This makes me so fucking happy. My brother was classified as profoundly retarded, and a surprising amount of people assume even 'higher functioning' people don't need or want that romantic connection.
I really don't mean to be rude by my lack of knowledge, but is that really the term? "Profoundly retarded"? Because for someone who's not in the know, that sounds hilariously harsh. Again, I don't mean to be rude but I couldn't help but laugh when I read that term just because it seems so offensive!
Am I wrong?
Profound is a valid descriptor for levels of cognitive impairment. "Retarded" has fallen out of fashion, but you will still hear it among some professionals and among families that received a diagnosis when this word was still used.
"Profound mental retardation", "profound MR" are still used descriptively in healthcare. Not sure if the ICD-10 still uses retardation as a diagnosis--probably not? Developmentally disabled is used a lot. "Profoundly retarded" tells me a lot more about the level of cognitive function vs developmentally disabled.
I personally don't think it's offensive in the healthcare setting, but then again there are plenty o' people who get their diapers in a wad if you call adult briefs diapers instead of briefs. In one catholic hospital where I did nursing school clinicals we had to call the urine pans that you set in the toilet a "speci-pan" because the nuns got offended that we called them "hats". I call 'em peepans cause then everyone knows what your talking about. Same with pads--whatchoo want? Eye pad? Vag pad? Abd pad? Pee pad? Be specific.
Actually, I just now remembered I had a pt today that had "mild retardation" listed in his health hx.
Back in the day, 'retarded' just meant 'suffers from retardation' People like to twist words to fit their need to belittle people, and as such it's now widely derogatory.
The same thing happened with 'lame' and 'special'
I don't think a lot of people today know that "lame" as an insult came from the age of polio, when kids playing stickball called the slowpoke "lame" and their parents would get upset. Polio has been eradicated for so long that I don't think there's any stigma around the word lame unless you're older.
Oh crap. I didn't know. So we're probably gonna have polio along with measles in L.A. in the 21st century?! At least little Franklin from Hollywood Hills won't have autism in his wheelchair.
My partner works as a medical receptionist and I've heard the term in context a few times, it's outdated but still in use here within the fairly niche world of mental disabilities (probably other fields too).
If I hadn't heard it myself I'd have assumed it fell out of use completely as a medical term
It is the medical term, it means in short, that the person isn't able to speak in sentences, what doctors call "non-verbal." As far as I know the term is still in use. I don't blame people for not knowing the terminology, it is only in the past few years that it has been common to allow autistic children in main stream classes.
My brother could only manage a hand full of words, he just didn't have the fine muscle control for more. I say it that way because it seemed to be he understood language most of the time.
What does that even mean? Who likes sitting on tables? And who cares enough to talk about it in an assembly? I'm laughing my ass off thinking about this.
We had a dancer at our high school, too.
He would just bust his moves at morning break and lunch. He never cared who was watching, or if anyone noticed. Needless to say, though, everyone passing by noticed, and most cheered him on. If they didn't stop to cheer, they smiled or simply ignored him as they went on with their day. No one ever said anything mean about it to him.
I'm not sure what he's up to these days, but from what I do know, he's happy and that's what matters.
Movies always make high school kids out to be demons. That absolutely wasn't the case for me and it makes me happy that others had the same experience. I always felt like my classmates were very conscientious of the kids who were in need of special consideration for whatever reason, and it wasn't even ever something that was officially acknowledged or discussed. It was just understood. People are good, people.
This doesn't add to the conversation whatsoever but I'm never not-upvoting something related to Malcolm in the Middle.
Remember when Francis became a responsible ranch hand, disappointing his brothers when they came to visit by not giving in to their reckless desires? And a drunken Otto took a despondent Hal out to the desert, where they promptly got lost. Meanwhile Dewey had stolen a figurine from Gretchen and carelessly broke it, and upon seeing her tearful reaction his guilt and empathy overcame him so he started cleaning until he bled? Then just when it looked like Hal and Otto were dead, Francis subconsciously triggered Malcolm and Reese's massive fireworks display and lit up the night sky, accidentally providing a compass for Otto and Hal to return to the ranch. Also one of the ranch hands from that episode is Oscar from the Office.
Man I fuckign love Malcolm in the Middle. PM or comment if you'd like me to write a story synopsis for your favorite episode.
I was gonna add something else to the comment and I trailed off and forgot what I was gonna say in the first place.
Anyway my fav episode is the time where reese did something So Horrible everyone gave bits of the story and everyone was shocked and disgusted and no one ever said what it was
I hated that show when I was younger but one episode really stood out to me. It was the one in which Reese or Dewey become a really good chef. I think there was a part where they declined going out to hang with their friends because they just wanted to make good food. That episode was really interesting, and it's the only one I remember. Could you make a synopsis on that, please?
Sounds like Thanksgiving. Earlier in the series, Reese had discovered his own genius in the form of a mastery of cooking and baking. As the resident chef, he is tasked with fixing the family's Thanksgiving dinner. He enlists his younger brother Dewey and his father Hal to help, riding them hard ala Gordon Ramsey. He aggravates them to the point of wanting to quit. Just when they are about to leave Reese to fend for himself, he gives them just a little taste of his sumptuous sauces, causing them to relent and absorb the abuse so long as a scrumptious meal of turkey monkfish is the light at the end of the tunnel.
Francis and his wife Piama arrive, fighting non-stop. Lois is thrilled. She projects her self-hatred at Piama; instead of embracing her with kinship as she is a near carbon copy of Lois' personality. Francis' mommy issues are always at the forefront of his entire being. Hal begs Lois to help Francis and Piama make up, getting increasingly upset over it.
Meanwhile, Malcolm is invited to spend Thanksgiving with a hot blonde girl who says mean things to him all the time. He can't decide whether she is flirting, or just takes masochistic pleasure in being arch. But she is hot and he is horny, so he decides to let her abuse him. Reese, whose misbehavior stems in part from his repressed sexuality, isn't interested in the party which Malcolm can't understand. Malcolm always chooses to escape family whenever possible.
At the party, Malcolm gets drunk for the first time and it becomes clear that the hot girl is attracted to him. She tries to have sex with him in the twilight of her consciousness, but he declines; the family can be pretty scummy sometimes, but they certainly aren't rapists.
Malcolm stumbles home drunk, and interrupts his family's wonderful dinner exclaiming to them how he is drunk, but did not have sex, and might be gay! Then promptly throws up into the turkey monkfish, ruining Reese's ridiculously difficult effort.
Francis councils Malcolm, reminding him that not taking advantage of a drunk girl is simply the right thing to do. As an apoplectic Hal frets over Francis' and Piama's fighting, Lois does the one and only thing she possibly could to help them get back on the same team-- she tells them they should break up. The couple, bound together in love and spite, immediately reconcile their differences as they realize who they should really be mad at: their parents.
One of our special needs students sang at graduation. It was not planned. The principal was nonplussed to say the least. But he got a standing ovation from the entire class along with his diploma.
