Triggered by Devices
Quote from Kate on June 4, 2024, 1:27 pmI recently took part in a debate on a post on Facebook, which criticised moms for allowing their children to use devices. The OP’s opinion was that letting children use devices of any kind, was “lazy parenting”. Any special needs moms reading this will know that the one thing parenting a child on the spectrum isn’t, is passive. Whatever they are doing, whether you are actively playing with your child or they are playing independently, requires your utmost vigilance and near-constant management. This is what sets us apart from most neurotypical families. We don’t have the same journey. We don’t share all the same experiences. And we don’t play by the same rulebook.
I believe that device usage is crucial for kids on the spectrum. They help them to regulate, learn academically, learn social stories, and even to communicate. Some of our kiddos have developmental delays, and are better visual learners. Some are nonverbal and have no other means of articulating their needs. Some of the adverse behaviours we deal with are as a direct result of that particular frustration. So we need to equip our children with any means possible of communicating with us. Devices can be absolutely critical.
I found myself in a pointless back and forth with a 21-year-old mom of a one-year-old neurotypical child, who had absolutely no knowledge of autism, let alone what it is like to raise a kid on the spectrum. She was uber judgmental in a way that only the wilfully ignorant can be, and kept calling me an ineffectual parent for allowing my son devices. I mean what kind of person argues with a disability mom about their child’s particular disability? Might the mom not be best placed to comment on it, rather than a person who has absolutely no experience of autism? I suppose it’s not all on her. I did put my views out into cyberspace… there was inevitably going to be someone who’d take time out of their evening to argue with me about my own lived experience, lol. “There’s always one”, as I like to say!
Mind you special needs parents are more active and involved than most other parents, and we parent additional needs children at a standard higher than what other people might expect. We’re not passive parenting by any stretch of the imagination! It’s parenting on steroids with a fight for rights and resources, and no “What To Expect Manual…” There’s no parenting app for us, we always have to expect the unexpected and live in a permanent state uncertainty. So this particular exchange was frustrating to say the least. Fortunately, lots of other special needs moms, jumped onto the comment thread to back me up. But interestingly, there were also two or three who argued that their autistic children were actually triggered by devices, so they didn’t use them at all.
I began discussing the merits and pitfalls of devices with these other special needs moms, because I’m always fascinated to learn more about the experiences of other parents walking our same path! After hearing their stories, I was reminded of something someone once said to me soon after my son’s diagnosis - “once you’ve met one autistic child, you’ve met one autistic child.” And that’s because the spectrum is vast, and no two autistic children are exactly the same. They may all have similarities, but they’re also perfectly unique. As it turns out, there was quite a lot to learn about other autistic children having adverse behaviours as a direct result of interactions with devices. I was keen to know more, so I went down a research rabbit hole!
Many different sources confirm that some autistic children don’t cope well with devices, and this can be because they become addicted to them, or choose them over engagement with other people and healthy activities. This has not been our particular experience, but we can only speak for our own family. Though Aidan could become very attached to his device when he was emotionally dysregulated, he would happily put it aside for cuddles and comfort. Or if he was engrossed in a particular game, we were able to redirect him away from it with replacement activities. There was rarely a meltdown associated with putting a device down. We didn’t limit his access to them but that’s maybe because we didn’t need to? And some other parents might! What we did notice was that Aidan could occasionally be triggered by both the TV and his iPad, but there were very particular reasons why.
Aidan loved his ‘Cocomelon’, ‘Little Baby Bum’, ‘Peppa Pig’ and ’Teletubbies’ on Netflix when he was small. One or other was always on the TV in the background in his first year. But he got to a point of no longer wanting to watch episodes on TV, and that’s because of the iPad he got when he was two year’s old. He absolutely loved having full control of whatever he was watching: volume, particular episode, and being able to fast forward or rewind at will. He was so excited to be able to manipulate his favourite shows in this way, he taught himself to navigate around all of his apps with both confidence and ease within a couple of weeks. Soon, he was playing the same exact line of a song over and over again. Or the opening bars of ‘Blippi’ on repeat. Unable to do this with the TV, he would become frustrated and cry when we turned it onto a kids’ show. He far preferred to have full agency over what he watched and how he watched it.
But Aidan was also sometimes triggered by his iPad. Only in one particular instance though. For three years, Aidan has regularly reached for his iPad if he’s needed help to regulate. But he’s finally growing out of that phase. He now prefers to have our 1:1 attention while he de-escalates. This sometimes results in him throwing a phone or an iPad away from him, as he begins to dysregulate. It’s his wordless way of indicating that he wants our full attention. And we are always more than happy to oblige! It can only be a good thing that Aidan is now neurologically ready to take his behavioural cues from other people and learn how to properly self-soothe without digital aids. These are critical social skills and we are really excited to see him organically developing them! We no longer hand devices to Aidan. He picks them up when he wants them and he discards them once he’s lost interest in them. I guess we are just very fortunate indeed to have a child who moderates their own use of devices so well, despite us having been fairly lax about them here at home. I am learning, that not every family is as lucky.
