Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone. I just thought i would enquire here about something I have seen discussed a few times. It seems to be quite common for parents of children with asd / adhd to be blamed for their childrens' behaviour. I find this quite worrying and troubling. Does anyone here have experience of this? It seems not uncommon judging by how many times its mentioned on groups that I have joined. It just seems quite sad that some professionals do this. Surely its not right or ethical? How can this be changed?
I was actually taken to court by social services for custody of my children because they blamed my parenting for my sons issues, they insisted it was attachment disorder, they got their own psychologist to lie, but I was very lucky, the judge ordered an independent parenting assessment which I passed with distinction, the caffcas team were on my side too, the local authority had written that much crap that when it came to chams assessment they too went with attachment disorder, I refused the diagnosis and asked for second opinion, it wasn't until my 2 year supervision order was up Cafcass told me to move area as the LA would not drop it they were after my kids and will do anything to get them, we moved to Devon, my son had an assessment here last September at the age of 9, the psychologist was a specialist in attachment disorder and was asked to take the case, it came back that my son has no signs, not one of attachment disorder however he clearly ticked all the boxed needed for a Autism diagnosis and was diagnosed that day with Autism, she said I too should get myself assessed which were in the process of doing, however my youngest son's school have just asked if they can send a refferal for assessment as they have noticed traits, I had noticed also but thought he was copying his brother but appears not, social services are extremely damaging to all children, they destroy and try to destroy families that genuinely haven't got safeguarding issues but clinically diagnosed conditions, blaming the parents, who have done nothing but fight for their children from birth to get what normal children automatically get, they ignore the poor children that really are in danger and that go on to horrendously lose their poor little lives in the hands of these monster so called parents, when it's completely unnecessary loss of life, if they spent less time chasing the loving caring parents of children who have neurological issues and spent more time removing children from the dangerous homes, then children would be safe
It is possible that a chartered psychologist might literally perjure themselves and risk getting struck off for professional misconduct, and possibly sent to jail, but highly unlikely. As expert witnesses, their duty is to the Court, not to the LA or whoever is paying them. The same applies to experts instructed by the parents. I had a parent who wanted me to write an Independent Social Work report, but she would only pay me if I agreed with her. She thought that her non-verbal autistic child with severe global developmental delay would be "normal" and go to college after a few years of ABA in a very expensive residential school to cure his autism. I told her, as politely as I could, to stop wasting my time.
If you have a quick, foolproof way to tell who is a "monster" and who is a "loving parent" you need to write a textbook - it would be a best-seller. Even with years of training, social workers get it wrong. Not because we are evil. It is because we are not omniscient nor clairvoyant, and - would you believe it - our clients sometimes lie to us.
When I trained as a social worker, several of our lecturers were psychodynamic counsellors, and our psychology lectures had very little in the way of neurological, biological theory, but now an understanding of neurodiversity is part of the syllabus, in line with BASW's guidance. Hopefully, the current batch of students will be much better informed that most of the graduates of twenty or so years ago.