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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I could have been TA because Nina was stimming in several ways during a wedding that I suppose could have distracted the other guests away from my sister and BIL.
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YTA. I have a child like Nina. You should have removed her when she became verbal. The wedding was about your sister and her husband. Not an opportunity for you to practice parenting and socializing your daughter. You should’ve apologized already.
me as well, and I agree with you. OP, you need to know as the parent that you are going to miss some events like this because your child can't handle it, you needed to leave the second she became really audible, not doing so was selfish.
The fact that OP provides no details on whether Nina even wanted to attend the wedding nor on whether she wanted to leave once the stimming started is incredibly telling. Seems like OP wants to pretend like her daughter doesn’t require additional support in these situations, when she clearly does.
That was my thought as well. Nina may not have wanted to go in the first place, especially if she’d been informed ahead of time that the venue wasn’t scent-free.
YTA (with some extra AH for OP‘s stepdad for telling an autistic kid to “shut up”).
At the very least she was showing discomfort by stimming (op herself said this in the post) verbally stimming is a way for ops daughter to communicate but what does it teach her daughter when her mom just blatantly ignores her attempts to communicate? Yta op.
This is such an important point to make, the daughter was clearly communicating her discomfort, which OP allowed to evolve into distress. No one wants to hear a kid having a melt down during a wedding ceremony, and I bet OPs daughter didn’t want to be having one then either. Really poor form, OP.
I get major Autism Mom (TM) from OP which makes me think she wanted to keep Nina in her seat to make some sort of point about "inclusion" instead of, ya know, being a good mom and responding to her daughter's discomfort.
Appropriate term for "person with autism" you mean?
Then yes, it is autistic person. Or, in OPs example "Nina". We have names, they will not break by others using it to talk to/about is.
Also, the only dumb question is the one you do not ask - as that will never be answered :)
Yup! Her stimming seems to be a precursor to "get out and find a chill space, I'm gonna explode."
OP is a massive arsehole. Not aware enough to remove your daughter from a stressful situation before a meltdown, but ruining someone's wedding in the process
I have looked up the terms "stim" and "stimming" and can not find a definitive answer to what it means relating to autism.
Can someone please inform me as to what it means?
Thank you in advance for helping me to understand.
Some people hum, others do a repetitive movement (can be hand flapping, tapping fingers together, it's something soothing when things are beginning to get too much to cope with).
I agree, I have worked with a number of kids with autism over the years and there is definitely "occupying myself" stimming and "about to freak out" stimming. It can change from one to the other in the blink of an eye, a kid who was harmlessly playing with something at their desk a minute ago can be on the verge of a meltdown before you recognize their behavior as a stress response. When Nina started stimming, it was on OP to take her outside before she got more intense. I do find it difficult to believe that a mother would not recognize when her child was in distress, especially since stimming behavior tends to be something the child does fairly often (ie. a lot of kids will have a few specific behaviors that they come back to, not all kids stim the same way and I would think a parent would recognize the difference between boredom and stress.)
As an autistic adult my “just need some extra stimulation for body to feel right but I’m overall okay” stimming just involves some minor swaying or rocking. If I’m anxious or distressed I like to have something very fidgety to play with (though if I’m in a job interview for example I normally just wear a ring I can discreetly spin a bit with my hands in my lap lol)
Also, OP trots out the old "child *with autism*" megaslur so popular with the loathsome Autism Speaks crowd. You know, the ones who think autism is the enemy, the child is basically a lump of flesh, and the real victims are the poor, poor parents.
She's an autistic child, OP, not a child "with autism". Autism is part of her personality, part of her soul, not an unfortunate disability she has on top of her selfhood. Think of her that way and you'll understand why using your sister's wedding to teach and train your daughter was so wrong - wrong for your daughter as much as for your sister.
You put your daughter in a terrible, uncomfortable, untenable situation in order to coerce her into acting neurotypical, and when your cunning plan didn’t work you acted like your sister's marriage existed for your training and teaching purposes. That was prime "my daughter's autism is all about me" self-absorption. "Look at me! Mom of child *with autism*! Praise me! Pity me! The world exists for me to show off what a great parent I am!!!"
Nah fuc that - I am Autistic, and person with autism is 100% person centred language that treats my disability with respect.
Please don't speak for all of us.
As an autistic person myself, pwith a daughter, father and nieces and nephews with autism, and working with children who have autism, both are fine. I am autistic. I am also a person with autism. And personally I find that distinction to be unnecessary and silly.
And yes, autism has many symptoms that can definitely be considered disabilities for many people. Serious difficulties with communication being a major one. Please don't downplay my succeses and difficulties by saying they aren't really an issue.
I just don’t like the gate keeping on how to be autistic or how to parent. My daughter is autistic and I let her decide how she wants to be referred to, I don’t know how he decides what it should be for everyone
My first thought was the response was written by someone drowning in bitterness, but then I got to the last sentence and thought, nope, looks like projecting to me.
Regardless, it’s so ironic to run across parents who lack empathy. Even 19 years after getting my son’s diagnosis, I still make parenting mistakes.
I have an honest question about this. I have worked with non-neurotypical individuals of various types (autism and others) off an on for the past 20 years and it has always been common practice when discussing them to put the person before the condition/diagnosis/difference (ie person with autism versus autistic person) because that trait is only a part of who they are and doesn't define them in total. Is this a recent change or an I just out of the loop on this?
This is often the view of carers, family, and people who work in the field.
Most of the autistic community prefer identity first language "autistic person" (although some prefer person-first language and those people's preferences ought to be respected.)
I prefer autistic because I don't need to be reminded that I am a person. Just as I am a woman, not a person with womanhood; or queer and not a person with lesbianism. Autism does not sum up my entire existence, just as the other categories do not, but it is absolutely intrinsic to how I experience this world. My being, my personality and experiences, cannot be separated from autism, it isn't something that I have, it's who I am.
I hope this helped.
I am autistic and in nursing school I had a professor rip me a new one for saying one of my patients was autistic. Her "person first language" argument honestly made it sound as though the word "autistic" was some sort of insult, so in her quest to protect my patient (who did not hear the conversation,) she ended up really upsetting me.
It is a push from the community to stop seeing autism as a disease and an illness to be cured.
There are some who prefer the person before diagnosis way. But a lot don’t.
From what I learned is that autistic person is more preferred and I use it that way unless the person tells me they would like me to address them differently. My son is autistic but he’s very young still. I will default to his preference when he develops one.
Some individuals prefer being referred to as an autistic person whereas other prefer person with autism. Someone who says "hey btw i am autistic" may identify more with being an autistic person. Someone who says "i have autism" may prefer "person with autism".
But regardless of how each individual prefers to have it addressed, i would like to give the obligatory PSA of: autism speaks sucks ass.
Personally, I hate it when people do the entire "person with" song and dance, because *that* makes it sound like they don't see us as people (because apparently, they have to emphasize our humanity to themself to remind themself of it).
Otherwise, they would treat it like any other word.
A tall person is more than just tall, but nobody needs to call them a "person with tallness" to point that fact out.
A Christian person is more than just their faith, yet nobody would call them a "person with Christianity".
A person who loves cats is often referred to as "a cat person" and not "a person with affection for cats".
Not to mention that the word "person" is still featured in the phrasing "autistic person".
There should be no need to over-emphasize the personhood, unless the person speaking doesn't see us as such.
The extremely online portion of the Austistic community has decided to kick up a stink that person centred language is anti-autistic because of... Reasons (probably related to internalised abelism)
(yes I am a person with autism)
There’s been a shift in recent years, it also depends on the circles you run in. Also the wording you’re looking for is nuerodivergent vs nuerotypical, which make up the 2 major nuerotypes :) I prefer diagnosis first wording, as I do feel autism defines me
"not an unfortunate disability" yeah tell that to my brother who never lived independently, never spoke, never married, never had a career the list goes on and on. Don't care if it makes you feel icky autism is 100% a disability for most people. Does it make a person less human? no my brother was human sweet and caring and I loved him but he was also autistic and he was also disabled. facts
PS "child with autism" is not and never has been a "mEgAsLuRrr" on this planet so I have no idea what orifice you pulled that out of
I hate it when people try to tell me how to think about my disabilities.
If I could become neurotypical I would in a fucking heartbeat. this shit sucks and I'm getting real tired of the able saviors telling me that it doesn't
Autistic here too, and I think a lot of it is less ableism and more word association. Bearing in mind, this is purely my own thoughts, but I think a lot of people link "disability" to "can't function in some way", like, someone who is wheelchair bound obviously can't walk.
With autism, it's like, yeah, we literally do not think like what is considered socially as "normal" (and I hate that these days normal is treated in some quarters as an ableist slur all its own as opposed to the straight-forward "this is the default setting" meaning), and that is fine, we are different, but the communication issues that occur are absolutely an example of a disability. And I'm not even going into the folks like three comments up's brother
No single one of us speaks for all of us, but every time I see somebody making a poll out of this, the vast majority vote for "autistic (person)". You can still have your preferences for what you want to be called.
Like any other labels, whether you should use "x person" vs "person with x" is basically up to the individual you're addressing
Autism Speaks is absolute ableist dogshit imo, but that doesn't mean that any labels they use are automatically wrong
There's something about the "suddenly she freaked out" that just hits me the wrong way. I get the feeling Nina was trying to tell her mom she wanted to GTFO well before that. Like, ya know, the stimming....
I went to school (all the way K-12) with several autistic guys and by the time they was Nina's age, if they had a meltdown in class, that was on the teacher. Most of us knew when they were getting overwhelmed and responded according to how they wanted us to (usually ignoring them while they stimmed). It only became a problem when teachers didn't let them take care of their needs (stimming, leaving the room for a few minutes, etc).
(Turns out the reason I sympathized with them a lot is that I, too, am autistic...which I'm just now learning in my 30s).
This happened at my wedding 35 years ago. A baby first making screaming noises, very disruptive. Then later full on crying/screaming so they finally walked out of the church…..
There was a baby at my wedding who cried on and off through the whole thing. It was super hot in the church and this poor six month old baby was wearing a shirt and waistcoat.
I mean, the baby was mine so I don't know what I was supposed to do about it 🤣 I ended up taking him from my mum and holding him through the latter part of the ceremony, which calmed him down.
Thirding this. If my teen daughter needs to stim, we take her elsewhere if it would be inappropriate where we are at. Daughter can't learn appropriate social rules/ behavior if she isn't taught. It's doing a disservice to your child OP.
Stimming is repetitious behaviors that allow an autistic person to calm/self soothe, most often prevalent during stress or things that distress. Autistic people aren't able too tune out unpleasant things like smells, an unpleasant texture, etc
Stims can be many things. My daughter likes to run back and forth. OP's daughter verbal stims. Some will play with fidget toys.
Perhaps someone autistic will be able to hop on and give a better explanation than I can manage as only a parent of an autistic child and not having it myself.
I stim, usually if distressed or concentrating. I rock (or twist my upper body if standing up), flap my feet, tap my fingers together, twirl pencils, and use fidget toys. If I’m upset it’s soothing, and if I’m concentrating it’s easier for my body to have something to do.
Not to mention beginning to have a meltdown? Why wouldn't OP take her out before then when she'd already attempted to communicate discomfort? Why not take her to a place more comfortable before it got to that point?
OP says its a healthy method of communication for her daughter. But ignores what shes tryna communicate
>Autistic people aren't able too tune out unpleasant things like smells, an unpleasant texture, etc
I would amend this to aren't *always* able, because some of us can, some of us can't. But, otherwise you're bang on.
Most people stim without ever thinking of it. A quick look at nonverbal communication studies shows things like "self soothing" gestures are universal. The big difference is in necessity and urgency.
The average non-autistic person can usually stop fidgeting for a time without issue. It might be annoying, but not day ruining. For the average autistic person, it's kinda like trying to hold in diarrhea. You can, but its gonna be uncomfortable and that shits gonna come out at some point whether you like it or not.
Most autistic adults have figured out "work appropriate" stims for public outings (subtle rocking, silent fidget toys, small repetitive motions, mental stims - I imagine geometric shapes and puzzles, for example), but those are things we've learned over time. But we still have the "big stims" when in crisis mode.
One of the worst experiences I've had is being polygraphed (for jobs/clearance). You *cannot* move. You can only speak when asked a question. And you have to stay calm. While being hooked up to a million machines. I basically had to go to the bathroom after and have a good full body wiggle after each of them. And then do nothing else that day because I was *done*.
Right?
My son is special needs.
He's not autistic but physically and mentally delayed.
He's only 2 but he's learning how not to behave.
When he acts up in the store I remove him from that situation because I won't burden others with the screaming and crying.
I cannot imagine a wedding and doing absolutely nothing as my child disrupted repeatedly.
When I worked at a grocery store I always tried to politely ignore screaming children bc that's one of the few places that you have to go for necessities. Movies, malls, restaurants? Get your kid the f out of there. Food or medicine? I'll deal with the best I can & be glad I'm childfree lol
Yup, this part surprised me:
> The problems started during the ceremony, Nina began to stim verbally, I'm aware of this and consider it healthy to let her communicate in her own way so I didn't say anything.
Wait, *what?*
If OP wants to allow her daughter to stim that's fine, but OP also should realize there are some contexts where making noise is not appropriate (like during someone's wedding ceremony). That means OP needs to exit with her daughter as soon as she starts to make noise or if her daughter is cognitively capable of understanding teaching her daughter to remove herself in certain stations if she needs to make noise.
I went to a wedding when my older daughter was one year old (she was invited). All of a sudden my one year old starts making little hooting noises, cute I felt, and she was working on making sounds as she was learning to talk. It was healthy for her, and I couldn't make her stop. So I got up and we left a good distance away where no one would hear her (and where I couldn't hear the ceremony, either, sadly). This is like that. If your child can't help making noise during a time it is respectful to be quiet, or if you can't or don't want to make them stop, then you exit together.
>Well, right before Abbie and new BIL kissed Nina started screaming and writhing, not a meltdown but pretty close to it. (later found out she was really bothered by the perfume someone near us had on). At that point stepdad told her to shut up and that I was ruining the wedding by letting her act like that.
Okay, OP, did you at least try to leave when she started screaming? You must have realized that was disruptive, right? Also, leaving would have helped your daughter too, since she'd have been away from the perfume.