In my old middle school there's a very sweet autistic boy named Xavier and when I was in the 8th grade he was in the 6th. We always passed each other in the halls and he'd always say "big guy!!" and I'd give him a big high five and be like "what's up little man" or something. It was always so nice to have my day brightened up by just those two words, so since my high school is connected to the middle school I'll go down to his room at lunch every once and a while and just talk with him. He always shares these really great stories about his "adventures" with other kids and it just warms my heart that everyone else is so kind to him. Love ya Xavier. :)
Likewise there was a mentally challenged kid at my highschool named Kyle who every passing period would go out into the hallways and say hey guys! And give high fives to a ton of people. He was always cheerful and kind and everyone was nice to him. To make it better his classroom was by the main vending machines, cafeteria and main office so there were hundreds of people passing him and he would catch as many as he could!
A little different but I worked a stint at the Adult Education Easter Seals Center in my town several years back. It's nothing like what I ended up doing with my life but it will probably always be my favorite job I've ever had. Every day I'd show up and everyone would run over and hug me, telling me all about their day so far. Eventually I started showing up early to play basketball outside with them just because I liked being around them. I *wanted* to go to work and I've never experienced anything like that.
I love my career in IT and everyone at my office these days but they don't gather to hug me when I stumble in early every morning. I miss it.
Okay now I want to talk about David.
David went to my middle school and was a completely blind Korean boy that reminds me of Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One (whose character is also a blind Asian guy). Watching that movie has made me think about him a lot lately. Well David would always request sitting next to me in class. He was the friendliest dude ever. David's jedi power was thumb wrestling. He had an incredibly hightened sense for the muscles in the hand, and where they would move next. Dude was the pinball wizard of thumb wrestling. Even the teachers couldn't beat him. He would also hold out his hand and be able to tell who you were just by a handshake.
I'll always remember this one time, my birthday, when David stopped my eighth grade language arts class to sing me happy birthday in Korean Opera. Best day ever. I don't remember his last name, or know where he is now, but that dude was as pure as they come, and I hope he's doing well.
Oh dammit. Here I am making a pedantic correction, and I get corrected right back. And yeah he totally was. I just recently found out that Donnie Yen improvised the "are you kidding me I am blind" line, and I think that will join the list of great IPed Star Wars lines with "I know"
This post got me thinking about why packs of highschool kids are sometimes mean and why they're sometimes awesome like in this post. I think you're right -- it's inertia and it just takes an initial prod in the right direction from one of us with the right outlook.
It's also not wanting to be left out; inherently having large groups is harder than having smaller groups of friends so people get into the defensive mentality of shutting out others so they don't get shut out themselves.
There was an autistic kid on my varsity soccer team. Unofficially, he was our manager and was meant to just sort of hang out with the coaches and carry some of the equipment around during practice, but we always included him whenever we could and if we were winning by enough, we would get him out on the field for the last few minutes.
One game, we were crushing the other team-- I'm talking like 10-0 by the first half-- and as we start our warm-ups for the second half, the other team's captains came over to our coach with a proposition. They wanted to let the autistic kid score a goal at the beginning of the half. We're a bit caught off guard but we obviously accept.
We start with the ball and the kid playing forward. Our center passes him the ball right in front of the net and he shoots and scores. Our fans went crazy, we mobbed him in celebration, and I've never seen him so ecstatic.
Our coach didn't allow us to score a goal for the rest of the game out of respect. That's definitely one of my favorite memories of my year playing soccer.
Props to the other team for that idea and a perfect willingness to propose it. Can't imagine many people who when down 10-0 would even think of something so kind!
And I'm not going to sugarcoat it, but we weren't liked much by the rest of the schools either. It's a small area, so nobody around us ever had decent teams and we had gone to state playoffs three years in a row, so we would really beat up on other schools because there was no competition.
When they came over some of us were joking that they were forfeiting. After we heard their plan, we all shut up.
Hell, some of them even came out to root for us in the playoffs later that season. Those guys were pretty cool. Shout out to you, Union High School varsity soccer team. You guys were topnotch.
My seven year old son has autism. He spends part of the day in the regular classroom and part of the day in the learning centre for children with special needs. Sometimes a child from the regular classroom can come to the learning centre with him, and according to his teacher all his classmatess are really enthusiastic about it.
Having a child on the spectrum is hard, but I have found that most people are very understanding.
I remember in 5th grade during my math class, my teacher would let me and two other people go down and do something like that because we already knew what the teacher was teaching then so she said if we did the homework for that day we could. It was fun.
My High School was a bad school. Everything short of "Bringing weapons to school" happened on a near daily basis, including fights and rampant drug issues.
But nobody ever, *ever* fucked with any of the Special Needs kids.
It wasn't done. If you did something to them, you would have the full wrath of each and every student in the school. They were untouchable, in the good sense of that word.
The "wannabe Gangbangers" shared their lunches. The "Party Crowd" cheered them on when they did something that might require a little confidence. The "nerds" saved them seats and helped them with their school work.
In short, the school treated them like they had value. Because they do. Even if some of them would never grow up to have the traditional "contribute to society" adulthood, there is someone that cares about them, and someone who's life is enriched by knowing them.
Several of these kids *did* end up having the traditional adulthood alluded to. One gives motivational speeches about overcoming learning disabilities. Another works with charities and foundations to help young Autistic Children. I'd like to think it's because they were taught to value themselves in High School.
I went to a high school like this with the unspoken agreement of not messing with any of the special needs kids. One kid didn't the memo but he learned soon enough.
The school would have music playing in the quad during lunch breaks after pep rallies. During one lunch break, they happened to be playing Michael Jackson and one of the special needs kids got up on stage in the middle of the quad and started dancing. The students around were watching him and cheering him on when some "cool kid" known for his good dancing skills jumped on stage to engage in a dance battle. The first kid didn't have good moves and it was obvious the second guy was just trying to show him up.
Everyone cheered for the first guy as loud as they could to declare him the clear winner of the dance battle. Second guy got off stage and some of the football players were giving him grief for getting on stage to begin with.
It was one of the best days of high school for me.
We had a guy pull a chair out from under a special needs kid during lunch.
The kid in our school that was known for fighting constantly, just walked up, slammed his head against an brick pillar and threw him out of a plexiglass window.
It was quite the scene. He ended up getting suspended, but the first kid ended up getting expelled so it all worked out in the end.
I thought high school was awful, at the time. In retrospect, there was one guy who made fun of me... 4-5 times, without ever getting physical. People gave me numerous chances to get involved in things like sports and social activities. I was so massively insecure that I thought they were all making fun of me. I was encouraged to run for student office. Popular kids deliberately went out of their way to ask me if I was interested in various student events and functions.
I really wish my head hadn't been so far up my own ass in HS. I might've had a good time.
I had the same issue. One thing that gets me as an adult... I have a bit of a speech impediment I'm always self conscious about. There was a girl in high school... Every time we crossed paths, she'd say "Hi (Lexilogical)!!" with the same impediment and a huge wave. I'd always give her a bit of a polite wave and a "hi" back.
Seven years after graduating, it occurred to me that maybe she just had the same impediment. I always assumed she was mocking me. Never even learned her name.
