these kids are EXTEMELY SMART great techies, mathematics, ect., seems such a
waste to NOT be able to socialize them!!!!!


30 posted on 05/25/2014 2:15:29 PM PDT by Kit cat (OBummer must go)
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To: Yaelle

Would young men with this type of socialization disorder be good at
tinkering with cars!!! Mechanics, Engineering, ect. Seems a perfect fit
for these young men along with of course computers, however seems their
personality type might tend to become MORE withdrawn in front of a computer!!!!


31 posted on 05/25/2014 2:26:47 PM PDT by Kit cat (OBummer must go)
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To: Yaelle

“I didn’t read the whole thing. I stopped around age 12. But I was greatly affected by it as I read so many parallels with my son’s childhood that I felt compelled to share my thoughts.”

I don’t have your expertise; I’m not a parent to an autistic kid. So of course I may be wrong.

But he sounds happy and healthy up to age 7. He loved a school field trip, travel, his new bedroom in his new home in the US, dinosaurs, a couple of kids at his new school, Christmas, birthdays. In fact, he singles out his 7th birthday at his favorite restaurant as one of his happiest memories.

Shortly after that memorable 7th birthday, his parents divorced. He calls the sadness of that event “world changing.” Keep reading, and you see that after age 7 and his parents’ divorce, everything went downhill for him, culminating in his remarried father banishing him from the house.

Shouldn’t his Asberger’s have manifested before age 7? Or maybe it did and everyone missed it? What did you read between the lines that tipped you off?

If you read to the end of his screed, it’s clear he doesn’t think of himself as having Asberger’s — he never mentions it, and he’s pretty candid about everything else.


32 posted on 05/25/2014 2:47:08 PM PDT by Blue Ink
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To: Blue Ink

Dad didn’t ‘reject’ him. Dad had him 50/50. Read it again.

The kid is severely disturbed.

Extreme jealousy! Over trivial stuff.

What is this expectation of being able to (bleep) women since puberty?

Where is his attempts to date a single woman in this document?

Where is there an actual example of any rejection by any concrete woman?

The teasing he complains very early on about sounds like the normal teasing by a young girl with an interest in him.

Then go look at his videos and photos. This kid lacked for nothing.

Something severely wrong with this brat.


33 posted on 05/25/2014 3:05:19 PM PDT by Pikachu_Dad (Impeach Sen Quinn)
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To: Yaelle

I’m no expert, but I have a friend who works with autistic kids in a public school. From what she tells me about the kids and their parents, (much of it horror stories,) I suspect you are absolutely right in what you are saying in this thread.


34 posted on 05/25/2014 7:16:33 PM PDT by Nea Wood (When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.-Sowell)
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To: Blue Ink

To me it definitely manifested earlier than seven; he had meltdowns about things not going the way he thought they might. And then the way he handled the Pokemon craze. The only person who probably couldn’t see his complete social illiteracy is him. Of course he never mentioned it. He thought he was the perfect man, and everyone else, the WORLD, was the problem.

It became too late to do anything to prevent a potential disaster probably around age 18.

We need to find a way to get these boys (maybe some girls too) CONNECTED to their greater world by puberty and through it. Disaffected, disconnected kids with asperger’s or a poor childhood or any mental illness have become a huge risk to society.

I don’t have all the answers but the focus on weapons is laughable. WE NEED TO PREVENT MORE CRAZY SHOOTERS.


35 posted on 05/26/2014 7:44:34 PM PDT by Yaelle
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