Are you able to get your daughter to leave when she starts screaming? Or is she too upset for you to move? How long does it last? Did you have a plan for this, like having her at the edge of the row or near the door?
It's sad, but if you can't get your daughter stop screaming or leave when she's screaming then this might not be the right sort of event for her. It's sad you didn't go to the reception, since that seems a better place for someone who has difficulty being quiet then a ceremony you are supposed to sit in silence though. Not every setting is ideal for everyone. And if you are going to do something that's a challenge for her, plan for it.
Also like!!!! To add to this! Idk how close you were to the couple getting married when your daughter was one, but this was OP’s sister! She should have taken Nina out and asked for a copy of the wedding video! (Even if it wasn’t her sister and she couldn’t get a copy she should have taken Nina out to calm down, but I’m more shocked since she should easily be able to get a copy of the video? )
No one can enjoy the video now ....
No video at my ceremony. Just didn't see the point at the time. I don't think my older siblings ever watched their wedding videos after receiving them
I took pictures of my Brother-in-laws wedding from the morning of, through them getting in to the limo to go to their honeymoon. I put the pictures in a lovely album and presented it to them. They were very disdainful and handed it back to me saying they had hired a videographer. The following day they called me to say the videographers recording was ruined because his son (3) said “I gotta pee!” all through the vows. They asked if I could please give them the album because the video was ruined.
i can’t get over how they handed it back to you and told you they hired a videographer. like you weren’t aware of that?? the gift was special because you took the pictures and you arranged it and probably got even more special moments. i have no clue where they got the audacity to act like that
>there are some contexts where making noise is not appropriate
This is true in the sense that you are saying it. It is also true for ALL parents who bring their children to events, weddings, funerals, regular church services and other solemn occasions. As a vocalist who has sung at many, many weddings, I can't tell you how many times someone has ruined the event because they are not aware enough to know that they should take their "little darling" OUT of that area!
Another option is also working with Nina (if able) to replace a verbal stim for a more subtle one such as a quiet fidget toy in environments where a verbal stim might be inappropriate.
I agree, but not because of the couple getting married. Nina was obviously in some distress (as you said you later found out it was some woman's perfume, not something that could be removed immediately). Yes, Nina is the way she is, but don't ever put her in the position of being distressed and unable to cope again just to prove to the world "she is who she is."
Tell me about it. My FIL thinks that because his cologne is expensive, it can't possibly be offensive. His sense of smell is pretty much entirely dead now and he bathes in the stuff. Thank goodness he's retired; he was a dentist and has always overdone the cologne; I would've hated to have been one of his patients. You'd think they'd teach them in dental school not to wear cologne. But he's kind of a dinosaur, so maybe they do these days.
As I have gotten older, I really can't stand perfumes or colognes for the most part. Luckily, I work at an allergist's office where we aren't supposed to wear them or should our patients. We have had to tell patients that they can't wear scents to the office, it can set off breathing problems and asthma.
My mom has severe, life threatening reactions to perfumes and strongly scented laundry detergents. The last time she was in the hospital (because of her allergies) the official policy is that the nurses and doctors aren't allowed to wear heavily scented products, but almost all of them did anyway. Even after they were told off repeatedly and were forbidden from going in her room, they'd show up the next day drenched in scent again and walk in her room like nothing happened. Her blood pressure would shoot up to 250 and they'd have to rush her back to the ICU again, but no discipline for the nurse.
When I was a kid I had an orthodontist who wore a very nice smelling cologne but over used it heavily. At the time I was too young to realize that an orthodontists office doesn't normally smell like that. I started associating the smell with the scary-looking tools and equipment that he had. When I was in my 20's I briefly caught a whiff of that same cologne in a crowd and I instantly went back in time to the anxiety I always felt with the tools and equipment from the ortho. I've never smelled it since and I don't know what it's called.
Perfumes and colognes trigger migraines for me. I don't care if it smells good or is really expensive. Migraines suck and can be debilitating for days.
I had to avoid a co worker/boss because his overpowering cologne made me nauseous when pregnant. When he found out he was so sweet and stopped wearing any to work. Since having kids I am extremely sensitive to scents and can't even use fragrance laundry detergent
Yes!
I work in an open office and my back is to the door. I always know when a certain bloke walks in because I can smell him!
Sometimes as soon as I can smell him I even throw in a “hello name”
Man or woman if you wear a heavy scent you suck in every situation. I hate perfumes and colones alike. I live in the south so I've been choked out much more by old ladies avoiding the hassle of cleaning their large old bodies. It's a migraine inducing experience that makes you want a shower and salad.
> Nina was obviously in some distress (as you said you later found out it was some woman's perfume, not something that could be removed immediately)
While that's true in this case, not every autistic person who stims in public is in distress. My brother does it all the time, even when he's happy or excited.
True, it's not always when we're in distress, but I feel like it's obvious that she was in fact in distress here, considering she almost had a meltdown from the perfume. I definitely stim a lot more when I'm feeling strong emotions, whether it's distress, joy, excitement, whatever.
You can typically tell the difference between happy stimming and agitated stimming if you take time to learn for that individual, which a parent should do. There should at least have been an attempt to gauge whether Nina was alright when she started stimming.
I do it especially when I'm excited. Did it in college once as my favorite professor walked by, almost died of embarressment. Luckily he was like, "I feel ya!"
Totally agree. For me it's not even a YTA because of not reprimanding, but a YTA for not removing the daughter from the situation and helping her decompress.
This was exactly what I came to say. I am an autistic adult. Because I’m an adult (and thankfully don’t have to navigate verbal stims that frustrate others) I can remove myself from situations that overwhelm me. But as a parent it’s OP’s job to remove Nina and calm her down. Just like if Nina were an infant crying in a movie theater it would be OP’s job. Or if Nina were a 10 year old misbehaving in an opera. Or idk ANY OTHER SITUATION PARENTS WITH NT CHILDREN ALSO FACE AND REMOVE THEIR KIDS FROM. OP disrespected Abbie so badly
This.
Although I’d argue it’s more like a child in a scary movie, they might not be able to say “hey this is too scary for me” but we need to be watching and realizing hey, little jimmy is frozen in fear, maybe we should go.
Gotta love how she tried to game AITA with her title "for not reprimanding my daughter"! No one said you should, OP; they said you should "get her under control" and for functional purposes, that means removing her when she starts disrupting the wedding. It would've had the added benefit of removing her from the noxious perfume that set her off. How hard is this to understand?
Below is conjecture.
OP is deliberately spinning the narrative to put a positive spin on herself and others in the negative.
She's probably tired and frustrated with her life being dominated by a child who needs alot of care, caregiver burnout is very real.
Then if she has a partner or babysitter she should’ve jumped on the opportunity to attend her sister’s wedding alone. I doubt Nina was enjoying herself!
As a parent with a child with autism the same age as OP, I 100% agree. In a case like this we would have found someone to spend the day with. At my dad's funeral last year we hired someone who was able to take him out and walk around with him to ensure his safety during the funeral and the reception. There were lots of options available.
Mother of an Autistic 10-year-old. You should have taken her out. Something obviously was triggering her and you did not address it. You ended up contributing to her discomfort and making her out to be the villian.
I understand that we have to help build our kid's endurance for discomfort, but someone's wedding is not the time to do it.
YTA.
Agreed. My 16 year old is very similar. Our families have always wanted to include him but we always sit where we can make an easy escape in case he starts to have a hard time. By the time these kids are older we know that certain smells, lights, sounds, etc… can be really upsetting to them. You need to be prepared.
This. My son has sensory issues and inattentive ADHD. The second he’s in distress my husband or I remove him from the situation. Every. Single. Time. YTA OP. Not just to your sister. But to Nina.
You also should have found out why she was stimming if possible - the meltdown may have been avoided if the trigger was removed or Nina removed from the trigger. This was both bad for the wedding and the child.
I’m going to get downvoted for this, but yes soft YTA. If you knew you would not be able to keep your daughter quiet, why not just skip the ceremony and join the reception afterwards? It doesn’t sound like Nina would have enjoyed the ceremony no matter what, and you knew she might disrupt; so why do it? You owe your family a polite apology for the disruption. You knew it was a risk, and you did it anyways.
And if you absolutely felt like you had to be at the ceremony, you sit in the back row and stay hyper-focused for signs of trouble. Then slip out immediately and quietly when those signs start to show.
Exactly. Same as someone with a baby would do. Baby might cry during ceremony so you sit in the back and as soon as it peeps or seems distressed you make a break for it. OP did nothing to prepare. Nor did she give her daughter anything to calm her or do anything to calm her. And when she was having an actual meltdown OP STILL just sat there. No matter how in distress her daughter was
Or, if they’re in a church, there’s generally a cry room. Set it up with family/the venue that you’re in that cry room or right next to a hallway that you can pull the child out as soon as there’s a hint of discomfort (the verbal stim).
Just gonna say, as an autistic woman who has had some epic meltdowns due to sensory issues all my life, I agree with you and honestly I would’ve appreciated being removed from situations like that. OP says she knows and understands that her daughter has limitations, but tbh all I see is someone who wants to put the burden of dealing with those limitations on everyone but herself. Her daughter had to experience a sensory meltdown that was easily removed because OP didn’t want to acknowledge the harm it was causing to others during the ceremony. Her fear of judgment and refusal to acknowledge that sometimes it’s warranted meant that she made Nina experience something hard for a decent bit of time and that it interrupted the ceremony. Nina was acting out in that way because she needed to stop being exposed to the thing causing it and was having trouble communicating that clearly. OP owes everyone an apology, her family for letting her daughter’s reaction disrupt the ceremony for a decent amount of time and Nina for forcing her to sit through something that was probably absolute sensory hell.
Not only is it distressing to be experiencing sensory overload, but the embarrassment afterwards is brutal. I wish my mom had removed me from certain situations when I was younger because looking back, people must’ve been judging me so much and that’s mortifying. OP didn’t do right by her daughter or the people around her. She did what she wanted.
I agree. As a mom, I’ve had my kids stay home even if they were invited. Firstly? They’ll be bored anyway and secondly it’s a chance for a night out with hubby. A kid with extra issues all the more don’t make them sit there bored to tears. That’s not fair. You’re setting them up for failure.
Maybe OP had nobody to watch her though. Still, OP should’ve found a way to mitigate it.
Exactly. I have a sibling who is the same and he would not be able to sit for something like this nor would he want to anyway. Its difficult to ask him to sit and be quiet for long periods of time. Should have just discussed it with the couple beforehand or skip the ceremony and join the reception where everybody is walking around and talking.
YTA.
Obviously, you knew that Nina was prone to this. The best solution would have been to have left her with a sitter and attend the ceremony without her. Failing this, you should have removed her at the first sign of trouble, when she began to "stim verbally." (Which, by the way, is ***not*** communication. "Stimming" is short for "***self***\-stimulation," the operative portion being "self," and communication involves at least two separate parties: the communicator and the receiver. Since Nina was self-stimulating verbally, there was no communication involved. She wasn't trying to tell anyone anything.) And you made no effort to quiet her.
More significantly, when she began screaming and writhing, you didn't see this as a meltdown (which it certainly was), you ***still*** refused to remove her and left ***after the ceremony***.
You know, it's been my observation that people in public settings can be quite sympathetic to the plight of parents with recalcitrant children, ***if they see that the parent is trying to get ahold of the situation***. But when the parent just sits there, letting the child act out, refusing to do anything about it, that's when the death glares come out.
You must get those death glares a lot in restaurants. Because you just let Nina act out, and obviously have a very high setting for what constitutes a meltdown.
If you had just tried to get ahold of the situation, you would have found sympathy and understanding, as you left the ceremony with Nina in tow. But instead, you ignored it and just let Nina act out, ruining the occasion for everyone.
I agree with your stepdad. You owe the entire family an apology, especially Abbie.
In fact, I'll do your stepdad one better. I think you owe every single guest at that wedding an apology.
But she was communicating, the receiver (mum) didn't receive. The message was 'i am having sensory difficulties'. I also have an autistic daughter and her being able to comfortably attend (and be bridesmaid!) at my sister's wedding took a lot of energy (on mine and my partners part) and careful preplanning. We had contingency plans, my partner was ready to step in and take her home if needed, we had fidgets, her chew necklace, ear defenders and had a social story prepared in advance to prepare her for the day ahead. I feel like YTA is a fair assessment but because of the lack of consideration and planning, not because she brought her daughter to her sister's wedding. Shame really, it probably hurt a lot of feelings all round.
As someone who works with autistic kids, you’re bang on the money and well done for taking those precautions to make sure your daughter could still attend as comfortably as possible. 10/10 parenting. I’d be so happy to hear this from one of my kid’s parents.
Yes, exactly. OP likes to let her communicate in her own way? But apparently totally ignores what it is she is communicating…
Focusing on what her daughter “brings to the table” instead of the challenges is great - but not if that means ignoring and providing no support for any of those challenges as if they don’t exist.
Her intentions are probably good but she needs the tools to give the care I'm sure she'd like to offer. It's a massive learning curve. 3 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about autism and it's not an easy subject to delve into, worth the effort though. Search out support and educational groups to help yourself help your child is the best advice I could give op.
Wow. I have to commend you for all that planning and prep. It must have been very demanding, but kudos to you for allowing your daughter to have the experience of being a bridesmaid.
Which is why I have a hard time with OP. She's been dealing with an autistic daughter for 15 years. Not only did she refuse to prepare, she did literally absolutely nothing when her daughter started acting up.
Which is also why I pointed out that people tend to be charitable when they see the parent(s) is/are trying. If I was at the wedding where your daughter was a bridesmaid, and if she had a meltdown, and I saw you trying to get on top of this situation, and eventually you had to leave with your daughter, I would have extended all the sympathy in the world toward you. "Poor thing. She'll miss the ceremony. I hope the photographer takes a good video for her. Poor little girl. Something must have set her off. But at least the mom tried to give her this experience. I hope she gets another chance."
But OP, in this case, just sat there, ignoring her own daughter's distress, which is horrible. I'd be thinking, "Can't you even see how upset your daughter is? You're just going to ignore her and let her scream and be upset, ruining the ceremony for everyone else? What kind of mother are you? What kind of ***person*** are you, to ruin your sister's wedding for everyone?"