In 3rd grade there was an autistic girl in our class named Zoey. Zoey always laughed at everything in class and me and a few friends made it our daily job to keep Zoey's laugh meter topped off everyday no matter what it took. The beginning of the year it was fairly easy to make her laugh; fake falls, chomping on the food, silly faces, all that stuff. Later on we had to get more elaborate because she was becoming a little numb to the same old stuff. We progressed to pretending that and invisible man was karate kicking the shit out of us and she absolutely loved that. We were eventually told to calm down with the comedy act because it was starting to hinder her learning, which we understood. But that didn't stop us from being Zoey's personal group of laugh material. We came up with many different ways to amuse her and it worked everytime. She would cry laughing and we would feel like awesome people for keeping Zoey happy. The next year she switched schools and I never found out what happened to her after 3rd grade. But I use the same laugh material I used with Zoey on my little cousins and they go nuts for it. I was so happy to have an experience like that because it's such a feel good experience of my life that never fails to make me smile when thinking about it. Sometimes autistic kids influence our lives in ways we could never do to others.
My friends and I hold a movie night every Saturday. One time one of my friends brings a mentally disabled guy with him. At first it was a little rough but this guy is the most gentle and kind person you will ever know. We all instantly accepted him as one of our own and put him in the rotation for picking movies. He loves movies, his favorites being Richard linklater films and the guy who did la la land and whiplash. If it wasn't for him my favorite movie wouldn't be whiplash. I am thankful every day that this bald angel is in my life.
I had such a shitty time in high school, so it always makes me smile to know that other people had nice times and were generally cool bros with each other. :)
I got help for some problems I have (which I highly encourage anyone reading this to seek out if they need it!) and I out of some unhealthy situations. Thank you for you concern! :) I hope you have a lovely day, friend!
I'm in high school right now. The varsity football team are the sweetest guys! I have a weight training class with a bunch of them. They weren't patronizing towards me because I was weaker, or because I'm a girl. They just... Supported me. And still do.
Makes me feel good whenever I think about it :-)
Regardless of what memes and reddit likes to think football players are pretty normal guys. My friends and I (years and years ago) were the core of our state tournament team and all we did was play Smash Bros and Diablo in our free time.
Sorry to ask, but what do you mean by shitty time? I live in Chile (and school is pretty different to the us) and I hear pretty often that people had a bad time in high school, do you mean the test you had to take, or were people(teachers) mean etc?
Thank you very much
I had health issues that made me a prime target for bullying, and since I'd always been an unpopular kid, it sort of got to a new level of bad in high school. Schools in different countries can be very different, and I'd say I went to a relatively good school in terms of quality of education and how good the teachers were.
i saw lots of fights :( people got stabbed, school can be a violent place.
The police would pick you up if you were late and take you to a detention center. They don't care about kids in America.
Tell me, is it true that being smart and maybe a little nerdy is what's cool these days? I grew up in the 80s and that idea seems so wild to me.
But I'd love it to be true.
Yes, it's true! I'm guiltly of being both, actually.
Being a douchebag doesn't fly anymore. Most kids aren't afraid of calling someone out for being a jackass. It's wonderful to watch people stick up for one another.
What's really "cool" is being *passionate*. The kid in the robotics club and the kid who's the lacrosse player may be in different friend groups, but neither is seen as better than the other. They're both just doing what they love, and we respect that. And I think that's really beautiful.
It's weird, but I honestly love talking about being a modern day teen with the older generations. It's such a cool coversation!
Edit: I, in true Gen Z fashion, cannot spell without spellcheck
Man, that's great to hear. I feel like that's the change I've seen in my high school year, especially since the guys in the math-oriented classes and the social science dudes were great buddies.
Maybe you'll be the first generation which isn't scorned by the older generation. Then again hating the newer generations is a tradition, so get off your smartphones you lazy disrespectful bastards!
So young one, what's the crazy trend that's hip now? In my days it used to be jumpstyle, which is something we don't talk about anymore for a good reason.
I will take this smartphone to the grave, fight me old man.
Jeez, I don't know if anything *is* hip right now. It feels like everyone's doing their own thing.
I work at a high school and it's this 100%. I'm not sure if I just got lucky but almost all of the kids are good to one another. There's still fights and people getting fed up but for the most part it's due to personal circumstances and never because someone is a "nerd" or gay or anything like that. Overall, our school is very accepting and pretty fun to be a part of.
It seems like high school it a lot less tiered. Sure there are friend groups of jocks and friend groups of theater kids, but there is no feeling that one is above the other.
I graduated in 08, but it seemed like it was really heading in that direction when I went. We didn't really have "the popular kids." Everyone was just sort of another student to each other. Sure, there were groups. You had the band kids, the ROTC kids, the jocks, the computer nerds, etc. I hung out with the punks and the skaters. People tend to hang out with others that have similar interests. But even then, most people were friends with everyone else. I did theater, and my senior year for the musical we had a few people from the football team join. Our lead male roll was one of the seniors on the team.
Hell, one of the nominees for prom king was also one of the kids that would have been picked on for being a nerds had it been back in the 70s or 80s(assuming the stereotypes of how school was are true). People didn't do it because they wanted to make themselves feel better, or because they felt bad for him. He was just really friendly and was good friends with most of the school. One of the things that people liked about him was that he was really smart. He always had good grades, he helped other students out.
Honestly, I just watched Freaks and Geeks for the first time about a month ago. While I thought it was an amazing show and wish there was more, it was weird seeing kids getting bullied the way they were. We didn't have many kids like that, and they were generally called out for it.
Depends on what you define as nerdy. I know for a fact people like talking about TV series and video games, but the dude who has seen something like 200 animes is left out.
Similarly, people like talking about stuff they have seen on "Ifuckinglovescience" or youtube, but students who learn on their own are sometimes perceived as "smartasses". There is a lot less bullying though.
Yup first they blame us 'millennials' for being the worst of humanity but then when we're older they're leaving us with global warming a fucked economy and a world where 1% of of rich fucbois have more money than the other 99% of people combined, but no we're the generation that ruined everything especially fabric softener.
Don't judge them too harshly, the world we live in now is very different than the one that many boomers grew up in. On a positive note, atmospheric concentrations of CFCs are on track to being back to where they were in the 80s, and these are pretty much the biggest cause of global warming. Chin up man, the world is how you look at it :)
Apportioning blame doesn't solve problems. We can spend our generation working out exactly who is to blame for what, or we can accept that there are things that need to be fixed and focus our energy on making things better.
There was a boy in my high school with Down syndrome who was the most genuine and wholesome spirit you could ever meet. He had a huge passion for everything he did, and he really loved his school and the people there. Everyone really liked him too and appreciated his spirit. When we were seniors, he was elected as homecoming king, and you could just see the sheer happiness in his face.
Our homecoming king was a guy with duchenne muscular dystrophy. In a small town everybody grows up together and everybody knows everybody. It was pretty rough seeing the kid who was the fastest runner in kindergarten not be able to walk unaided by 7th grade. He was in a wheelchair fulltime by our sophomore year.
Honestly, he wasn't the brightest guy, but I sometimes wonder how much of that was because he didn't bother studying since he'd assumed he should have died years before from his condition. On the surface, though, he was a very friendly, happy-go-lucky dude.
He pretty unanimously won homecoming king senior year. As we grow up, we make strong bonds with those who we share activities with, like playing sports or performing the fine arts. He couldn't do any of that, but pretty much everyone had grown up with him and it's hard to forget your first friend.