I recently took part in a debate on a post on Facebook, which criticised moms for allowing their children to use devices. The OP’s opinion was that letting children use devices of any kind, was “lazy parenting”. Any special needs moms reading this will know that the one thing parenting a child on the spectrum isn’t, is passive. Whatever they are doing, whether you are actively playing with your child or they are playing independently, requires your utmost vigilance and near-constant management. This is what sets us apart from most neurotypical families. We don’t have the same journey. We don’t share all the same experiences. And we don’t play by the same rulebook.
I believe that device usage is crucial for kids on the spectrum. They help them to regulate, learn academically, learn social stories, and even to communicate. Some of our kiddos have developmental delays, and are better visual learners. Some are nonverbal and have no other means of articulating their needs. Some of the adverse behaviours we deal with are as a direct result of that particular frustration. So we need to equip our children with any means possible of communicating with us. Devices can be absolutely critical.
I found myself in a pointless back and forth with a 21-year-old mom of a one-year-old neurotypical child, who had absolutely no knowledge of autism, let alone what it is like to raise a kid on the spectrum. She was uber judgmental in a way that only the wilfully ignorant can be, and kept calling me an ineffectual parent for allowing my son devices. I mean what kind of person argues with a disability mom about their child’s particular disability? Might the mom not be best placed to comment on it, rather than a person who has absolutely no experience of autism? I suppose it’s not all on her. I did put my views out into cyberspace… there was inevitably going to be someone who’d take time out of their evening to argue with me about my own lived experience, lol. “There’s always one”, as I like to say!
Mind you special needs parents are more active and involved than most other parents, and we parent additional needs children at a standard higher than what other people might expect. We’re not passive parenting by any stretch of the imagination! It’s parenting on steroids with a fight for rights and resources, and no “What To Expect Manual…” There’s no parenting app for us, we always have to expect the unexpected and live in a permanent state uncertainty. So this particular exchange was frustrating to say the least. Fortunately, lots of other special needs moms, jumped onto the comment thread to back me up. But interestingly, there were also two or three who argued that their autistic children were actually triggered by devices, so they didn’t use them at all.
I began discussing the merits and pitfalls of devices with these other special needs moms, because I’m always fascinated to learn more about the experiences of other parents walking our same path! After hearing their stories, I was reminded of something someone once said to me soon after my son’s diagnosis - “once you’ve met one autistic child, you’ve met one autistic child.” And that’s because the spectrum is vast, and no two autistic children are exactly the same. They may all have similarities, but they’re also perfectly unique. As it turns out, there was quite a lot to learn about other autistic children having adverse behaviours as a direct result of interactions with devices. I was keen to know more, so I went down a research rabbit hole!
Many different sources confirm that some autistic children don’t cope well with devices, and this can be because they become addicted to them, or choose them over engagement with other people and healthy activities. This has not been our particular experience, but we can only speak for our own family. Though Aidan could become very attached to his device when he was emotionally dysregulated, he would happily put it aside for cuddles and comfort. Or if he was engrossed in a particular game, we were able to redirect him away from it with replacement activities. There was rarely a meltdown associated with putting a device down. We didn’t limit his access to them but that’s maybe because we didn’t need to? And some other parents might! What we did notice was that Aidan could occasionally be triggered by both the TV and his iPad, but there were very particular reasons why.
Aidan loved his ‘Cocomelon’, ‘Little Baby Bum’, ‘Peppa Pig’ and ’Teletubbies’ on Netflix when he was small. One or other was always on the TV in the background in his first year. But he got to a point of no longer wanting to watch episodes on TV, and that’s because of the iPad he got when he was two year’s old. He absolutely loved having full control of whatever he was watching: volume, particular episode, and being able to fast forward or rewind at will. He was so excited to be able to manipulate his favourite shows in this way, he taught himself to navigate around all of his apps with both confidence and ease within a couple of weeks. Soon, he was playing the same exact line of a song over and over again. Or the opening bars of ‘Blippi’ on repeat. Unable to do this with the TV, he would become frustrated and cry when we turned it onto a kids’ show. He far preferred to have full agency over what he watched and how he watched it.
But Aidan was also sometimes triggered by his iPad. Only in one particular instance though. For three years, Aidan has regularly reached for his iPad if he’s needed help to regulate. But he’s finally growing out of that phase. He now prefers to have our 1:1 attention while he de-escalates. This sometimes results in him throwing a phone or an iPad away from him, as he begins to dysregulate. It’s his wordless way of indicating that he wants our full attention. And we are always more than happy to oblige! It can only be a good thing that Aidan is now neurologically ready to take his behavioural cues from other people and learn how to properly self-soothe without digital aids. These are critical social skills and we are really excited to see him organically developing them! We no longer hand devices to Aidan. He picks them up when he wants them and he discards them once he’s lost interest in them. I guess we are just very fortunate indeed to have a child who moderates their own use of devices so well, despite us having been fairly lax about them here at home. I am learning, that not every family is as lucky.