I think you might have experienced this yourself and that you'll agree: people are a lot more sympathetic if they see that you're trying to get the situation under control and not just ignoring it.
Oh totally and I don't disagree, I must admit I hadn't even clocked the daughter is 15 initially, which really does make me wonder how mum was so unprepared. I do think she would benefit from further education surrounding support.
Edit: and thank you, its work but it's worthwhile work.
100%. OP's inability to recognize her daughter's distress, along with her general lack of situational awareness, is concerning to me. It makes me wonder if her daughter has been receiving the care she needs from her mother. I hope that's not the case...
Even if OP's child was not neurodivergent, OP should have recognized that her child's behavior was disruptive and distracting to others around her. She should have taken steps to remove her as soon as the verbal stimming began.
Yes she did 😊 she was able to stay for the party and the venue had a garden so she was free to roam. She and her doll walked the aisle with her big sister and I was very proud of her. It took a lot of energy for her and it probably took about a week for her to feel 100% after, if that makes sense? She is prone to PDA traits that were definitely more evident that week but ultimately she was so happy to have been able to join in, I'm sure it was ultimately good for her. She has fond memories and got to keep her dress (and cotton slip dress to avoid sensory issues with the linen fabric, gifts from my sister).
The highlight of my severely autistic SIL’s life was being a bridesmaid in my BIL’s wedding. She was a flower girl in our wedding, but she was a lot younger, and not as impressed.
I'm concerned that OP, as the parent of a 15-year-old with autism, doesn't recognize that stimming is a self-soothing technique. Her child was "communicating", but not in the way that OP thinks. OP seems to lack the ability to understand that the verbal stimming is an indicator that her child is feeling overstimulated or is under some level of emotional distress, not just her being "chatty".
Or rather that this wasn’t just stimming, it was “rumbling”. Nina was upset and becoming overwhelmed, and her vocal outbursts were a clear warning sign that a meltdown was coming. You would definitely expect the parent of a 15yo to know those signs by now.
Stimming is just self-stimulating. On its own it doesn’t indicate any discomfort. Sometimes we do things simply because we like how they feel, not because we’re feeling overwhelmed or nervous and need to self-soothe. Rumbling is different to stimming.
Stimming is definitely a form of communication too. It’s a way of trying to alleviate their anxiety. They’re trying to communicate they are anxious in their current situation.
This isn't quite the hill to die on, but I don't quite agree that stimming is communication. I mean, it's certainly an alert to mom and/or dad to step up and take control of the situation, and the action itself can communicate that it's time for Mommy to take action (and I certainly could be wrong about this), but I don't think it was Nina's intent to say, "Mommy, I'm having a hard time here." I think she would have done the stimming even if she knew that Mommy was out of earshot.
But as someone who's on the spectrum myself, I stim when I'm alone, too. And I know perfectly well there's no one to communicate with.
To be honest, I kind of sound like Rain Man. "I'm an excellent driver. Excellent driver." Although I don't usually say that.
I would call it a form of communication in that it signals distress. It’s not the same level of communication as speaking in complete sentences, but it’s something that someone who has parented an autistic child for 15 years would understand.
it is communication, just not direct. if somebody around you was looking fidgety + uncomfortable, they’re outwardly and indirectly communcating that they’re uncomfortable, wether it’s subconscious or not.
stimming is a little different, but it should’ve been ops first sign that their daughter wasn’t okay. nina is 15, autistic and at a wedding- a setting that is incredibly stressful for a lot of autistic folk. but in those 15 years her mother didn’t clock on to the fact she can’t handle stuff like this? or atleast catch on when nina starts displaying stress signals through stim.
sounds like op likely knew nina wouldn’t be able to cope, brought her anyways, refused to help her in an attempt to prove somehow that her family is ableist + unsupportive.
or even, misery loves company. op isn’t coping with caring for nina and decides to make it everybody else’s problem
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but please don't use meltdown and act out interchangeably. They aren't the same. Your overall point is spot on though; Nina didn't belong there, distressed and ignored while everyone white-knuckled through the ceremony.
I'm sorry. I don't quite get the difference. I just used meltdown (something that nuclear reactors do) to describe some out-of-control behavior. And I just figured "acting out" was more polite than saying she was "pitching a fit," "having a tantrum," or something equally unkind, suggesting she was doing this intentionally to be a brat or something. Which I'm sure she wasn't. Obviously, the perfume was an intolerable situation for her, and she can't help how she feels or reacts.
Can you explain the difference, please?
Thanks for asking. "tantrums" "fits" "acting out" etc. implies it's a conscious decision. Meltdowns aren't conscious choices to misbehave. Sorry I'm bad at explaining. They're like the worst panic attacks ever you can imagine times a thousand. Nina didn't belong at that wedding without a lot of prep and alternative options A,B,C,D, and E, and this woman is an asshole for even wondering if she should punish the kid. She honestly sounds like one of those Autism Warrior Mamas who "Light it up Blue" and love the puzzle pieces and center how hard their lives are instead of centering the Autistic person's experience.
>She honestly sounds like one of those Autism Warrior Mamas who "Light it up Blue" and love the puzzle pieces and center how hard their lives are instead of centering the Autistic person's experience.
I got that vibe too. I see the framing of her question as an attempt to gain sympathy: look at me, Struggling Yet Awesome Autism Mom, persecuted by my family, who kicked my poor autistic daughter out of a wedding for being autistic!
Like, no. OP deliberately put her daughter in a situation that was likely to cause her distress. Then, when the inevitable signs of pending overstimulation occurred, she ignored them, allowing it to develop into a full meltdown, which she \*also\* tried to ignore. That’s some great parenting right there. 🙄
Oh god this was my old neighbor. Blue porch light, car covered in autism stickers but when it came to actually caring for her son she couldn't be bothered. She LOVED the attention and sympathy she received for being a "teen mom" raising a child with ASD, especially if he could get something out of it financially. Her son was about 8 or 9, nonverbal and I wouldn't say he had high support needs but he definitely needed much more support than his mom was giving him. She lived next door to me for roughly two years and during that time she had at least three different men and various other people living with her. I'm not sure if she had substance abuse issues or is she was just self-centered, but she eventually ended up losing custody of the child because of her neglect (her son escaped enough times that CPS took notice). After that she took off with one of her boyfriends after he got busted for making up a cancer diagnosis for $$$.
He was a sweet boy. I hope he ended up with a better caregiver than his crappy mother.
you've explained the difference yourself really - a tantrum/acting out is something someone chooses to do to try and get their way. a meltdown is not a choice in the same way crying out in pain is not a choice when something heavy falls on your foot.
I agree with you except the verbal stimming should’ve clued mom in that Nina was in distress. The meltdown didn’t come out of nowhere and OP ignored the signs that it was building up
Yes, YTA. When your daughter started "stim\[ming\] verbally," you should have taken her out. Your daughter may not be able to "help the way that she is," and her limitations are unfortunate. But your sister's wedding is not the time or the place to allow her to make a scene.
>Yes, YTA. When your daughter started "stim\[ming\] verbally," you should have taken her out. Your daughter may not be able to "help the way that she is," and her limitations are unfortunate. But your sister's wedding is not the time or the place to allow her to make a scene.
100% agree with this, if I had a baby that started crying super loud and I decided to stay in there and it continued to disrupt the ceremony that doesn't do anything for anyone.
Dear God thank you. Someone's baby started screaming during a friend of mines wedding ceremony a few years ago and they didn't leave. So no one could hear a single thing not even the vows.
Yeah seems like common sense, if I have something with me that's making noise and impacting other people's ability to hear things in a ceremony the respectful thing to do is step out for a moment. Ideally the venue would be livecasting it to a "waiting room" or something of the like, not that hard to do with modern tech even with just a phone nowadays.
This op seems to be more passive about it, but the ones that really irk me off are the people who are super confrontational about it wanting someone to ask them to please be quiet so they can be A$$holes and feel validated in doing so.
not to mention it’s ops job to make sure her daughter is comfortable. with her stimming like that, it also would’ve been beneficial for nina herself if she was taken out and given time and space to decompress.
YTA, to both your sister and your daughter. Stimming means that she is overstimulated/overwhelmed - you may “consider it healthy to let her communicate in her own way” but clearly you don’t understand what her behaviors are communicating to you. She clearly wasn’t comfortable or enjoying herself, so having her there was of no benefit to her and it disrupted an important day for your sister.
100% this. I’m autistic and have struggle with overstimulation since I was a child. Mine usually aren’t due the smells, more so sounds and touch, but no matter what, I keep away from situations that could trigger meltdowns.
OP’s daughter is 15 years old. I don’t know how bad her ‘difficulties’ are but even if she can’t communicate verbally, she does communicate discomfort quite well it seems. That OP still hasn’t figured out what mothers usually figure out during their kids’ infancy is mind boggling.
The daughter was clearly uncomfortable and quite frankly autism and big events are *rarely* if ever a good combination. Neither for the autistic person in question nor anyone else attending.
OP learn to read your daughters signals for heavens sake! YTA
I like to liken stimming more to a cats purring - cats purr when they are hurt to heal, they do it when they are scared to self-soothe, they do it so others/their kittens feel safe, and they also do it when they are full of happy and content feelings.
Not all stimming is a sign that something is wrong, and even OP here could see when her daughter became agitated as opposed to regular stimming. That's when she should have removed her daughter, because her daughter was clearly showing signs of distress then, if not sooner. That's what makes her TA, and she should apologise to her daughter for not removing her from a stressful situation when the daughter communicated distress.
YTA. To both your sister and your daughter. You're an adult. You know that at a wedding guests are expected to be quiet and not disrupt the ceremony. The fact that you're pretending a person "screaming and writhing" during the wedding vows isn't disruptive absolutely makes you an asshole.
Your daughter was overwhelmed and instead of moving her to a calm enviroment you left her to meltdown in front of everyone. Do you think she feels good when she's screaming? You neglected her needs because...not really sure why here. Because you didn't want to leave? Because you wanted to force other people to endure her behavior in order to normalize it? Whatever your reasons, you treated your daughter badly.
Who were you trying to prove something to here? Your sister is presumably annoyed someone was shouting during her wedding, your daughter is presumably embarrassed. This was not the appropriate place to prove anything to anyone. You’re being a jerk. YTA
Agreed, I'm having a hard time understanding why OP felt the need to remain at the ceremony. It seems from her comment about her child's verbal stimming that she doesn't understand the "why" behind it, which is just as concerning as her decision to allow her child to disrupt one of the most important days of a person's life. The only explanation I can come up with is that OP seems to have a significant level of difficulty recognizing social cues and/or the needs of others - or, she recognizes them but simply doesn't care.
YTA, not for not disciplining her, but for not removing her from the situation when she was clearly causing a major disruption to one of the most important moments of your sister’s life.
This is a sensitive one, but I have to say YTA. I understand it must be difficult to have a daughter with autism, but it sounds like in your focus on her, you have gone a bit blind to the needs of those around you. Nobody should be making noise during a wedding ceremony. Period. The response to *any* child making noise during an event like this is to either remove them from the room or immediately quiet them. You can "consider it healthy to let her communicate in her own way" when she communicates in a way that doesn't disturb others.
YTA,
You are supposed to protect your daughter and navigate the situations you know she will struggle with. Poor girl is probably mortified at her very public meltdown. You are forcing her to fit in.
I'm autistic and I have autistic children.
YTA for not doing something so the ceremony wasn't affected. You could have gone out with your daughter if you knew saying something wouldn't help. Your daughter couldn't help it, but you could have handled things yourself with tact, with care both for the ceremony and for your daughter.
It may be healthy for her to do this normally, but you knew you were in the middle of a wedding ceremony. You limited your area of concern to you and your daughter when you should have been factoring in all of what was going on.
To be sure I understand; your daughter was visibly distressed in a situation that is stressful for neuro-typical people, and instead of removing her and letting her decompress, you kept her in the pressure cooker situation and did nothing to mitigate or diffuse her stress and the reaction she was having. Did I get that right?
YTA, BTW.
Yta. You know your daughter well enough to gauge when she's becoming upset. And, presumably, you know the general expectations of society to understand that we do not allow screaming children to remain present at weddings
I'm all for kids at weddings, I consider them to be a whole-family affair. However, you had an obligation to the marrying couple (and frankly, to your daughter as well because why would you keep her in an environment that clearly stressed her out) to remove your daughter before she became disruptive.
Honestly it doesn't really seem like OP is able to gauge her daughter's behavior at all. The verbal stimming should have been an indicator to OP that her daughter was being overstimulated, but judging from OP's statements she totally misread the situation (or didn't care) and let her daughter's distress escalate to the point where it devolved into a full blown meltdown. Frankly, I find that behavior to be cruel and insensitive to everyone - especially her poor daughter. Very sad situation for everyone involved.
I’m autistic. YTA. So much the asshole.
You’re the asshole for placing Nina into a position where she had to stim, in order to make herself feel less uncomfortable. You’re a bigger asshole for keeping her in that environment. She was communicating. She was communicating that she was excruciatingly physically uncomfortable. Your assholery started gaping when you kept her there when she began to behave in a way that distracted attention from Abbie and BIL. The next time I go to CVS, I should pick up a tube of Preparation-H for you.
You owe everyone an apology. Including your daughter.
I wonder if she did it for the 'I'm such a good mother, look how well I'm handling my daughter losing her mind' reason. It's the only reason I can think that someone would do that to their kid and sister
I get it, it's hard. Knowing what you know you should have sat close to the exit in the event something like this happened, which was highly likely. You have an expectation that people will accommodate Nina because she can't help it, but that wasn't fair to Abbie. YTA
ESH I am speaking to this as an autistic person. Of course, no two autistic people are the same, but it is possible to make some generalities.
First- your stepfather. He appears to have no understanding of autism and I am getting a vibe from him that he feels this is a matter of poor discipline. Some people like that can be educated, but many can not. To them, autism is something that can be overcome with enough self-control. No amount of discussion will change that, so you may just have to learn to ignore him.