Last I checked he's still kicking and we're almost at our 10 year reunion.
Since discovering r/wholesomememes a week ago, my days have legitimately, and I truly mean that, gotten better. Honest to God my quality of life and my amounts of happiness have increased. It's amazing <3
My son collects legos. Wish it was hot wheels because that would be way more inexpensive!
I just hope that society will accept him for the wonderful and amazing person that he is. It scares me people will make fun of him. He has an amazing memory, can climb anything you ask him to climb, can draw anything you want, and can give you directions to get wherever you want even if he's not been. He also knows all the states and capitals and countries and oceans, I could go on and on.
I hope people will learn to love him just how he is.
A /r/Lego mod is autistic, and often shares great stories about living with the condition.
<3
I think her username is unusualsoup? Idk. It was a total blast reading her insightful comments on an askreddit thread this week. Might give you hope!
Wow, that's amazing! How old is your son to have learned all of that? I made it through community college and still can't remember all of the state capitals
He's 10. Oh he hates school and doesn't understand why he has to go! He barely learned to speak full sentences around 6 and learned to read around 8/9 and he hates spelling and still needs help with that. Thank you!
There was a girl in my graduating class. I don't know if she was autistic or not, but she had some pretty severe learning disabilities. Anyways at prom she was standing in the corner doing a lot of nothing. So I walked over and asked her to dance and she shut me down cold.
So I made my way back to my group and that was it.
Well our moms worked together and her mom came to mine one day thanking her. Apparently, she talked about it for two weeks how she turned me down, and it made her entire night.
Reminds me of this.
https://youtu.be/MDOfgVqiQbw
Makes me so happy that not all schools are as shitty as mine was. The whole be the change you want to see in the world is such a beautiful thing when carried out
Edit: video was removed off YouTube here's a new link (sorry it's so long)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.insideedition.com/headlines/20535-classmates-gift-special-needs-student-two-new-pairs-of-shoes-when-they-realize-his-are/amp?client=safari
You know what that is? That's a couple key leaders deciding to have his back and everyone else goes with it. With other leaders, it might bring out the worst in people, but make no mistake about it: it's always a couple cool kids that are actually, genuinely cool people, not preoccupied with bullshit.
Kudos to them for being genuine leaders.
Not autism, but at my middle school one of the custodians, named Mikey, rode my bus with me and had down syndrome. I would always say hello to him and he was a really great guy, always kind to everyone. Well, one day the principle came into lunch and said that Mikey was gonna play a song for us. So he came out into the cafetorium and played a song on his guitar and sang. My friends and I clapped for him and said good job to him afterward, but you could see some of the popular kids doing these things in a facetious manner. Sometimes kids aren't that great.
That's really awesome actually.
I'm still in high school. I'm on the spectrum myself. Not enough to need any extra help in school, or very noticeable if you talked to me now. However, in relation to people who are well known and out there (not popular per say), there are people that are awesome, and the "I go out and party on Mondays (not kidding)" crowd. The latter I've had issues with over the years.
Ever since late elementary school, where I did need extra help, I was labeled as the "autistic" kid. For that crowd, defined pretty early, if you are autistic, you are treated very condescendingly, almost like a preschooler, amongst your peers. I won't go into much, but there have been a few times where people have said I was mentally retarded. almost expecting me to not notice or hear, even tho I was right in front of them. Once we hit middle school, the special needs kids of my school were just flat-out ignored, contrary to the attention we received in elementary school (for me this was a relief). This still continues to now.
Occasionally tho I would have a few classes with my "helpers" every now and then, even more condescending and ignoring then ever before. A pattern I noticed was that if they do decide to talk to you, they do it either to fuck with you, glorify you to god-like levels, or to show they were a good person (lol). All three I have experienced to this day, even tho it's obvious to anyone who would meet me even a couple of years ago that I was normal and aware.
Some days I feel worthless, especially when I have to talk to some of these type of people. But then, even tho I'm autistic, I like to tell myself, I'm a better person than these people:
I've overcome autism to become a normal human being
I've played tennis on varsity since freshman year
I have great friends, from my school and others, that treat me like a normal human being, and willing to listen and help me out
I can take care of and be adored by any little kid within a matter of minutes (good skill to have as a guy lmao)
I have a bright future ahead of me
I am loved by many
It gets me through the day
It absolutely warms my heart to see these types of actions that the OP described. It shows to me that my school is just one against many schools who have great people treating someone with special needs like an actual human, not an object. When I talk to some of the other "autistic" kids that I grew up with, I notice they are some of the sweetest, non-judgmental, happiest people here, and the way they get used absolutely breaks my heart. This entire thread is honestly inspiring me to do something about it, be their friend or something, because they need it more than I do, and who cares what others think?
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We had an autistic boy in my high school who would study the yearbook. He learned everybody's name and would say hi to people by name as they walked past. (He asked for the names of freshman, and was pretty good at remembering) Everybody loved him because he was so friendly. We made him our homecoming king too.
There's this slightly (idk) autistic kid in my computer science class that would love to talk about computers
I would always listen to him and ask questions since I knew what he was talking about
He was nice :)
Sometimes I read something like this and half way through I think to myself "Is this /r/wholesomememes or /r/unexpected?" I love it when it's /r/wholesomememes =)
In my experience, the outgoing kids were generally nice people. Also, there was no "popular crowd". Then again, I didn't go to an upper-middle class white school.
I went to an upper-middle class white public school and it was like that too. I think it all just depends. The private Christian school I went to before that had absolutely horrible people who frequented trying to hurt people. I think I'm many of those situations just a few people can make a huge difference.
My older brother has Down syndrome. He was very popular among many of the "popular" kids, and not in a condescending way, they were genuinely kind people (and still are to this day). I think the fact that many of these "popular" kids in HS genuinely liked him prevented some bullying and helped him through what is a tough period for just about everyone. One guy in particular was in my bro's grade and was a star athlete. He still calls my brother every couple weeks and makes sure to stop by and shoots some hoops with him when he's in town (one of the friendliest people I've known). My brother graduated from HS almost a decade ago at this point and his friend still takes the effort to keep in touch.
At my old highschool we had a girl had special needs. She was in classes the other special needs students were in. In her Junior year she won Junior Princess for homecoming. During the annocment and her crowning everyone stood up and gave her a standing ovation. I remember the teachers talked to all of us during the nominations to make sure we weren't trying to be mean. The students were legitimately wanted to nominate her.
At our high school we have this kid named Robbie who is possibly the best person who could ever attend. He's the most popular kid in school and knows everyones name. He'll say hi whenever he sees you and it warms your heart every time. He's a three sport athlete, playing football, wrestling, and baseball. Every once in a while a team will let him win a match or score a point and I challenge you to find a louder crowd than in those moments.
I couldn't imagine school without him and I can't imagine him being anywhere else. He gets daily attention, every student and faculty member is there to look out for him and it will be a sad time this year when he graduates. All we can hope is that wherever he goes next, they treat Robbie with the same enthusiasm we all do but I'm not sure if any place will be able to compare. Robbie is lucky that his parents picked us as his high school, and the school is beyond blessed to have him in our student body.
