AS people, please can you help me?

CC and others have raised a number of issues for discussion on this thread. Some opinions follow which may differ from others' opinions on the forum. All I ask is that people strive to consider what I, and others, have said and make an effort to understand each others' points of view and the reasons why people have arrived at their current views. 

Treatment of autism is seen as desirable by some people but not others. It seems to me that people want their deeply disturbed, dysfunctional, very disabled children or relatives to be helped to a better place. Other people are capable of living full and rewarding lives with their autism. The fortunate few, it seems to me, should not interfere with the opinions and wishes of a different set of people with different issues and challenges. The issue is not black and white however. Some parents have not worked out how to enable their children to live a full and rewarding life even though it may, in some cases, just take a different approach to parenting. Some of these parents want their children to be fixed. This is misguided and futile. There have been recent posts where a couple of people have posted here in a state of great distress and anger directed at their children - these people need to be tackled appropriately, compassionately and helped to see a different perspective. They do not need to be regarded with contempt and anger. Anger achieves little apart from upsetting the person who is angry.

The forum has to be as good as it can be for as many people as possible for as much of the time as it can manage. To me, that means that it needs to be moderated. Moderators are only human (and sometimes autistic) and mistakes or differences of opinion will arise from time to time. I do not think there is any evil intent or any conspiracies or ulterior motives involved. The moderators have to deal with people who are at various points in the process of self discovery. As such, I am becoming aware that I/we can sometimes be judgemental and actually not very easy to get along with. We are somewhat like cats or anarchists - difficult to herd and organise and often fractious and opinionated. My tendency to be over critical and argumentative is what put me on a path to diagnosis, I suspect that our inability to get along with others is a common path to wards diagnosis. 

The forum also has issues that arise from the failure of the NHS and others to provide an adequate service of diagnosis and care for people with autism. The continual stream of misdiagnosed, angry and struggling people that arrive on the forum's doorstep each day make this a caustic and difficult place to endure. Many of these people come with MH problems on top of their basic ration of autism. Sometimes this can contribute to the bad tempered and argumentative discussions that arise. This, combined with the vulnerability of some forum visitors, makes it imperative to have some moderation. Moderation must however be be undertaken with these difficulties in mind and needs to be done privately and sensitively.

We should not, in my opinion, throw the baby out with the bathwater and desert the forum and allow it to decay and fall into disuse. It serves many useful purposes and it is a powerful resource and source of collective knowledge and even wisdom at times. Lets suggest improvements and work with the team at NAS to improve it. Is there any other alternative than that the forum must evolve and improve its approach continuously?

CC and others have raised a number of issues for discussion on this thread. Some opinions follow which may differ from others' opinions on the forum. All I ask is that people strive to consider what I, and others, have said and make an effort to understand each others' points of view and the reasons why people have arrived at their current views. 

Treatment of autism is seen as desirable by some people but not others. It seems to me that people want their deeply disturbed, dysfunctional, very disabled children or relatives to be helped to a better place. Other people are capable of living full and rewarding lives with their autism. The fortunate few, it seems to me, should not interfere with the opinions and wishes of a different set of people with different issues and challenges. The issue is not black and white however. Some parents have not worked out how to enable their children to live a full and rewarding life even though it may, in some cases, just take a different approach to parenting. Some of these parents want their children to be fixed. This is misguided and futile. There have been recent posts where a couple of people have posted here in a state of great distress and anger directed at their children - these people need to be tackled appropriately, compassionately and helped to see a different perspective. They do not need to be regarded with contempt and anger. Anger achieves little apart from upsetting the person who is angry.

The forum has to be as good as it can be for as many people as possible for as much of the time as it can manage. To me, that means that it needs to be moderated. Moderators are only human (and sometimes autistic) and mistakes or differences of opinion will arise from time to time. I do not think there is any evil intent or any conspiracies or ulterior motives involved. The moderators have to deal with people who are at various points in the process of self discovery. As such, I am becoming aware that I/we can sometimes be judgemental and actually not very easy to get along with. We are somewhat like cats or anarchists - difficult to herd and organise and often fractious and opinionated. My tendency to be over critical and argumentative is what put me on a path to diagnosis, I suspect that our inability to get along with others is a common path to wards diagnosis. 

The forum also has issues that arise from the failure of the NHS and others to provide an adequate service of diagnosis and care for people with autism. The continual stream of misdiagnosed, angry and struggling people that arrive on the forum's doorstep each day make this a caustic and difficult place to endure. Many of these people come with MH problems on top of their basic ration of autism. Sometimes this can contribute to the bad tempered and argumentative discussions that arise. This, combined with the vulnerability of some forum visitors, makes it imperative to have some moderation. Moderation must however be be undertaken with these difficulties in mind and needs to be done privately and sensitively.

We should not, in my opinion, throw the baby out with the bathwater and desert the forum and allow it to decay and fall into disuse. It serves many useful purposes and it is a powerful resource and source of collective knowledge and even wisdom at times. Lets suggest improvements and work with the team at NAS to improve it. Is there any other alternative than that the forum must evolve and improve its approach continuously?