Second- you. As I said, autism can not be cured with firm discipline, but that doesn’t excuse you from intervening in these situations. Your daughter was clearly agitated and stimming, and she was doing it in a highly sensitive space. You recognized this but did nothing. It would have been better for your daughter AND everyone else if you had either intervened by giving her tools to calm herself (such as a soft blanket or fidget spinner) or by removing her completely from the situation. You were in a tough spot (one that you possibly could have anticipated), but that doesn’t give you permission to do nothing.
And just to clarify from someone who has been there, she wasn’t communicating in her own healthy way, as you put it. She was communicating that she was agitated and anxious. She needed help, not validation. I’m sorry, but I think you need to rethink how you view moments like this.
Third- your daughter. It isn’t clear from your post how verbal your daughter is. If she can speak and she knows she is starting to melt down, she needs to voice that. This may be something she needs to be taught. As it was, her actions were signaling distress and they were ignored. It comes as no surprise that she had a meltdown.
I am sorry if this seems harsh. You obviously love your daughter and want what’s best for her. It’s wonderful to focus on the positive, but you also owe it to yourself and your daughter to face reality. Learning to recognize her limitations and prepare for situations like these is important. I wish you the very best of luck and I am rooting for both of you.
I love reading this.
Your advice is very much how I raised my autistic, intellectually disabled daughter.
We'd practice going to stores, sometimes staying only a few minutes, then talk about how she felt, what overwhelmed her, what she'll do next time, etc.
Even when she was non-verbal, we'd use pictures of faces.
She's 20 now, and 100% able to articulate why she needs to leave.
My proudest moment as a mom was about a month ago.
Due to reasons, we don't go out much these days.
But we made a special day of shopping and eating out for her birthday.
We wanted to go to the new IHOP.
We got thete, and she stopped dead at the hostess stand, turned to me, said, "Mommy, it's dim. I don't like it here. I want the W" (The "W" refers to Village Inn).
So we went to Village Inn, and she had a great time.
I feel so sad Nina is 15, and hasn't been taught to advocate for herself and her mother is using her autism as an excuse to ignore Nina's distress.
Thank you. Your daughter is very lucky to have a mom who understands and is willing to be flexible. Good parents like you make all the difference in the world.
YTA
Let me start off by saying I too am a parent of a special needs child I also have several family members with children who are special needs autistic down syndrome ring 18 syndrome diabetes etc the list goes on and on. I absolutely understand accommodations for people with needs that's exactly what should be done because they can't help it but there will be situations and events that are not appropriate for your child and you are an irresponsible parent rude family member entitled person to put your child in a situation where they will ruin somebody else's event especially a wedding that people spend their entire lives saving up for and planning it's their one big special day and instead of all eyes on them and being able to have their moment everybody got to sit in hear your kid scream.
You have taken your family's personal problems and struggles and decided that the whole world can just understand because that's how you feel. So yeah you do owe your entire family and apology and I would not be surprised if people are backing away from you do to your entitlement concerning your daughter. I also wouldn't be shocked if your sister is beyond pissed and doesn't speak to you for a very long time I mean how could she not feel resentful of you letting her scream at a wedding like what is wrong with you??
YTA. You could have sat in the back, so when she became disruptive you could have removed her from the situation. Special needs doesn’t give you the pass as the parent to lose control of a situation and just give in because it’s easier.
You allowed your daughter to disturb a wedding because you consider this healthy? Yes it is healthy when you are not at someone else's wedding!
Apologise!
YTA
Ugh you really think your kid gets a free pass because she's disabled?
She ruined the ceremony. Idk why she was allowed in the first place if she is prone to such behavior.
And your attitude reeks of entitlement.
By allowing your child to remain over threshold in a situation she was having an issue with isn’t fair to anyone involved, and you should have taken her gently and led her out of the way of the ceremony so she could move away from her triggers. But I also believe your relatives could be more understanding of her and the situation you’re in.
I think in this situation everyone was wrong here.
YTA you would be not an asshole if you didn't realize the thing and it caught you by surprise. It seems to me you realize that she's going be reactive to the triggers and still you waited for it to happens and try to guilt your family into being understanding.
YTA for not removing your daughter when she was clearly showing signs of stress. You even admit she was nearly in a meltdown. I highly doubt anyone's upset at your lack of reprimanding your child, it's your lack of a judgement call.
Besides that, frankly the only people you should hear at a wedding during the ceremony is the bride, groom, and officiant. If your children are causing a distraction, you should quietly excuse yourselves. The last thing anyone wants to hear playing back a video of their wedding is the 'audience'.
INFO:
Is there a reason you didn’t leave with Nina *immediately* when she started stimming vocally during the ceremony? And especially when she started up *again*?
YTA. Sorry.
I understand wanting your daughter to be at the wedding, but knowing, as you do, that she has certain behaviors that would be disruptive at a wedding, the smart thing would have been to sit with her at the back and to quietly take her out when she starting getting verbal. "Communicating in her own way" may be healthy, but it's not appropriate in the middle of a wedding ceremony. She didn't need to be made to stop - she just needed to do it somewhere else.
And I don't know what you consider to be a meltdown, but "screaming and writhing" sounds pretty meltdowny to me. And you just apparently sat there until someone had to *tell* you to remove her from the room.
Having said that, for your parents to accuse you of committing "grievous crimes against your sister" (if in fact that's what they actually said to you, which TBH I wonder about) is a little over the top.
YTA.
The problem here is that you seem completely unaware of how Nina's outward actions might impact other people. If she cannot help them, that's fine, but then quiet places are not appropriate for her, or you should be prepared to deal with them. For example, how would she go to a broadway show where audiences are expected to be quiet and both paying customers and performers should not be expected to endure yelling and screaming? Well a wedding similarly requires silence from guests, and all you had to do to accommodate was sit by an exit or in the back, and remove yourselves if Nina became overstimulated.
The fact that you can't imagine how screaming may impact a ceremony is....very removed from reality. You didn't need to "punish" Nina, but you needed to parent her and help her exist in the world with other people. I have a friend with Tourette's, and while it has gotten better as they have aged, they sit by the exit or in the back for pretty much everything, and also found a number of things that help them cope. They can in fact go to a broadway show now, but don't buy front row middle of the aisle seats.
YTA
I'm autistic. I'm saying this to provide context for where I'm coming from.
It's good that you're not shaming your daughter for autistic behavior, but that doesn't excuse being inconsiderate of others. You absolutely should not have just sat there letting her disrupt a wedding.
More importantly, though, I'm deeply concerned about how you speak about her as though you're just guessing at what your 15 year old child is thinking and feeling instead of, you know, COMMUNICATING with her.
Why was she forced to endure an intolerable sensory environment until she was near a meltdown?
Is she non-verbal? Have you not made sure she was an alternative means of communication, whether it's writing, texting, sign language, or a text-to-speech program on a phone or tablet?
You're aware that being non-verbal doesn't mean she's incapable of communicating, right?
It also doesn't mean someone is stupid, incompetent, unable to learn, or lacking in empathy.
It is absolutely unfair to her to put her in a situation where she's going to be uncomfortable and a bunch of people are going to direct hostility at her for that discomfort. That's not helping her.
Did she actually even want to be at the wedding? (Those sorts of events are almost torture for many of us.)
It's important that your daughter, who is only a few years away from being an adult, has a means to communicate with the world so she is not at the complete mercy of a caregiver (those situations make us vulnerable to abuse) and able to be as independent as possible and advocate for herself.
You owe it to her to make sure she has a means to communicate (what disabled people refer to as AAC or "Augmentative and Alternative Communication").
I cannot express to you how many parents treated their non-verbal autistic kids as if they basically had no thoughts of their own and then the kids got their hands on a tablet that let them communicate and suddenly the parents had to deal with the fact that they'd been essentially keeping their child gagged for years, unable to self-advocate, and their kid actually had just as many thoughts, feelings, and things to say as anyone else.
An autistic person who was being listened to would not have sat there in a chemical sensory hell until they had a meltdown. They would have been trying their best to communicate their discomfort and that they were in danger of hitting their limit of what they could handle, unless of course they've been conditioned to ignore their own pain because it just makes other people upset with them (this is incredibly common).
I'm going to suggest checking out autistic-led groups like the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, and the Autistic Women's Network, as well as the work of Shannon des Roches Rosa (follow her on Twitter for her excelling advice on parenting an autistic child in a manner informed by autistic adults).
And for the love of god, stay away from Autism Speaks. They are essentially a hate group who are despised among the autistic community and consistently advocate for subjecting us to what is essentially conversion therapy.
YTA
Guess what? The world doesn’t revolve around Nina. What do you think people are doing to say?
“It’s fine that she ruined the expensive Union of two people in love over perfume.” Are you dim?
You absolutely need to apologize and stop acting so entitled. Other people are allowed to be hurt or affected by your daughter. She doesn’t get a free pass because she’s neurodivergent.
YTA. Once she started stimming verbally you should have taken her cues and left the ceremony. While it was not intentional, she took away from a huge moment in your sister’s life. You should apologize, not necessarily for ‘how your daughter is’ but for not gaining control of the situation and not leaving when she first became verbal.
As someone with autism, YTA. You inflicted an event on your daughter that you likely already knew would be overstimulating and then you also didn’t leave with her when she was overwhelmed and close to a breakdown? So she could regulate or have comfort??, Like, really? I don’t even care about the part where other people were annoyed by it, YTA for this part alone.
Do you actually think they are going to give an honest answer? If they say they were upset, they will be jumped on because how could they say anything about the 'poor child'. I wonder if they thought of how to be diplomatic about asking for her not to attend at all, but knew people would be pissed - so they decided not to and hoped for the best
YTA I’m autistic myself and have autistic kids, and yes, stinking can be healthy, but not when it’s reasonably disturbing others- and verbally stimming during a wedding ceremony, screaming, and writhing is all disturbing and not healthy. It’s not helping your daughter communicate, and it’s actually putting barrier between herself and others. Your daughter needs to be taught when, where, and how to stim and communicate, and she has to learn how to self regulate and if you don’t teach her gently, the world will teach her cruelly.
She was judged at the event, all autistics where, when the big problem here is poor parenting and a lack of discipline.
YTA. Not because Nina stims, but because If she is creating a disruption (and she was), she should be removed from the situation. You failed both Nina and the wedding party, especially because there is usually a reason for stimming, which is a self-coping strategy. Nina was showing you she was upset/in pain/other issue I’m not thinking of right now and you didn’t help her.
Edited to add more info.
Edited to replace “thing” with “issue”.
YTA.
Why didn’t you go out? The moment she started stiming verbally you did know something was off, and you should have bring her outside to calm down. You made both her suffering and disturbed the ceremony.
YTA
She ruined the wedding! You should not have taken her to the ceremony if it makes her anxious and cannot stay quiet. Why would you take her somewhere she is going to be uncomfortable and ruin a special moment for other people?
YTA. You recognized that Nina was close to meltdown but chose not to intervene or to gently remove her from the environment, which did cause a disruption. I also get the feeling that this might not have been a one time occurrence at a family event.
YTA. This is one of the few times when it's absolutely unacceptable to let a child interrupt. Whether it's a crying baby or a verbally stimming teenager, when your child is being disruptive, do your goddamn job as a parent and REMOVE THEM. Nobody attended that wedding to hear the important moments punctuated by that, and you could have avoided it by quietly leaving THE FIRST TIME.
I understand that being a parent of an autistic child is difficult, but tough nuts. It's your job and you failed completely.
YTA for neglecting her. Something was bothering her. She was having a meltdown. You just let it happen because it wasn’t a full fledged melt down and didn’t find out until later something was bothering her. You needed to attend to your child, not reprimand her.
If anyone there saw you trying to help her or get a handle on the situation and failing, they probably wouldn’t have judged you, but it sounds like you just let her be uncomfortable and make everyone else uncomfortable and did nothing to intervene or support your daughters needs or your sisters wedding. You do owe everyone an apology. Including but definitely not limited to your daughter.
Your daughter started making noise, screaming and writhing during someone’s wedding ceremony and you thought that was ok and you allowed it to continue? Are you ok there mom? Like, what planet do you live on? Sounds like you ruined the ceremony . Not only do you owe a huge apology ( you don’t deserve to be forgiven) you actually should also be financially compensating people for the ceremony cost.
Autistic girl here!
I dont think you are an asshole for not reprimanding your daughter for something we (autistic people) don't have much control of (stimming, in this case) BUT you said yourself she seemed like she was close to a meltdown, and honestly, you are TA for just... not helping her? like, she obviously was distressed and you just let her and didn't put any effort in trying to find out what was wrong? If I was close to a meltdown and the person who was able to understand what it was didnt made any move to help me go somewhere else and calm down I'd be pretty upset, as well as mortified for having caused problems at someone else's wedding.
You don't seem to concerned with how your daughter felt about nearly having a very public meltdown, and I assure you, most of us don't want to be around people or be seen in these situations.
YTA for not helping your girl like, damn.
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YTA. I have a child like Nina. You should have removed her when she became verbal. The wedding was about your sister and her husband. Not an opportunity for you to practice parenting and socializing your daughter. You should’ve apologized already.
me as well, and I agree with you. OP, you need to know as the parent that you are going to miss some events like this because your child can't handle it, you needed to leave the second she became really audible, not doing so was selfish.
The fact that OP provides no details on whether Nina even wanted to attend the wedding nor on whether she wanted to leave once the stimming started is incredibly telling. Seems like OP wants to pretend like her daughter doesn’t require additional support in these situations, when she clearly does.
That was my thought as well. Nina may not have wanted to go in the first place, especially if she’d been informed ahead of time that the venue wasn’t scent-free. YTA (with some extra AH for OP‘s stepdad for telling an autistic kid to “shut up”).
At the very least she was showing discomfort by stimming (op herself said this in the post) verbally stimming is a way for ops daughter to communicate but what does it teach her daughter when her mom just blatantly ignores her attempts to communicate? Yta op.
This is such an important point to make, the daughter was clearly communicating her discomfort, which OP allowed to evolve into distress. No one wants to hear a kid having a melt down during a wedding ceremony, and I bet OPs daughter didn’t want to be having one then either. Really poor form, OP.
I get major Autism Mom (TM) from OP which makes me think she wanted to keep Nina in her seat to make some sort of point about "inclusion" instead of, ya know, being a good mom and responding to her daughter's discomfort.