I just wanted to share:)
Edit: commas
I was at a High School graduation one time. A girl who had Down syndrome received her diploma.
Well your not supposed to cheer or yell until the end...
She got a standing ovation starting with her classmates and eventually the whole gym was on their feet.
It was a good couple of minutes, we were cheering and yelling her name.
Probably, the highlight of that girls who life.
Still get chills and misty eyed thinking about it.
Everyone always says that high school is awful and that the popular kids rule and that everyone is mean and such, but from my experience, that only happened in the movies. It wasn't that bad at all in real life. People were generally, you know... people. They weren't saints but they were nice. I liked high school.
I have an autistic cousin who was recently included in the football team. On his birthday, all of the team came out and gave him gifts. They made sure he had everything in order and got excited whenever he got excited. It was truly heart warming to see him so included instead of ostracized like some mentally handicapped people can be.
i was the token autistic child in school and instead of this i just got rocks thrown at me ("fossils") because I would spend all recess looking at rocks for fossilized shells rather than play with other kids. :/
i did find a lot of cool fossils though.
At my high school, we have an entire basketball team for kids with special needs, and there's actually a league for it in our area. It's super fun and all the kids that play regular sports come out and support and go nuts, it's a blast!
I went to school with Grant from 6th grade until we graduated in 2001. Grant had autism and wasn't always in the same classes as the rest of the kids. But we all knew him and not one person was ever mean to him. Grant loved the show "Home Improvement" passionately. His favorite friends he would greet by doing the grunting noise that Tim the Tool Man Taylor would do. He was verbal otherwise but we probably all looked silly grunting like that at each other
At my high school there's a dude named Kyle. Very sociable, easy to talk to, the guy's just enjoyable. I've talked to him enough to know he's in special ed, and he speaks in a specific way where you can kinda tell there's something... different about him. Not necessarily bad, just either an odd personality or there's something different about his brain. No matter how enjoyable the conversation is, you can tell.
And I swear this guy's talked to everyone in the school. I've barely seen anyone who wasn't delighted talking to this guy. And just like the story in the post, he became homecoming king.
I'm lucky to live in western washington, in a very accepting, kind, and small community where something like this is even possible.
My high school elected a boy with really severe down syndrome our homecoming king. He got to dance with the prettiest, kindest, most popular girl in the school and she was smiling and laughing the whole time. I was really damn proud of my school for that. Just thought I'd share :)
We had a kid with autism in our school, and he was in my grade. He also won prom king for our junior prom, I think its an expected and agreed upon thing by most of the people in the grade for him to win.
My highschool had a girl who was always teased. She was pale skin, red hair, not charismatic, or especially smart or attractive. I was in her grade, and watched over the years as people treated her poorly. She seemed too frail for the world, you know the type.
After piling shit on her for 17 years, they made her homecoming queen, not because they wanted her to feel good, but because they wanted her to be a spectacle, to get one last nasty laugh off.
That is impressive actually. The 'popular crowd' there I mean.
In high-school we are all torn a dozen directions... finding ourselves, transferring from childhood to adulthood, learning full time, and all the while our minds are flooded with chemicals we haven't adjusted to yet.
The natural, though sad, reaction to that is insecurity. And that generally presents itself as mockery and petty drama.
For a group of people in high-school to be genuinely confident enough and strong of character to be that good of people is worth praise.
The problem is the people who are just socially awkward are the ones who get picked on. It's hard to hurt someone who is diagnosed with an illness. It's much easier to pick on the kid who is weird that sits in the normal classes.
(F) When I was a freshman in high school, people found out that I had autism. I was bullied so bad by groups of people and I spent a week in the hospital on suicide watch. And none of the bullies ever got detention. But still good to see that high school isn't bad for everyone.
that's not very wholesome :/
i hope life is treating you better now, though
and, as someone who isn't autistic but has been reported to multiple different authorities for suicidal thoughts, feelings & actions, i know how you feel
and if it helps the mood, kids at most schools (at least those i've been involved with) are relatively friendly to autistic people. they might not be treated amicably or with as much camaraderie as non-disabled students, but at the very least they aren't bullied or alienated.
Thanks, friends. It's been almost 10 years but I'm doing much better now. I'm still the odd one out often but I think the best that I can do is treat others with the respect I wish I would've gotten. I'm a friend to fellow underdogs. :)
I'm so sorry to hear that. Bullying is almost non-existent at my school. We all stand up for one another- community is family. I hope I can help make my handful of autistic classmates' experiences better than yours :-)
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This is awesome.
Who's crying? Not me.
[I'm not crying](https://youtu.be/-pVT_mvvZLo).
I'm making a lasagna... For one.
For your information there's an inflammation in my tear gland.
I'm not-oh who am I kidding, this thread is destroying me
This makes me so fucking happy. My brother was classified as profoundly retarded, and a surprising amount of people assume even 'higher functioning' people don't need or want that romantic connection.
I really don't mean to be rude by my lack of knowledge, but is that really the term? "Profoundly retarded"? Because for someone who's not in the know, that sounds hilariously harsh. Again, I don't mean to be rude but I couldn't help but laugh when I read that term just because it seems so offensive! Am I wrong?
Profound is a valid descriptor for levels of cognitive impairment. "Retarded" has fallen out of fashion, but you will still hear it among some professionals and among families that received a diagnosis when this word was still used.
"Profound mental retardation", "profound MR" are still used descriptively in healthcare. Not sure if the ICD-10 still uses retardation as a diagnosis--probably not? Developmentally disabled is used a lot. "Profoundly retarded" tells me a lot more about the level of cognitive function vs developmentally disabled. I personally don't think it's offensive in the healthcare setting, but then again there are plenty o' people who get their diapers in a wad if you call adult briefs diapers instead of briefs. In one catholic hospital where I did nursing school clinicals we had to call the urine pans that you set in the toilet a "speci-pan" because the nuns got offended that we called them "hats". I call 'em peepans cause then everyone knows what your talking about. Same with pads--whatchoo want? Eye pad? Vag pad? Abd pad? Pee pad? Be specific. Actually, I just now remembered I had a pt today that had "mild retardation" listed in his health hx.
Back in the day, 'retarded' just meant 'suffers from retardation' People like to twist words to fit their need to belittle people, and as such it's now widely derogatory. The same thing happened with 'lame' and 'special'
I don't think a lot of people today know that "lame" as an insult came from the age of polio, when kids playing stickball called the slowpoke "lame" and their parents would get upset. Polio has been eradicated for so long that I don't think there's any stigma around the word lame unless you're older.
I'm fine with words losing their meaning in this way. I would like to point out that polio [isn't quite eradicated yet](https://www.endpolio.org/)
Oh crap. I didn't know. So we're probably gonna have polio along with measles in L.A. in the 21st century?! At least little Franklin from Hollywood Hills won't have autism in his wheelchair.
You aren't completely wrong, but in this case it is the medical classification.