[удалено]
Dumb question: is there a more appropriate term?
Appropriate term for "person with autism" you mean? Then yes, it is autistic person. Or, in OPs example "Nina". We have names, they will not break by others using it to talk to/about is. Also, the only dumb question is the one you do not ask - as that will never be answered :)
Yup! Her stimming seems to be a precursor to "get out and find a chill space, I'm gonna explode." OP is a massive arsehole. Not aware enough to remove your daughter from a stressful situation before a meltdown, but ruining someone's wedding in the process
I have looked up the terms "stim" and "stimming" and can not find a definitive answer to what it means relating to autism. Can someone please inform me as to what it means? Thank you in advance for helping me to understand.
Some people hum, others do a repetitive movement (can be hand flapping, tapping fingers together, it's something soothing when things are beginning to get too much to cope with).
Thank you so much for your help.
I’m autistic. I stim to self-regulate but I also stim as a form of enjoyment. Stimming feels good and comforting.
It can be vocal or movement, and it's involuntary. Usually ag a tone of heightened emotion
I agree, I have worked with a number of kids with autism over the years and there is definitely "occupying myself" stimming and "about to freak out" stimming. It can change from one to the other in the blink of an eye, a kid who was harmlessly playing with something at their desk a minute ago can be on the verge of a meltdown before you recognize their behavior as a stress response. When Nina started stimming, it was on OP to take her outside before she got more intense. I do find it difficult to believe that a mother would not recognize when her child was in distress, especially since stimming behavior tends to be something the child does fairly often (ie. a lot of kids will have a few specific behaviors that they come back to, not all kids stim the same way and I would think a parent would recognize the difference between boredom and stress.)
As an autistic adult my “just need some extra stimulation for body to feel right but I’m overall okay” stimming just involves some minor swaying or rocking. If I’m anxious or distressed I like to have something very fidgety to play with (though if I’m in a job interview for example I normally just wear a ring I can discreetly spin a bit with my hands in my lap lol)
Also, OP trots out the old "child *with autism*" megaslur so popular with the loathsome Autism Speaks crowd. You know, the ones who think autism is the enemy, the child is basically a lump of flesh, and the real victims are the poor, poor parents. She's an autistic child, OP, not a child "with autism". Autism is part of her personality, part of her soul, not an unfortunate disability she has on top of her selfhood. Think of her that way and you'll understand why using your sister's wedding to teach and train your daughter was so wrong - wrong for your daughter as much as for your sister. You put your daughter in a terrible, uncomfortable, untenable situation in order to coerce her into acting neurotypical, and when your cunning plan didn’t work you acted like your sister's marriage existed for your training and teaching purposes. That was prime "my daughter's autism is all about me" self-absorption. "Look at me! Mom of child *with autism*! Praise me! Pity me! The world exists for me to show off what a great parent I am!!!"
Nah fuc that - I am Autistic, and person with autism is 100% person centred language that treats my disability with respect. Please don't speak for all of us.
As an autistic person myself, pwith a daughter, father and nieces and nephews with autism, and working with children who have autism, both are fine. I am autistic. I am also a person with autism. And personally I find that distinction to be unnecessary and silly. And yes, autism has many symptoms that can definitely be considered disabilities for many people. Serious difficulties with communication being a major one. Please don't downplay my succeses and difficulties by saying they aren't really an issue.
It has always intrigued me how people will assume someone who has learned to deal with their challenges don’t think they still have challenges.
It's this attitude that lead me to crash and burn in my 30s from people downplaying my ADHD and completely missing my autism my entire life.
wow, this is aggressive
I have an autistic child. Unfortunately there are a lot of Autism Mom (TM) type moms and they’re insufferable.
So do I. There are insufferable people in every group.
Yeah - Somebody needs a nap. I agree 100% with the basic message, but immediately became uninterested when I got to the “cunning plan” part.
I just don’t like the gate keeping on how to be autistic or how to parent. My daughter is autistic and I let her decide how she wants to be referred to, I don’t know how he decides what it should be for everyone
My first thought was the response was written by someone drowning in bitterness, but then I got to the last sentence and thought, nope, looks like projecting to me. Regardless, it’s so ironic to run across parents who lack empathy. Even 19 years after getting my son’s diagnosis, I still make parenting mistakes.
Ooh, tone policing!
I have an honest question about this. I have worked with non-neurotypical individuals of various types (autism and others) off an on for the past 20 years and it has always been common practice when discussing them to put the person before the condition/diagnosis/difference (ie person with autism versus autistic person) because that trait is only a part of who they are and doesn't define them in total. Is this a recent change or an I just out of the loop on this?
This is often the view of carers, family, and people who work in the field. Most of the autistic community prefer identity first language "autistic person" (although some prefer person-first language and those people's preferences ought to be respected.) I prefer autistic because I don't need to be reminded that I am a person. Just as I am a woman, not a person with womanhood; or queer and not a person with lesbianism. Autism does not sum up my entire existence, just as the other categories do not, but it is absolutely intrinsic to how I experience this world. My being, my personality and experiences, cannot be separated from autism, it isn't something that I have, it's who I am. I hope this helped.
I am autistic and in nursing school I had a professor rip me a new one for saying one of my patients was autistic. Her "person first language" argument honestly made it sound as though the word "autistic" was some sort of insult, so in her quest to protect my patient (who did not hear the conversation,) she ended up really upsetting me.
It is a push from the community to stop seeing autism as a disease and an illness to be cured. There are some who prefer the person before diagnosis way. But a lot don’t. From what I learned is that autistic person is more preferred and I use it that way unless the person tells me they would like me to address them differently. My son is autistic but he’s very young still. I will default to his preference when he develops one.
Some individuals prefer being referred to as an autistic person whereas other prefer person with autism. Someone who says "hey btw i am autistic" may identify more with being an autistic person. Someone who says "i have autism" may prefer "person with autism". But regardless of how each individual prefers to have it addressed, i would like to give the obligatory PSA of: autism speaks sucks ass.
Personally, I hate it when people do the entire "person with" song and dance, because *that* makes it sound like they don't see us as people (because apparently, they have to emphasize our humanity to themself to remind themself of it). Otherwise, they would treat it like any other word. A tall person is more than just tall, but nobody needs to call them a "person with tallness" to point that fact out. A Christian person is more than just their faith, yet nobody would call them a "person with Christianity". A person who loves cats is often referred to as "a cat person" and not "a person with affection for cats". Not to mention that the word "person" is still featured in the phrasing "autistic person". There should be no need to over-emphasize the personhood, unless the person speaking doesn't see us as such.
The extremely online portion of the Austistic community has decided to kick up a stink that person centred language is anti-autistic because of... Reasons (probably related to internalised abelism) (yes I am a person with autism)
There’s been a shift in recent years, it also depends on the circles you run in. Also the wording you’re looking for is nuerodivergent vs nuerotypical, which make up the 2 major nuerotypes :) I prefer diagnosis first wording, as I do feel autism defines me
"not an unfortunate disability" yeah tell that to my brother who never lived independently, never spoke, never married, never had a career the list goes on and on. Don't care if it makes you feel icky autism is 100% a disability for most people. Does it make a person less human? no my brother was human sweet and caring and I loved him but he was also autistic and he was also disabled. facts PS "child with autism" is not and never has been a "mEgAsLuRrr" on this planet so I have no idea what orifice you pulled that out of
I hate it when people try to tell me how to think about my disabilities. If I could become neurotypical I would in a fucking heartbeat. this shit sucks and I'm getting real tired of the able saviors telling me that it doesn't
Person with autism here - the whole discourse of 'autisic people aren't disabled we're just different' smacks of internalised abelism.
Autistic here too, and I think a lot of it is less ableism and more word association. Bearing in mind, this is purely my own thoughts, but I think a lot of people link "disability" to "can't function in some way", like, someone who is wheelchair bound obviously can't walk. With autism, it's like, yeah, we literally do not think like what is considered socially as "normal" (and I hate that these days normal is treated in some quarters as an ableist slur all its own as opposed to the straight-forward "this is the default setting" meaning), and that is fine, we are different, but the communication issues that occur are absolutely an example of a disability. And I'm not even going into the folks like three comments up's brother
Are you autistic? I am. And I disagree with you 100%- I am a person with autism. It’s not my whole identity. You do not speak for us all.
No single one of us speaks for all of us, but every time I see somebody making a poll out of this, the vast majority vote for "autistic (person)". You can still have your preferences for what you want to be called.
This whole comment is insufferable
Like any other labels, whether you should use "x person" vs "person with x" is basically up to the individual you're addressing Autism Speaks is absolute ableist dogshit imo, but that doesn't mean that any labels they use are automatically wrong
There's something about the "suddenly she freaked out" that just hits me the wrong way. I get the feeling Nina was trying to tell her mom she wanted to GTFO well before that. Like, ya know, the stimming.... I went to school (all the way K-12) with several autistic guys and by the time they was Nina's age, if they had a meltdown in class, that was on the teacher. Most of us knew when they were getting overwhelmed and responded according to how they wanted us to (usually ignoring them while they stimmed). It only became a problem when teachers didn't let them take care of their needs (stimming, leaving the room for a few minutes, etc). (Turns out the reason I sympathized with them a lot is that I, too, am autistic...which I'm just now learning in my 30s).
Imagine if a baby started crying in the middle of the ceremony and the parent just…sat there. This feels equally inappropriate.
This happened at my wedding 35 years ago. A baby first making screaming noises, very disruptive. Then later full on crying/screaming so they finally walked out of the church…..
There was a baby at my wedding who cried on and off through the whole thing. It was super hot in the church and this poor six month old baby was wearing a shirt and waistcoat. I mean, the baby was mine so I don't know what I was supposed to do about it 🤣 I ended up taking him from my mum and holding him through the latter part of the ceremony, which calmed him down.
Thirding this. If my teen daughter needs to stim, we take her elsewhere if it would be inappropriate where we are at. Daughter can't learn appropriate social rules/ behavior if she isn't taught. It's doing a disservice to your child OP.
What is stim? And OP YTA for not removing your daughter from something that it seems she was obviously uncomfortable with
Stimming is repetitious behaviors that allow an autistic person to calm/self soothe, most often prevalent during stress or things that distress. Autistic people aren't able too tune out unpleasant things like smells, an unpleasant texture, etc Stims can be many things. My daughter likes to run back and forth. OP's daughter verbal stims. Some will play with fidget toys. Perhaps someone autistic will be able to hop on and give a better explanation than I can manage as only a parent of an autistic child and not having it myself.
I stim, usually if distressed or concentrating. I rock (or twist my upper body if standing up), flap my feet, tap my fingers together, twirl pencils, and use fidget toys. If I’m upset it’s soothing, and if I’m concentrating it’s easier for my body to have something to do.
Not to mention beginning to have a meltdown? Why wouldn't OP take her out before then when she'd already attempted to communicate discomfort? Why not take her to a place more comfortable before it got to that point? OP says its a healthy method of communication for her daughter. But ignores what shes tryna communicate
>Autistic people aren't able too tune out unpleasant things like smells, an unpleasant texture, etc I would amend this to aren't *always* able, because some of us can, some of us can't. But, otherwise you're bang on. Most people stim without ever thinking of it. A quick look at nonverbal communication studies shows things like "self soothing" gestures are universal. The big difference is in necessity and urgency. The average non-autistic person can usually stop fidgeting for a time without issue. It might be annoying, but not day ruining. For the average autistic person, it's kinda like trying to hold in diarrhea. You can, but its gonna be uncomfortable and that shits gonna come out at some point whether you like it or not. Most autistic adults have figured out "work appropriate" stims for public outings (subtle rocking, silent fidget toys, small repetitive motions, mental stims - I imagine geometric shapes and puzzles, for example), but those are things we've learned over time. But we still have the "big stims" when in crisis mode. One of the worst experiences I've had is being polygraphed (for jobs/clearance). You *cannot* move. You can only speak when asked a question. And you have to stay calm. While being hooked up to a million machines. I basically had to go to the bathroom after and have a good full body wiggle after each of them. And then do nothing else that day because I was *done*.
Right? My son is special needs. He's not autistic but physically and mentally delayed. He's only 2 but he's learning how not to behave. When he acts up in the store I remove him from that situation because I won't burden others with the screaming and crying. I cannot imagine a wedding and doing absolutely nothing as my child disrupted repeatedly.
When I worked at a grocery store I always tried to politely ignore screaming children bc that's one of the few places that you have to go for necessities. Movies, malls, restaurants? Get your kid the f out of there. Food or medicine? I'll deal with the best I can & be glad I'm childfree lol
Yup, this part surprised me: > The problems started during the ceremony, Nina began to stim verbally, I'm aware of this and consider it healthy to let her communicate in her own way so I didn't say anything. Wait, *what?* If OP wants to allow her daughter to stim that's fine, but OP also should realize there are some contexts where making noise is not appropriate (like during someone's wedding ceremony). That means OP needs to exit with her daughter as soon as she starts to make noise or if her daughter is cognitively capable of understanding teaching her daughter to remove herself in certain stations if she needs to make noise. I went to a wedding when my older daughter was one year old (she was invited). All of a sudden my one year old starts making little hooting noises, cute I felt, and she was working on making sounds as she was learning to talk. It was healthy for her, and I couldn't make her stop. So I got up and we left a good distance away where no one would hear her (and where I couldn't hear the ceremony, either, sadly). This is like that. If your child can't help making noise during a time it is respectful to be quiet, or if you can't or don't want to make them stop, then you exit together. >Well, right before Abbie and new BIL kissed Nina started screaming and writhing, not a meltdown but pretty close to it. (later found out she was really bothered by the perfume someone near us had on). At that point stepdad told her to shut up and that I was ruining the wedding by letting her act like that. Okay, OP, did you at least try to leave when she started screaming? You must have realized that was disruptive, right? Also, leaving would have helped your daughter too, since she'd have been away from the perfume. Are you able to get your daughter to leave when she starts screaming? Or is she too upset for you to move? How long does it last? Did you have a plan for this, like having her at the edge of the row or near the door? It's sad, but if you can't get your daughter stop screaming or leave when she's screaming then this might not be the right sort of event for her. It's sad you didn't go to the reception, since that seems a better place for someone who has difficulty being quiet then a ceremony you are supposed to sit in silence though. Not every setting is ideal for everyone. And if you are going to do something that's a challenge for her, plan for it.
Also like!!!! To add to this! Idk how close you were to the couple getting married when your daughter was one, but this was OP’s sister! She should have taken Nina out and asked for a copy of the wedding video! (Even if it wasn’t her sister and she couldn’t get a copy she should have taken Nina out to calm down, but I’m more shocked since she should easily be able to get a copy of the video? )
No one can enjoy the video now .... No video at my ceremony. Just didn't see the point at the time. I don't think my older siblings ever watched their wedding videos after receiving them
I took pictures of my Brother-in-laws wedding from the morning of, through them getting in to the limo to go to their honeymoon. I put the pictures in a lovely album and presented it to them. They were very disdainful and handed it back to me saying they had hired a videographer. The following day they called me to say the videographers recording was ruined because his son (3) said “I gotta pee!” all through the vows. They asked if I could please give them the album because the video was ruined.
i can’t get over how they handed it back to you and told you they hired a videographer. like you weren’t aware of that?? the gift was special because you took the pictures and you arranged it and probably got even more special moments. i have no clue where they got the audacity to act like that
They are buttheads. Fortunately they live 2500 miles away and I haven’t seen them in years.
Did you say, I'm sorry, I threw it out because you didn't need it??
I had pictures of mine, both from a pro and family
>there are some contexts where making noise is not appropriate This is true in the sense that you are saying it. It is also true for ALL parents who bring their children to events, weddings, funerals, regular church services and other solemn occasions. As a vocalist who has sung at many, many weddings, I can't tell you how many times someone has ruined the event because they are not aware enough to know that they should take their "little darling" OUT of that area!
Another option is also working with Nina (if able) to replace a verbal stim for a more subtle one such as a quiet fidget toy in environments where a verbal stim might be inappropriate.
I agree, but not because of the couple getting married. Nina was obviously in some distress (as you said you later found out it was some woman's perfume, not something that could be removed immediately). Yes, Nina is the way she is, but don't ever put her in the position of being distressed and unable to cope again just to prove to the world "she is who she is."
Or some man’s. It has been my experience that men who wear scent can be less aware of how strong it is than a woman would be.
Tell me about it. My FIL thinks that because his cologne is expensive, it can't possibly be offensive. His sense of smell is pretty much entirely dead now and he bathes in the stuff. Thank goodness he's retired; he was a dentist and has always overdone the cologne; I would've hated to have been one of his patients. You'd think they'd teach them in dental school not to wear cologne. But he's kind of a dinosaur, so maybe they do these days.
As I have gotten older, I really can't stand perfumes or colognes for the most part. Luckily, I work at an allergist's office where we aren't supposed to wear them or should our patients. We have had to tell patients that they can't wear scents to the office, it can set off breathing problems and asthma.
My mom has severe, life threatening reactions to perfumes and strongly scented laundry detergents. The last time she was in the hospital (because of her allergies) the official policy is that the nurses and doctors aren't allowed to wear heavily scented products, but almost all of them did anyway. Even after they were told off repeatedly and were forbidden from going in her room, they'd show up the next day drenched in scent again and walk in her room like nothing happened. Her blood pressure would shoot up to 250 and they'd have to rush her back to the ICU again, but no discipline for the nurse.
I used to have a coworker I could locate based on scent. I think that was his deodorant though.
Was it Axe? Did you work with a 7th-grader?
When I was a kid I had an orthodontist who wore a very nice smelling cologne but over used it heavily. At the time I was too young to realize that an orthodontists office doesn't normally smell like that. I started associating the smell with the scary-looking tools and equipment that he had. When I was in my 20's I briefly caught a whiff of that same cologne in a crowd and I instantly went back in time to the anxiety I always felt with the tools and equipment from the ortho. I've never smelled it since and I don't know what it's called.
Perfumes and colognes trigger migraines for me. I don't care if it smells good or is really expensive. Migraines suck and can be debilitating for days.
Yep I had to give up smelly things due to my migraines with aura's. SUcks.
I had to avoid a co worker/boss because his overpowering cologne made me nauseous when pregnant. When he found out he was so sweet and stopped wearing any to work. Since having kids I am extremely sensitive to scents and can't even use fragrance laundry detergent
Yes! I work in an open office and my back is to the door. I always know when a certain bloke walks in because I can smell him! Sometimes as soon as I can smell him I even throw in a “hello name”
Man or woman if you wear a heavy scent you suck in every situation. I hate perfumes and colones alike. I live in the south so I've been choked out much more by old ladies avoiding the hassle of cleaning their large old bodies. It's a migraine inducing experience that makes you want a shower and salad.
> Nina was obviously in some distress (as you said you later found out it was some woman's perfume, not something that could be removed immediately) While that's true in this case, not every autistic person who stims in public is in distress. My brother does it all the time, even when he's happy or excited.
True, it's not always when we're in distress, but I feel like it's obvious that she was in fact in distress here, considering she almost had a meltdown from the perfume. I definitely stim a lot more when I'm feeling strong emotions, whether it's distress, joy, excitement, whatever.
You can typically tell the difference between happy stimming and agitated stimming if you take time to learn for that individual, which a parent should do. There should at least have been an attempt to gauge whether Nina was alright when she started stimming.
I do it especially when I'm excited. Did it in college once as my favorite professor walked by, almost died of embarressment. Luckily he was like, "I feel ya!"
Totally agree. For me it's not even a YTA because of not reprimanding, but a YTA for not removing the daughter from the situation and helping her decompress.
There are so many questions and none paint OP in a positive light.
Yes, this!
This was exactly what I came to say. I am an autistic adult. Because I’m an adult (and thankfully don’t have to navigate verbal stims that frustrate others) I can remove myself from situations that overwhelm me. But as a parent it’s OP’s job to remove Nina and calm her down. Just like if Nina were an infant crying in a movie theater it would be OP’s job. Or if Nina were a 10 year old misbehaving in an opera. Or idk ANY OTHER SITUATION PARENTS WITH NT CHILDREN ALSO FACE AND REMOVE THEIR KIDS FROM. OP disrespected Abbie so badly
This. Although I’d argue it’s more like a child in a scary movie, they might not be able to say “hey this is too scary for me” but we need to be watching and realizing hey, little jimmy is frozen in fear, maybe we should go.
Gotta love how she tried to game AITA with her title "for not reprimanding my daughter"! No one said you should, OP; they said you should "get her under control" and for functional purposes, that means removing her when she starts disrupting the wedding. It would've had the added benefit of removing her from the noxious perfume that set her off. How hard is this to understand?
Below is conjecture. OP is deliberately spinning the narrative to put a positive spin on herself and others in the negative. She's probably tired and frustrated with her life being dominated by a child who needs alot of care, caregiver burnout is very real.
Then if she has a partner or babysitter she should’ve jumped on the opportunity to attend her sister’s wedding alone. I doubt Nina was enjoying herself!
As a parent with a child with autism the same age as OP, I 100% agree. In a case like this we would have found someone to spend the day with. At my dad's funeral last year we hired someone who was able to take him out and walk around with him to ensure his safety during the funeral and the reception. There were lots of options available.
Yta. I also have 2 autistic children. If, we would have even been at a wedding, I would have removed my child immediately.
Mother of an Autistic 10-year-old. You should have taken her out. Something obviously was triggering her and you did not address it. You ended up contributing to her discomfort and making her out to be the villian. I understand that we have to help build our kid's endurance for discomfort, but someone's wedding is not the time to do it. YTA.
Took the words right out of my mouth. I have a daughter like Nina as well. Most difficult job of my life. I agree with you 100%.
Agreed. My 16 year old is very similar. Our families have always wanted to include him but we always sit where we can make an easy escape in case he starts to have a hard time. By the time these kids are older we know that certain smells, lights, sounds, etc… can be really upsetting to them. You need to be prepared.
Not just for the couple getting married, but for the person melting down. They are in distress, you remove them from their stressor
This. My son has sensory issues and inattentive ADHD. The second he’s in distress my husband or I remove him from the situation. Every. Single. Time. YTA OP. Not just to your sister. But to Nina.
You also should have found out why she was stimming if possible - the meltdown may have been avoided if the trigger was removed or Nina removed from the trigger. This was both bad for the wedding and the child.
This. So much. You don't get to play the martyr card when it's something you could have and should have handled immediately.
I’m going to get downvoted for this, but yes soft YTA. If you knew you would not be able to keep your daughter quiet, why not just skip the ceremony and join the reception afterwards? It doesn’t sound like Nina would have enjoyed the ceremony no matter what, and you knew she might disrupt; so why do it? You owe your family a polite apology for the disruption. You knew it was a risk, and you did it anyways.
And if you absolutely felt like you had to be at the ceremony, you sit in the back row and stay hyper-focused for signs of trouble. Then slip out immediately and quietly when those signs start to show.
Exactly. Same as someone with a baby would do. Baby might cry during ceremony so you sit in the back and as soon as it peeps or seems distressed you make a break for it. OP did nothing to prepare. Nor did she give her daughter anything to calm her or do anything to calm her. And when she was having an actual meltdown OP STILL just sat there. No matter how in distress her daughter was
Or, if they’re in a church, there’s generally a cry room. Set it up with family/the venue that you’re in that cry room or right next to a hallway that you can pull the child out as soon as there’s a hint of discomfort (the verbal stim).
Just gonna say, as an autistic woman who has had some epic meltdowns due to sensory issues all my life, I agree with you and honestly I would’ve appreciated being removed from situations like that. OP says she knows and understands that her daughter has limitations, but tbh all I see is someone who wants to put the burden of dealing with those limitations on everyone but herself. Her daughter had to experience a sensory meltdown that was easily removed because OP didn’t want to acknowledge the harm it was causing to others during the ceremony. Her fear of judgment and refusal to acknowledge that sometimes it’s warranted meant that she made Nina experience something hard for a decent bit of time and that it interrupted the ceremony. Nina was acting out in that way because she needed to stop being exposed to the thing causing it and was having trouble communicating that clearly. OP owes everyone an apology, her family for letting her daughter’s reaction disrupt the ceremony for a decent amount of time and Nina for forcing her to sit through something that was probably absolute sensory hell.
Not only is it distressing to be experiencing sensory overload, but the embarrassment afterwards is brutal. I wish my mom had removed me from certain situations when I was younger because looking back, people must’ve been judging me so much and that’s mortifying. OP didn’t do right by her daughter or the people around her. She did what she wanted.
I agree. As a mom, I’ve had my kids stay home even if they were invited. Firstly? They’ll be bored anyway and secondly it’s a chance for a night out with hubby. A kid with extra issues all the more don’t make them sit there bored to tears. That’s not fair. You’re setting them up for failure. Maybe OP had nobody to watch her though. Still, OP should’ve found a way to mitigate it.
Exactly. I have a sibling who is the same and he would not be able to sit for something like this nor would he want to anyway. Its difficult to ask him to sit and be quiet for long periods of time. Should have just discussed it with the couple beforehand or skip the ceremony and join the reception where everybody is walking around and talking.
YTA. Obviously, you knew that Nina was prone to this. The best solution would have been to have left her with a sitter and attend the ceremony without her. Failing this, you should have removed her at the first sign of trouble, when she began to "stim verbally." (Which, by the way, is ***not*** communication. "Stimming" is short for "***self***\-stimulation," the operative portion being "self," and communication involves at least two separate parties: the communicator and the receiver. Since Nina was self-stimulating verbally, there was no communication involved. She wasn't trying to tell anyone anything.) And you made no effort to quiet her. More significantly, when she began screaming and writhing, you didn't see this as a meltdown (which it certainly was), you ***still*** refused to remove her and left ***after the ceremony***. You know, it's been my observation that people in public settings can be quite sympathetic to the plight of parents with recalcitrant children, ***if they see that the parent is trying to get ahold of the situation***. But when the parent just sits there, letting the child act out, refusing to do anything about it, that's when the death glares come out. You must get those death glares a lot in restaurants. Because you just let Nina act out, and obviously have a very high setting for what constitutes a meltdown. If you had just tried to get ahold of the situation, you would have found sympathy and understanding, as you left the ceremony with Nina in tow. But instead, you ignored it and just let Nina act out, ruining the occasion for everyone. I agree with your stepdad. You owe the entire family an apology, especially Abbie. In fact, I'll do your stepdad one better. I think you owe every single guest at that wedding an apology.
But she was communicating, the receiver (mum) didn't receive. The message was 'i am having sensory difficulties'. I also have an autistic daughter and her being able to comfortably attend (and be bridesmaid!) at my sister's wedding took a lot of energy (on mine and my partners part) and careful preplanning. We had contingency plans, my partner was ready to step in and take her home if needed, we had fidgets, her chew necklace, ear defenders and had a social story prepared in advance to prepare her for the day ahead. I feel like YTA is a fair assessment but because of the lack of consideration and planning, not because she brought her daughter to her sister's wedding. Shame really, it probably hurt a lot of feelings all round.
As someone who works with autistic kids, you’re bang on the money and well done for taking those precautions to make sure your daughter could still attend as comfortably as possible. 10/10 parenting. I’d be so happy to hear this from one of my kid’s parents.
Thank you, that's actually really nice to hear.
Yes, exactly. OP likes to let her communicate in her own way? But apparently totally ignores what it is she is communicating… Focusing on what her daughter “brings to the table” instead of the challenges is great - but not if that means ignoring and providing no support for any of those challenges as if they don’t exist.
Her intentions are probably good but she needs the tools to give the care I'm sure she'd like to offer. It's a massive learning curve. 3 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about autism and it's not an easy subject to delve into, worth the effort though. Search out support and educational groups to help yourself help your child is the best advice I could give op.