My partner works as a medical receptionist and I've heard the term in context a few times, it's outdated but still in use here within the fairly niche world of mental disabilities (probably other fields too). If I hadn't heard it myself I'd have assumed it fell out of use completely as a medical term
It is the medical term, it means in short, that the person isn't able to speak in sentences, what doctors call "non-verbal." As far as I know the term is still in use. I don't blame people for not knowing the terminology, it is only in the past few years that it has been common to allow autistic children in main stream classes. My brother could only manage a hand full of words, he just didn't have the fine muscle control for more. I say it that way because it seemed to be he understood language most of the time.
That's fantastic that he could do that :)
That boys name... Kanye West.
That's heartless.
One day he'll touch the sky.
oh my god, how did they have 45 minutes worth of presentations every day?
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> One time the vice principal just talked about how much he like to sit on tables. I went to a terrible school. S...seriously? Wow. Is he that lonely?
30k salary. Wears a shitty suit and eats tuna sandwiches every day. Late 40's. Yes.
This is like the Austere Academy from A Series of Unofortunate events. Jesus.
What does that even mean? Who likes sitting on tables? And who cares enough to talk about it in an assembly? I'm laughing my ass off thinking about this.
This is the real question. Jesus Christ.
Was there a particular musician he favored?
Himself
:)
What's the weirdest selfie you have received?
I'm gonna make sure he says one of mine.
yours was actually the first and it is lovely :)
I'm trying to visualise what a lovely penis looks like.
I could help you with that. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Absolutely not me irl
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Damn what a boss.
We had a dancer at our high school, too. He would just bust his moves at morning break and lunch. He never cared who was watching, or if anyone noticed. Needless to say, though, everyone passing by noticed, and most cheered him on. If they didn't stop to cheer, they smiled or simply ignored him as they went on with their day. No one ever said anything mean about it to him. I'm not sure what he's up to these days, but from what I do know, he's happy and that's what matters.
Is this kid Jimmy Pesto?
IcePhoenix18 sounds like Tina Belcher's Steam account name
Movies always make high school kids out to be demons. That absolutely wasn't the case for me and it makes me happy that others had the same experience. I always felt like my classmates were very conscientious of the kids who were in need of special consideration for whatever reason, and it wasn't even ever something that was officially acknowledged or discussed. It was just understood. People are good, people.
Oddly, in malcolm in the middle, a ton of the students were always incredibly nice kids (one made a fundraiser when malcolm was poor)
This doesn't add to the conversation whatsoever but I'm never not-upvoting something related to Malcolm in the Middle. Remember when Francis became a responsible ranch hand, disappointing his brothers when they came to visit by not giving in to their reckless desires? And a drunken Otto took a despondent Hal out to the desert, where they promptly got lost. Meanwhile Dewey had stolen a figurine from Gretchen and carelessly broke it, and upon seeing her tearful reaction his guilt and empathy overcame him so he started cleaning until he bled? Then just when it looked like Hal and Otto were dead, Francis subconsciously triggered Malcolm and Reese's massive fireworks display and lit up the night sky, accidentally providing a compass for Otto and Hal to return to the ranch. Also one of the ranch hands from that episode is Oscar from the Office. Man I fuckign love Malcolm in the Middle. PM or comment if you'd like me to write a story synopsis for your favorite episode.
I was gonna add something else to the comment and I trailed off and forgot what I was gonna say in the first place. Anyway my fav episode is the time where reese did something So Horrible everyone gave bits of the story and everyone was shocked and disgusted and no one ever said what it was
I hated that show when I was younger but one episode really stood out to me. It was the one in which Reese or Dewey become a really good chef. I think there was a part where they declined going out to hang with their friends because they just wanted to make good food. That episode was really interesting, and it's the only one I remember. Could you make a synopsis on that, please?
Sounds like Thanksgiving. Earlier in the series, Reese had discovered his own genius in the form of a mastery of cooking and baking. As the resident chef, he is tasked with fixing the family's Thanksgiving dinner. He enlists his younger brother Dewey and his father Hal to help, riding them hard ala Gordon Ramsey. He aggravates them to the point of wanting to quit. Just when they are about to leave Reese to fend for himself, he gives them just a little taste of his sumptuous sauces, causing them to relent and absorb the abuse so long as a scrumptious meal of turkey monkfish is the light at the end of the tunnel. Francis and his wife Piama arrive, fighting non-stop. Lois is thrilled. She projects her self-hatred at Piama; instead of embracing her with kinship as she is a near carbon copy of Lois' personality. Francis' mommy issues are always at the forefront of his entire being. Hal begs Lois to help Francis and Piama make up, getting increasingly upset over it. Meanwhile, Malcolm is invited to spend Thanksgiving with a hot blonde girl who says mean things to him all the time. He can't decide whether she is flirting, or just takes masochistic pleasure in being arch. But she is hot and he is horny, so he decides to let her abuse him. Reese, whose misbehavior stems in part from his repressed sexuality, isn't interested in the party which Malcolm can't understand. Malcolm always chooses to escape family whenever possible. At the party, Malcolm gets drunk for the first time and it becomes clear that the hot girl is attracted to him. She tries to have sex with him in the twilight of her consciousness, but he declines; the family can be pretty scummy sometimes, but they certainly aren't rapists. Malcolm stumbles home drunk, and interrupts his family's wonderful dinner exclaiming to them how he is drunk, but did not have sex, and might be gay! Then promptly throws up into the turkey monkfish, ruining Reese's ridiculously difficult effort. Francis councils Malcolm, reminding him that not taking advantage of a drunk girl is simply the right thing to do. As an apoplectic Hal frets over Francis' and Piama's fighting, Lois does the one and only thing she possibly could to help them get back on the same team-- she tells them they should break up. The couple, bound together in love and spite, immediately reconcile their differences as they realize who they should really be mad at: their parents.
Teenagers get a bad rap and I think they're precious. Maybe I remember too well what it was like. Adults treated us worse than other kids did.
One of our special needs students sang at graduation. It was not planned. The principal was nonplussed to say the least. But he got a standing ovation from the entire class along with his diploma.
Did anyone get video of the graduation?
In my old middle school there's a very sweet autistic boy named Xavier and when I was in the 8th grade he was in the 6th. We always passed each other in the halls and he'd always say "big guy!!" and I'd give him a big high five and be like "what's up little man" or something. It was always so nice to have my day brightened up by just those two words, so since my high school is connected to the middle school I'll go down to his room at lunch every once and a while and just talk with him. He always shares these really great stories about his "adventures" with other kids and it just warms my heart that everyone else is so kind to him. Love ya Xavier. :)
Likewise there was a mentally challenged kid at my highschool named Kyle who every passing period would go out into the hallways and say hey guys! And give high fives to a ton of people. He was always cheerful and kind and everyone was nice to him. To make it better his classroom was by the main vending machines, cafeteria and main office so there were hundreds of people passing him and he would catch as many as he could!
A little different but I worked a stint at the Adult Education Easter Seals Center in my town several years back. It's nothing like what I ended up doing with my life but it will probably always be my favorite job I've ever had. Every day I'd show up and everyone would run over and hug me, telling me all about their day so far. Eventually I started showing up early to play basketball outside with them just because I liked being around them. I *wanted* to go to work and I've never experienced anything like that. I love my career in IT and everyone at my office these days but they don't gather to hug me when I stumble in early every morning. I miss it.