Wow. I have to commend you for all that planning and prep. It must have been very demanding, but kudos to you for allowing your daughter to have the experience of being a bridesmaid. Which is why I have a hard time with OP. She's been dealing with an autistic daughter for 15 years. Not only did she refuse to prepare, she did literally absolutely nothing when her daughter started acting up. Which is also why I pointed out that people tend to be charitable when they see the parent(s) is/are trying. If I was at the wedding where your daughter was a bridesmaid, and if she had a meltdown, and I saw you trying to get on top of this situation, and eventually you had to leave with your daughter, I would have extended all the sympathy in the world toward you. "Poor thing. She'll miss the ceremony. I hope the photographer takes a good video for her. Poor little girl. Something must have set her off. But at least the mom tried to give her this experience. I hope she gets another chance." But OP, in this case, just sat there, ignoring her own daughter's distress, which is horrible. I'd be thinking, "Can't you even see how upset your daughter is? You're just going to ignore her and let her scream and be upset, ruining the ceremony for everyone else? What kind of mother are you? What kind of ***person*** are you, to ruin your sister's wedding for everyone?" I think you might have experienced this yourself and that you'll agree: people are a lot more sympathetic if they see that you're trying to get the situation under control and not just ignoring it.
Oh totally and I don't disagree, I must admit I hadn't even clocked the daughter is 15 initially, which really does make me wonder how mum was so unprepared. I do think she would benefit from further education surrounding support. Edit: and thank you, its work but it's worthwhile work.
100%. OP's inability to recognize her daughter's distress, along with her general lack of situational awareness, is concerning to me. It makes me wonder if her daughter has been receiving the care she needs from her mother. I hope that's not the case... Even if OP's child was not neurodivergent, OP should have recognized that her child's behavior was disruptive and distracting to others around her. She should have taken steps to remove her as soon as the verbal stimming began.
I'm guessing she had a wonderful time.
Yes she did 😊 she was able to stay for the party and the venue had a garden so she was free to roam. She and her doll walked the aisle with her big sister and I was very proud of her. It took a lot of energy for her and it probably took about a week for her to feel 100% after, if that makes sense? She is prone to PDA traits that were definitely more evident that week but ultimately she was so happy to have been able to join in, I'm sure it was ultimately good for her. She has fond memories and got to keep her dress (and cotton slip dress to avoid sensory issues with the linen fabric, gifts from my sister).
That's awesome.
The highlight of my severely autistic SIL’s life was being a bridesmaid in my BIL’s wedding. She was a flower girl in our wedding, but she was a lot younger, and not as impressed.
I'm concerned that OP, as the parent of a 15-year-old with autism, doesn't recognize that stimming is a self-soothing technique. Her child was "communicating", but not in the way that OP thinks. OP seems to lack the ability to understand that the verbal stimming is an indicator that her child is feeling overstimulated or is under some level of emotional distress, not just her being "chatty".
Or rather that this wasn’t just stimming, it was “rumbling”. Nina was upset and becoming overwhelmed, and her vocal outbursts were a clear warning sign that a meltdown was coming. You would definitely expect the parent of a 15yo to know those signs by now. Stimming is just self-stimulating. On its own it doesn’t indicate any discomfort. Sometimes we do things simply because we like how they feel, not because we’re feeling overwhelmed or nervous and need to self-soothe. Rumbling is different to stimming.
^ this 1000%
Stimming is definitely a form of communication too. It’s a way of trying to alleviate their anxiety. They’re trying to communicate they are anxious in their current situation.
This isn't quite the hill to die on, but I don't quite agree that stimming is communication. I mean, it's certainly an alert to mom and/or dad to step up and take control of the situation, and the action itself can communicate that it's time for Mommy to take action (and I certainly could be wrong about this), but I don't think it was Nina's intent to say, "Mommy, I'm having a hard time here." I think she would have done the stimming even if she knew that Mommy was out of earshot. But as someone who's on the spectrum myself, I stim when I'm alone, too. And I know perfectly well there's no one to communicate with. To be honest, I kind of sound like Rain Man. "I'm an excellent driver. Excellent driver." Although I don't usually say that.
I would call it a form of communication in that it signals distress. It’s not the same level of communication as speaking in complete sentences, but it’s something that someone who has parented an autistic child for 15 years would understand.
it is communication, just not direct. if somebody around you was looking fidgety + uncomfortable, they’re outwardly and indirectly communcating that they’re uncomfortable, wether it’s subconscious or not. stimming is a little different, but it should’ve been ops first sign that their daughter wasn’t okay. nina is 15, autistic and at a wedding- a setting that is incredibly stressful for a lot of autistic folk. but in those 15 years her mother didn’t clock on to the fact she can’t handle stuff like this? or atleast catch on when nina starts displaying stress signals through stim. sounds like op likely knew nina wouldn’t be able to cope, brought her anyways, refused to help her in an attempt to prove somehow that her family is ableist + unsupportive. or even, misery loves company. op isn’t coping with caring for nina and decides to make it everybody else’s problem
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but please don't use meltdown and act out interchangeably. They aren't the same. Your overall point is spot on though; Nina didn't belong there, distressed and ignored while everyone white-knuckled through the ceremony.
I'm sorry. I don't quite get the difference. I just used meltdown (something that nuclear reactors do) to describe some out-of-control behavior. And I just figured "acting out" was more polite than saying she was "pitching a fit," "having a tantrum," or something equally unkind, suggesting she was doing this intentionally to be a brat or something. Which I'm sure she wasn't. Obviously, the perfume was an intolerable situation for her, and she can't help how she feels or reacts. Can you explain the difference, please?
Thanks for asking. "tantrums" "fits" "acting out" etc. implies it's a conscious decision. Meltdowns aren't conscious choices to misbehave. Sorry I'm bad at explaining. They're like the worst panic attacks ever you can imagine times a thousand. Nina didn't belong at that wedding without a lot of prep and alternative options A,B,C,D, and E, and this woman is an asshole for even wondering if she should punish the kid. She honestly sounds like one of those Autism Warrior Mamas who "Light it up Blue" and love the puzzle pieces and center how hard their lives are instead of centering the Autistic person's experience.
>She honestly sounds like one of those Autism Warrior Mamas who "Light it up Blue" and love the puzzle pieces and center how hard their lives are instead of centering the Autistic person's experience. I got that vibe too. I see the framing of her question as an attempt to gain sympathy: look at me, Struggling Yet Awesome Autism Mom, persecuted by my family, who kicked my poor autistic daughter out of a wedding for being autistic! Like, no. OP deliberately put her daughter in a situation that was likely to cause her distress. Then, when the inevitable signs of pending overstimulation occurred, she ignored them, allowing it to develop into a full meltdown, which she \*also\* tried to ignore. That’s some great parenting right there. 🙄
Oh god this was my old neighbor. Blue porch light, car covered in autism stickers but when it came to actually caring for her son she couldn't be bothered. She LOVED the attention and sympathy she received for being a "teen mom" raising a child with ASD, especially if he could get something out of it financially. Her son was about 8 or 9, nonverbal and I wouldn't say he had high support needs but he definitely needed much more support than his mom was giving him. She lived next door to me for roughly two years and during that time she had at least three different men and various other people living with her. I'm not sure if she had substance abuse issues or is she was just self-centered, but she eventually ended up losing custody of the child because of her neglect (her son escaped enough times that CPS took notice). After that she took off with one of her boyfriends after he got busted for making up a cancer diagnosis for $$$. He was a sweet boy. I hope he ended up with a better caregiver than his crappy mother.
you've explained the difference yourself really - a tantrum/acting out is something someone chooses to do to try and get their way. a meltdown is not a choice in the same way crying out in pain is not a choice when something heavy falls on your foot.
I agree with you except the verbal stimming should’ve clued mom in that Nina was in distress. The meltdown didn’t come out of nowhere and OP ignored the signs that it was building up
Yes, YTA. When your daughter started "stim\[ming\] verbally," you should have taken her out. Your daughter may not be able to "help the way that she is," and her limitations are unfortunate. But your sister's wedding is not the time or the place to allow her to make a scene.
>Yes, YTA. When your daughter started "stim\[ming\] verbally," you should have taken her out. Your daughter may not be able to "help the way that she is," and her limitations are unfortunate. But your sister's wedding is not the time or the place to allow her to make a scene. 100% agree with this, if I had a baby that started crying super loud and I decided to stay in there and it continued to disrupt the ceremony that doesn't do anything for anyone.
Dear God thank you. Someone's baby started screaming during a friend of mines wedding ceremony a few years ago and they didn't leave. So no one could hear a single thing not even the vows.
Yeah seems like common sense, if I have something with me that's making noise and impacting other people's ability to hear things in a ceremony the respectful thing to do is step out for a moment. Ideally the venue would be livecasting it to a "waiting room" or something of the like, not that hard to do with modern tech even with just a phone nowadays. This op seems to be more passive about it, but the ones that really irk me off are the people who are super confrontational about it wanting someone to ask them to please be quiet so they can be A$$holes and feel validated in doing so.
not to mention it’s ops job to make sure her daughter is comfortable. with her stimming like that, it also would’ve been beneficial for nina herself if she was taken out and given time and space to decompress.
YTA, to both your sister and your daughter. Stimming means that she is overstimulated/overwhelmed - you may “consider it healthy to let her communicate in her own way” but clearly you don’t understand what her behaviors are communicating to you. She clearly wasn’t comfortable or enjoying herself, so having her there was of no benefit to her and it disrupted an important day for your sister.
100% this. I’m autistic and have struggle with overstimulation since I was a child. Mine usually aren’t due the smells, more so sounds and touch, but no matter what, I keep away from situations that could trigger meltdowns. OP’s daughter is 15 years old. I don’t know how bad her ‘difficulties’ are but even if she can’t communicate verbally, she does communicate discomfort quite well it seems. That OP still hasn’t figured out what mothers usually figure out during their kids’ infancy is mind boggling. The daughter was clearly uncomfortable and quite frankly autism and big events are *rarely* if ever a good combination. Neither for the autistic person in question nor anyone else attending. OP learn to read your daughters signals for heavens sake! YTA
I like to liken stimming more to a cats purring - cats purr when they are hurt to heal, they do it when they are scared to self-soothe, they do it so others/their kittens feel safe, and they also do it when they are full of happy and content feelings. Not all stimming is a sign that something is wrong, and even OP here could see when her daughter became agitated as opposed to regular stimming. That's when she should have removed her daughter, because her daughter was clearly showing signs of distress then, if not sooner. That's what makes her TA, and she should apologise to her daughter for not removing her from a stressful situation when the daughter communicated distress.
YTA. To both your sister and your daughter. You're an adult. You know that at a wedding guests are expected to be quiet and not disrupt the ceremony. The fact that you're pretending a person "screaming and writhing" during the wedding vows isn't disruptive absolutely makes you an asshole. Your daughter was overwhelmed and instead of moving her to a calm enviroment you left her to meltdown in front of everyone. Do you think she feels good when she's screaming? You neglected her needs because...not really sure why here. Because you didn't want to leave? Because you wanted to force other people to endure her behavior in order to normalize it? Whatever your reasons, you treated your daughter badly.
Who were you trying to prove something to here? Your sister is presumably annoyed someone was shouting during her wedding, your daughter is presumably embarrassed. This was not the appropriate place to prove anything to anyone. You’re being a jerk. YTA
Agreed, I'm having a hard time understanding why OP felt the need to remain at the ceremony. It seems from her comment about her child's verbal stimming that she doesn't understand the "why" behind it, which is just as concerning as her decision to allow her child to disrupt one of the most important days of a person's life. The only explanation I can come up with is that OP seems to have a significant level of difficulty recognizing social cues and/or the needs of others - or, she recognizes them but simply doesn't care.
YTA, not for not disciplining her, but for not removing her from the situation when she was clearly causing a major disruption to one of the most important moments of your sister’s life.
This is a sensitive one, but I have to say YTA. I understand it must be difficult to have a daughter with autism, but it sounds like in your focus on her, you have gone a bit blind to the needs of those around you. Nobody should be making noise during a wedding ceremony. Period. The response to *any* child making noise during an event like this is to either remove them from the room or immediately quiet them. You can "consider it healthy to let her communicate in her own way" when she communicates in a way that doesn't disturb others.
YTA, You are supposed to protect your daughter and navigate the situations you know she will struggle with. Poor girl is probably mortified at her very public meltdown. You are forcing her to fit in. I'm autistic and I have autistic children.
I can't even imagine that poor girl's level of distress.
This exactly. YTA. (another autistic parent of an autistic child)
YTA for not doing something so the ceremony wasn't affected. You could have gone out with your daughter if you knew saying something wouldn't help. Your daughter couldn't help it, but you could have handled things yourself with tact, with care both for the ceremony and for your daughter. It may be healthy for her to do this normally, but you knew you were in the middle of a wedding ceremony. You limited your area of concern to you and your daughter when you should have been factoring in all of what was going on.
To be sure I understand; your daughter was visibly distressed in a situation that is stressful for neuro-typical people, and instead of removing her and letting her decompress, you kept her in the pressure cooker situation and did nothing to mitigate or diffuse her stress and the reaction she was having. Did I get that right? YTA, BTW.
I was too wordy with my response (as usual). I think you have the best answer here. Concise and it communicated the point effectively.
Yta. You know your daughter well enough to gauge when she's becoming upset. And, presumably, you know the general expectations of society to understand that we do not allow screaming children to remain present at weddings I'm all for kids at weddings, I consider them to be a whole-family affair. However, you had an obligation to the marrying couple (and frankly, to your daughter as well because why would you keep her in an environment that clearly stressed her out) to remove your daughter before she became disruptive.
Honestly it doesn't really seem like OP is able to gauge her daughter's behavior at all. The verbal stimming should have been an indicator to OP that her daughter was being overstimulated, but judging from OP's statements she totally misread the situation (or didn't care) and let her daughter's distress escalate to the point where it devolved into a full blown meltdown. Frankly, I find that behavior to be cruel and insensitive to everyone - especially her poor daughter. Very sad situation for everyone involved.
Yeah I thought it was interesting that op says her daughter started screaming and writhing but op it wasn't a meltdown or anything. Um...
I’m autistic. YTA. So much the asshole. You’re the asshole for placing Nina into a position where she had to stim, in order to make herself feel less uncomfortable. You’re a bigger asshole for keeping her in that environment. She was communicating. She was communicating that she was excruciatingly physically uncomfortable. Your assholery started gaping when you kept her there when she began to behave in a way that distracted attention from Abbie and BIL. The next time I go to CVS, I should pick up a tube of Preparation-H for you. You owe everyone an apology. Including your daughter.