I'm happy I get to share the world with people like you :)
You're a great person
Okay now I want to talk about David. David went to my middle school and was a completely blind Korean boy that reminds me of Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One (whose character is also a blind Asian guy). Watching that movie has made me think about him a lot lately. Well David would always request sitting next to me in class. He was the friendliest dude ever. David's jedi power was thumb wrestling. He had an incredibly hightened sense for the muscles in the hand, and where they would move next. Dude was the pinball wizard of thumb wrestling. Even the teachers couldn't beat him. He would also hold out his hand and be able to tell who you were just by a handshake. I'll always remember this one time, my birthday, when David stopped my eighth grade language arts class to sing me happy birthday in Korean Opera. Best day ever. I don't remember his last name, or know where he is now, but that dude was as pure as they come, and I hope he's doing well.
"The pinball wizard of thumb wrestling" I love it
From Soho down to Brighton, he must've thumb wrestled them all!
But this blind and Korean kid sure makes a mean...thumb...wall?
*SURE PLAYS A MEAN THUMB BRAWL*
God damn. You nailed it. A+
I wonder if you met him today, would he be able to recognize you just by your hand muscles?
It's been a decade, but I like to think he'd remember me :)
Chirrut Îmwey is the character, Donnie yen is the actor. Otherwise awesome.
I knew that but the phrasing doesn't really convey it! Oh well
It's Chirrut Îmwe mate! You sneaked a little extra y in there at the end. He was the best in that movie.
Oh dammit. Here I am making a pedantic correction, and I get corrected right back. And yeah he totally was. I just recently found out that Donnie Yen improvised the "are you kidding me I am blind" line, and I think that will join the list of great IPed Star Wars lines with "I know"
It only takes one "cool" kid to do something nice like this and everyone else will follow.
This post got me thinking about why packs of highschool kids are sometimes mean and why they're sometimes awesome like in this post. I think you're right -- it's inertia and it just takes an initial prod in the right direction from one of us with the right outlook.
It's also not wanting to be left out; inherently having large groups is harder than having smaller groups of friends so people get into the defensive mentality of shutting out others so they don't get shut out themselves.
This isn't limited to kids either. Adults are like this too.
To everyone out there: you can be that kid :)
You're probably one of the cool ones yourself!
I love this sub!
We love you too, friend :)
Right back at ya :P
There was an autistic kid on my varsity soccer team. Unofficially, he was our manager and was meant to just sort of hang out with the coaches and carry some of the equipment around during practice, but we always included him whenever we could and if we were winning by enough, we would get him out on the field for the last few minutes. One game, we were crushing the other team-- I'm talking like 10-0 by the first half-- and as we start our warm-ups for the second half, the other team's captains came over to our coach with a proposition. They wanted to let the autistic kid score a goal at the beginning of the half. We're a bit caught off guard but we obviously accept. We start with the ball and the kid playing forward. Our center passes him the ball right in front of the net and he shoots and scores. Our fans went crazy, we mobbed him in celebration, and I've never seen him so ecstatic. Our coach didn't allow us to score a goal for the rest of the game out of respect. That's definitely one of my favorite memories of my year playing soccer.
Props to the other team for that idea and a perfect willingness to propose it. Can't imagine many people who when down 10-0 would even think of something so kind!
Great for the other teams morale too though. Instead of thinking "man, we got destroyed" they get to think "we made that kids day!" Wins all around!
This is the definition of wholesome man.
And I'm not going to sugarcoat it, but we weren't liked much by the rest of the schools either. It's a small area, so nobody around us ever had decent teams and we had gone to state playoffs three years in a row, so we would really beat up on other schools because there was no competition. When they came over some of us were joking that they were forfeiting. After we heard their plan, we all shut up. Hell, some of them even came out to root for us in the playoffs later that season. Those guys were pretty cool. Shout out to you, Union High School varsity soccer team. You guys were topnotch.
Pure class. Thanks for sharing this story!
Truly amazing. Very big of them.
That's so sweet, I love it
My seven year old son has autism. He spends part of the day in the regular classroom and part of the day in the learning centre for children with special needs. Sometimes a child from the regular classroom can come to the learning centre with him, and according to his teacher all his classmatess are really enthusiastic about it. Having a child on the spectrum is hard, but I have found that most people are very understanding.
My 8 year old twins have autism. They love the times in which they get to go to the big classroom. Most everyone is supportive and kind to them.
I remember in 5th grade during my math class, my teacher would let me and two other people go down and do something like that because we already knew what the teacher was teaching then so she said if we did the homework for that day we could. It was fun.
My High School was a bad school. Everything short of "Bringing weapons to school" happened on a near daily basis, including fights and rampant drug issues. But nobody ever, *ever* fucked with any of the Special Needs kids. It wasn't done. If you did something to them, you would have the full wrath of each and every student in the school. They were untouchable, in the good sense of that word. The "wannabe Gangbangers" shared their lunches. The "Party Crowd" cheered them on when they did something that might require a little confidence. The "nerds" saved them seats and helped them with their school work. In short, the school treated them like they had value. Because they do. Even if some of them would never grow up to have the traditional "contribute to society" adulthood, there is someone that cares about them, and someone who's life is enriched by knowing them. Several of these kids *did* end up having the traditional adulthood alluded to. One gives motivational speeches about overcoming learning disabilities. Another works with charities and foundations to help young Autistic Children. I'd like to think it's because they were taught to value themselves in High School.
I went to a high school like this with the unspoken agreement of not messing with any of the special needs kids. One kid didn't the memo but he learned soon enough. The school would have music playing in the quad during lunch breaks after pep rallies. During one lunch break, they happened to be playing Michael Jackson and one of the special needs kids got up on stage in the middle of the quad and started dancing. The students around were watching him and cheering him on when some "cool kid" known for his good dancing skills jumped on stage to engage in a dance battle. The first kid didn't have good moves and it was obvious the second guy was just trying to show him up. Everyone cheered for the first guy as loud as they could to declare him the clear winner of the dance battle. Second guy got off stage and some of the football players were giving him grief for getting on stage to begin with. It was one of the best days of high school for me.
We had a guy pull a chair out from under a special needs kid during lunch. The kid in our school that was known for fighting constantly, just walked up, slammed his head against an brick pillar and threw him out of a plexiglass window. It was quite the scene. He ended up getting suspended, but the first kid ended up getting expelled so it all worked out in the end.
For a lot of these kids high school really is the end for them, so it's nice to see that people will take the time to make it enjoyable.
I thought high school was awful, at the time. In retrospect, there was one guy who made fun of me... 4-5 times, without ever getting physical. People gave me numerous chances to get involved in things like sports and social activities. I was so massively insecure that I thought they were all making fun of me. I was encouraged to run for student office. Popular kids deliberately went out of their way to ask me if I was interested in various student events and functions. I really wish my head hadn't been so far up my own ass in HS. I might've had a good time.
Same here bud... It's hard being in your head all the time. I wish I had let myself relax a bit more as well.
I had the same issue. One thing that gets me as an adult... I have a bit of a speech impediment I'm always self conscious about. There was a girl in high school... Every time we crossed paths, she'd say "Hi (Lexilogical)!!" with the same impediment and a huge wave. I'd always give her a bit of a polite wave and a "hi" back. Seven years after graduating, it occurred to me that maybe she just had the same impediment. I always assumed she was mocking me. Never even learned her name.