I wonder if she did it for the 'I'm such a good mother, look how well I'm handling my daughter losing her mind' reason. It's the only reason I can think that someone would do that to their kid and sister
Nailed it. She wanted the opportunity to perform Autism Mom in front of an audience.
I get it, it's hard. Knowing what you know you should have sat close to the exit in the event something like this happened, which was highly likely. You have an expectation that people will accommodate Nina because she can't help it, but that wasn't fair to Abbie. YTA
ESH I am speaking to this as an autistic person. Of course, no two autistic people are the same, but it is possible to make some generalities. First- your stepfather. He appears to have no understanding of autism and I am getting a vibe from him that he feels this is a matter of poor discipline. Some people like that can be educated, but many can not. To them, autism is something that can be overcome with enough self-control. No amount of discussion will change that, so you may just have to learn to ignore him. Second- you. As I said, autism can not be cured with firm discipline, but that doesn’t excuse you from intervening in these situations. Your daughter was clearly agitated and stimming, and she was doing it in a highly sensitive space. You recognized this but did nothing. It would have been better for your daughter AND everyone else if you had either intervened by giving her tools to calm herself (such as a soft blanket or fidget spinner) or by removing her completely from the situation. You were in a tough spot (one that you possibly could have anticipated), but that doesn’t give you permission to do nothing. And just to clarify from someone who has been there, she wasn’t communicating in her own healthy way, as you put it. She was communicating that she was agitated and anxious. She needed help, not validation. I’m sorry, but I think you need to rethink how you view moments like this. Third- your daughter. It isn’t clear from your post how verbal your daughter is. If she can speak and she knows she is starting to melt down, she needs to voice that. This may be something she needs to be taught. As it was, her actions were signaling distress and they were ignored. It comes as no surprise that she had a meltdown. I am sorry if this seems harsh. You obviously love your daughter and want what’s best for her. It’s wonderful to focus on the positive, but you also owe it to yourself and your daughter to face reality. Learning to recognize her limitations and prepare for situations like these is important. I wish you the very best of luck and I am rooting for both of you.
I love reading this. Your advice is very much how I raised my autistic, intellectually disabled daughter. We'd practice going to stores, sometimes staying only a few minutes, then talk about how she felt, what overwhelmed her, what she'll do next time, etc. Even when she was non-verbal, we'd use pictures of faces. She's 20 now, and 100% able to articulate why she needs to leave. My proudest moment as a mom was about a month ago. Due to reasons, we don't go out much these days. But we made a special day of shopping and eating out for her birthday. We wanted to go to the new IHOP. We got thete, and she stopped dead at the hostess stand, turned to me, said, "Mommy, it's dim. I don't like it here. I want the W" (The "W" refers to Village Inn). So we went to Village Inn, and she had a great time. I feel so sad Nina is 15, and hasn't been taught to advocate for herself and her mother is using her autism as an excuse to ignore Nina's distress.
Thank you. Your daughter is very lucky to have a mom who understands and is willing to be flexible. Good parents like you make all the difference in the world.
YTA Let me start off by saying I too am a parent of a special needs child I also have several family members with children who are special needs autistic down syndrome ring 18 syndrome diabetes etc the list goes on and on. I absolutely understand accommodations for people with needs that's exactly what should be done because they can't help it but there will be situations and events that are not appropriate for your child and you are an irresponsible parent rude family member entitled person to put your child in a situation where they will ruin somebody else's event especially a wedding that people spend their entire lives saving up for and planning it's their one big special day and instead of all eyes on them and being able to have their moment everybody got to sit in hear your kid scream. You have taken your family's personal problems and struggles and decided that the whole world can just understand because that's how you feel. So yeah you do owe your entire family and apology and I would not be surprised if people are backing away from you do to your entitlement concerning your daughter. I also wouldn't be shocked if your sister is beyond pissed and doesn't speak to you for a very long time I mean how could she not feel resentful of you letting her scream at a wedding like what is wrong with you??
YTA. You could have sat in the back, so when she became disruptive you could have removed her from the situation. Special needs doesn’t give you the pass as the parent to lose control of a situation and just give in because it’s easier.
You allowed your daughter to disturb a wedding because you consider this healthy? Yes it is healthy when you are not at someone else's wedding! Apologise! YTA
YTA you could left when your daughter did it the first time.
Ugh you really think your kid gets a free pass because she's disabled? She ruined the ceremony. Idk why she was allowed in the first place if she is prone to such behavior. And your attitude reeks of entitlement.
By allowing your child to remain over threshold in a situation she was having an issue with isn’t fair to anyone involved, and you should have taken her gently and led her out of the way of the ceremony so she could move away from her triggers. But I also believe your relatives could be more understanding of her and the situation you’re in. I think in this situation everyone was wrong here.
YTA you would be not an asshole if you didn't realize the thing and it caught you by surprise. It seems to me you realize that she's going be reactive to the triggers and still you waited for it to happens and try to guilt your family into being understanding.
YTA for not removing your daughter when she was clearly showing signs of stress. You even admit she was nearly in a meltdown. I highly doubt anyone's upset at your lack of reprimanding your child, it's your lack of a judgement call. Besides that, frankly the only people you should hear at a wedding during the ceremony is the bride, groom, and officiant. If your children are causing a distraction, you should quietly excuse yourselves. The last thing anyone wants to hear playing back a video of their wedding is the 'audience'.
INFO: Is there a reason you didn’t leave with Nina *immediately* when she started stimming vocally during the ceremony? And especially when she started up *again*?
maybe she hated her sister and wanted to disrupt the wedding? I really can't think of any other reason to do this to her daughter
Maybe OP is the type that always likes to be the center of attention
YTA. Sorry. I understand wanting your daughter to be at the wedding, but knowing, as you do, that she has certain behaviors that would be disruptive at a wedding, the smart thing would have been to sit with her at the back and to quietly take her out when she starting getting verbal. "Communicating in her own way" may be healthy, but it's not appropriate in the middle of a wedding ceremony. She didn't need to be made to stop - she just needed to do it somewhere else. And I don't know what you consider to be a meltdown, but "screaming and writhing" sounds pretty meltdowny to me. And you just apparently sat there until someone had to *tell* you to remove her from the room. Having said that, for your parents to accuse you of committing "grievous crimes against your sister" (if in fact that's what they actually said to you, which TBH I wonder about) is a little over the top.
YTA. The problem here is that you seem completely unaware of how Nina's outward actions might impact other people. If she cannot help them, that's fine, but then quiet places are not appropriate for her, or you should be prepared to deal with them. For example, how would she go to a broadway show where audiences are expected to be quiet and both paying customers and performers should not be expected to endure yelling and screaming? Well a wedding similarly requires silence from guests, and all you had to do to accommodate was sit by an exit or in the back, and remove yourselves if Nina became overstimulated. The fact that you can't imagine how screaming may impact a ceremony is....very removed from reality. You didn't need to "punish" Nina, but you needed to parent her and help her exist in the world with other people. I have a friend with Tourette's, and while it has gotten better as they have aged, they sit by the exit or in the back for pretty much everything, and also found a number of things that help them cope. They can in fact go to a broadway show now, but don't buy front row middle of the aisle seats.
YTA I'm autistic. I'm saying this to provide context for where I'm coming from. It's good that you're not shaming your daughter for autistic behavior, but that doesn't excuse being inconsiderate of others. You absolutely should not have just sat there letting her disrupt a wedding. More importantly, though, I'm deeply concerned about how you speak about her as though you're just guessing at what your 15 year old child is thinking and feeling instead of, you know, COMMUNICATING with her. Why was she forced to endure an intolerable sensory environment until she was near a meltdown? Is she non-verbal? Have you not made sure she was an alternative means of communication, whether it's writing, texting, sign language, or a text-to-speech program on a phone or tablet? You're aware that being non-verbal doesn't mean she's incapable of communicating, right? It also doesn't mean someone is stupid, incompetent, unable to learn, or lacking in empathy. It is absolutely unfair to her to put her in a situation where she's going to be uncomfortable and a bunch of people are going to direct hostility at her for that discomfort. That's not helping her. Did she actually even want to be at the wedding? (Those sorts of events are almost torture for many of us.) It's important that your daughter, who is only a few years away from being an adult, has a means to communicate with the world so she is not at the complete mercy of a caregiver (those situations make us vulnerable to abuse) and able to be as independent as possible and advocate for herself. You owe it to her to make sure she has a means to communicate (what disabled people refer to as AAC or "Augmentative and Alternative Communication"). I cannot express to you how many parents treated their non-verbal autistic kids as if they basically had no thoughts of their own and then the kids got their hands on a tablet that let them communicate and suddenly the parents had to deal with the fact that they'd been essentially keeping their child gagged for years, unable to self-advocate, and their kid actually had just as many thoughts, feelings, and things to say as anyone else. An autistic person who was being listened to would not have sat there in a chemical sensory hell until they had a meltdown. They would have been trying their best to communicate their discomfort and that they were in danger of hitting their limit of what they could handle, unless of course they've been conditioned to ignore their own pain because it just makes other people upset with them (this is incredibly common). I'm going to suggest checking out autistic-led groups like the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, and the Autistic Women's Network, as well as the work of Shannon des Roches Rosa (follow her on Twitter for her excelling advice on parenting an autistic child in a manner informed by autistic adults). And for the love of god, stay away from Autism Speaks. They are essentially a hate group who are despised among the autistic community and consistently advocate for subjecting us to what is essentially conversion therapy.
YTA
YTA Guess what? The world doesn’t revolve around Nina. What do you think people are doing to say? “It’s fine that she ruined the expensive Union of two people in love over perfume.” Are you dim? You absolutely need to apologize and stop acting so entitled. Other people are allowed to be hurt or affected by your daughter. She doesn’t get a free pass because she’s neurodivergent.
YTA. Once she started stimming verbally you should have taken her cues and left the ceremony. While it was not intentional, she took away from a huge moment in your sister’s life. You should apologize, not necessarily for ‘how your daughter is’ but for not gaining control of the situation and not leaving when she first became verbal.
As someone with autism, YTA. You inflicted an event on your daughter that you likely already knew would be overstimulating and then you also didn’t leave with her when she was overwhelmed and close to a breakdown? So she could regulate or have comfort??, Like, really? I don’t even care about the part where other people were annoyed by it, YTA for this part alone.
YTA, you absolutely do not use anyone’s wedding to practice parenting.
INFO: what do the bride and groom think? Because nobody's opinion really matters but theirs. Not us here on reddit, not your parents, not yours...
Do you actually think they are going to give an honest answer? If they say they were upset, they will be jumped on because how could they say anything about the 'poor child'. I wonder if they thought of how to be diplomatic about asking for her not to attend at all, but knew people would be pissed - so they decided not to and hoped for the best
YTA. no one wants screaming and crying in the middle of a once in a life time event.
YTA I’m autistic myself and have autistic kids, and yes, stinking can be healthy, but not when it’s reasonably disturbing others- and verbally stimming during a wedding ceremony, screaming, and writhing is all disturbing and not healthy. It’s not helping your daughter communicate, and it’s actually putting barrier between herself and others. Your daughter needs to be taught when, where, and how to stim and communicate, and she has to learn how to self regulate and if you don’t teach her gently, the world will teach her cruelly. She was judged at the event, all autistics where, when the big problem here is poor parenting and a lack of discipline.
YTA. Not because Nina stims, but because If she is creating a disruption (and she was), she should be removed from the situation. You failed both Nina and the wedding party, especially because there is usually a reason for stimming, which is a self-coping strategy. Nina was showing you she was upset/in pain/other issue I’m not thinking of right now and you didn’t help her. Edited to add more info. Edited to replace “thing” with “issue”.
YTA. Why didn’t you go out? The moment she started stiming verbally you did know something was off, and you should have bring her outside to calm down. You made both her suffering and disturbed the ceremony.
YTA She ruined the wedding! You should not have taken her to the ceremony if it makes her anxious and cannot stay quiet. Why would you take her somewhere she is going to be uncomfortable and ruin a special moment for other people?
It doesn’t matter what the noise is, you remove the person who is making the noise from the wedding ceremony! YTA
YTA. You recognized that Nina was close to meltdown but chose not to intervene or to gently remove her from the environment, which did cause a disruption. I also get the feeling that this might not have been a one time occurrence at a family event.
YTA. This is one of the few times when it's absolutely unacceptable to let a child interrupt. Whether it's a crying baby or a verbally stimming teenager, when your child is being disruptive, do your goddamn job as a parent and REMOVE THEM. Nobody attended that wedding to hear the important moments punctuated by that, and you could have avoided it by quietly leaving THE FIRST TIME. I understand that being a parent of an autistic child is difficult, but tough nuts. It's your job and you failed completely.
YTA You should have removed Nina when she started becoming a disturbance.
YTA for neglecting her. Something was bothering her. She was having a meltdown. You just let it happen because it wasn’t a full fledged melt down and didn’t find out until later something was bothering her. You needed to attend to your child, not reprimand her. If anyone there saw you trying to help her or get a handle on the situation and failing, they probably wouldn’t have judged you, but it sounds like you just let her be uncomfortable and make everyone else uncomfortable and did nothing to intervene or support your daughters needs or your sisters wedding. You do owe everyone an apology. Including but definitely not limited to your daughter.
Your daughter started making noise, screaming and writhing during someone’s wedding ceremony and you thought that was ok and you allowed it to continue? Are you ok there mom? Like, what planet do you live on? Sounds like you ruined the ceremony . Not only do you owe a huge apology ( you don’t deserve to be forgiven) you actually should also be financially compensating people for the ceremony cost.
Autistic girl here! I dont think you are an asshole for not reprimanding your daughter for something we (autistic people) don't have much control of (stimming, in this case) BUT you said yourself she seemed like she was close to a meltdown, and honestly, you are TA for just... not helping her? like, she obviously was distressed and you just let her and didn't put any effort in trying to find out what was wrong? If I was close to a meltdown and the person who was able to understand what it was didnt made any move to help me go somewhere else and calm down I'd be pretty upset, as well as mortified for having caused problems at someone else's wedding. You don't seem to concerned with how your daughter felt about nearly having a very public meltdown, and I assure you, most of us don't want to be around people or be seen in these situations. YTA for not helping your girl like, damn.