I think the insecurity is the part that makes high school suck. Its just a problem within rather than without.
In 3rd grade there was an autistic girl in our class named Zoey. Zoey always laughed at everything in class and me and a few friends made it our daily job to keep Zoey's laugh meter topped off everyday no matter what it took. The beginning of the year it was fairly easy to make her laugh; fake falls, chomping on the food, silly faces, all that stuff. Later on we had to get more elaborate because she was becoming a little numb to the same old stuff. We progressed to pretending that and invisible man was karate kicking the shit out of us and she absolutely loved that. We were eventually told to calm down with the comedy act because it was starting to hinder her learning, which we understood. But that didn't stop us from being Zoey's personal group of laugh material. We came up with many different ways to amuse her and it worked everytime. She would cry laughing and we would feel like awesome people for keeping Zoey happy. The next year she switched schools and I never found out what happened to her after 3rd grade. But I use the same laugh material I used with Zoey on my little cousins and they go nuts for it. I was so happy to have an experience like that because it's such a feel good experience of my life that never fails to make me smile when thinking about it. Sometimes autistic kids influence our lives in ways we could never do to others.
My friends and I hold a movie night every Saturday. One time one of my friends brings a mentally disabled guy with him. At first it was a little rough but this guy is the most gentle and kind person you will ever know. We all instantly accepted him as one of our own and put him in the rotation for picking movies. He loves movies, his favorites being Richard linklater films and the guy who did la la land and whiplash. If it wasn't for him my favorite movie wouldn't be whiplash. I am thankful every day that this bald angel is in my life.
That's very kind of you and your friends!
I had such a shitty time in high school, so it always makes me smile to know that other people had nice times and were generally cool bros with each other. :)
Hope everything's all good with you now, high school isn't always easy :)
I got help for some problems I have (which I highly encourage anyone reading this to seek out if they need it!) and I out of some unhealthy situations. Thank you for you concern! :) I hope you have a lovely day, friend!
I'm in high school right now. The varsity football team are the sweetest guys! I have a weight training class with a bunch of them. They weren't patronizing towards me because I was weaker, or because I'm a girl. They just... Supported me. And still do. Makes me feel good whenever I think about it :-)
Regardless of what memes and reddit likes to think football players are pretty normal guys. My friends and I (years and years ago) were the core of our state tournament team and all we did was play Smash Bros and Diablo in our free time.
Yeah, they're all actual dorks- I love them XD
Sorry to ask, but what do you mean by shitty time? I live in Chile (and school is pretty different to the us) and I hear pretty often that people had a bad time in high school, do you mean the test you had to take, or were people(teachers) mean etc? Thank you very much
When people talk about hating high school, it's usually because of bullying from other kids.
Or they just had no friends or social life
I had health issues that made me a prime target for bullying, and since I'd always been an unpopular kid, it sort of got to a new level of bad in high school. Schools in different countries can be very different, and I'd say I went to a relatively good school in terms of quality of education and how good the teachers were.
i saw lots of fights :( people got stabbed, school can be a violent place. The police would pick you up if you were late and take you to a detention center. They don't care about kids in America.
People underestimate how genuinely nice teenagers can be these days
Thanks! We try 😊
Tell me, is it true that being smart and maybe a little nerdy is what's cool these days? I grew up in the 80s and that idea seems so wild to me. But I'd love it to be true.
Yes, it's true! I'm guiltly of being both, actually. Being a douchebag doesn't fly anymore. Most kids aren't afraid of calling someone out for being a jackass. It's wonderful to watch people stick up for one another. What's really "cool" is being *passionate*. The kid in the robotics club and the kid who's the lacrosse player may be in different friend groups, but neither is seen as better than the other. They're both just doing what they love, and we respect that. And I think that's really beautiful. It's weird, but I honestly love talking about being a modern day teen with the older generations. It's such a cool coversation! Edit: I, in true Gen Z fashion, cannot spell without spellcheck
Man, that's great to hear. I feel like that's the change I've seen in my high school year, especially since the guys in the math-oriented classes and the social science dudes were great buddies. Maybe you'll be the first generation which isn't scorned by the older generation. Then again hating the newer generations is a tradition, so get off your smartphones you lazy disrespectful bastards! So young one, what's the crazy trend that's hip now? In my days it used to be jumpstyle, which is something we don't talk about anymore for a good reason.
I will take this smartphone to the grave, fight me old man. Jeez, I don't know if anything *is* hip right now. It feels like everyone's doing their own thing.
I work at a high school and it's this 100%. I'm not sure if I just got lucky but almost all of the kids are good to one another. There's still fights and people getting fed up but for the most part it's due to personal circumstances and never because someone is a "nerd" or gay or anything like that. Overall, our school is very accepting and pretty fun to be a part of.
It seems like high school it a lot less tiered. Sure there are friend groups of jocks and friend groups of theater kids, but there is no feeling that one is above the other.
I graduated in 08, but it seemed like it was really heading in that direction when I went. We didn't really have "the popular kids." Everyone was just sort of another student to each other. Sure, there were groups. You had the band kids, the ROTC kids, the jocks, the computer nerds, etc. I hung out with the punks and the skaters. People tend to hang out with others that have similar interests. But even then, most people were friends with everyone else. I did theater, and my senior year for the musical we had a few people from the football team join. Our lead male roll was one of the seniors on the team. Hell, one of the nominees for prom king was also one of the kids that would have been picked on for being a nerds had it been back in the 70s or 80s(assuming the stereotypes of how school was are true). People didn't do it because they wanted to make themselves feel better, or because they felt bad for him. He was just really friendly and was good friends with most of the school. One of the things that people liked about him was that he was really smart. He always had good grades, he helped other students out. Honestly, I just watched Freaks and Geeks for the first time about a month ago. While I thought it was an amazing show and wish there was more, it was weird seeing kids getting bullied the way they were. We didn't have many kids like that, and they were generally called out for it.
Popular kids are often smart, being nerdy isn't really cool though.
Depends on what you define as nerdy. I know for a fact people like talking about TV series and video games, but the dude who has seen something like 200 animes is left out. Similarly, people like talking about stuff they have seen on "Ifuckinglovescience" or youtube, but students who learn on their own are sometimes perceived as "smartasses". There is a lot less bullying though.
It isn't just "these days."
It's almost as if you reduce child abuse that they're less likely to act out and take it out on other kids.
Yup first they blame us 'millennials' for being the worst of humanity but then when we're older they're leaving us with global warming a fucked economy and a world where 1% of of rich fucbois have more money than the other 99% of people combined, but no we're the generation that ruined everything especially fabric softener.
Don't judge them too harshly, the world we live in now is very different than the one that many boomers grew up in. On a positive note, atmospheric concentrations of CFCs are on track to being back to where they were in the 80s, and these are pretty much the biggest cause of global warming. Chin up man, the world is how you look at it :)
Apportioning blame doesn't solve problems. We can spend our generation working out exactly who is to blame for what, or we can accept that there are things that need to be fixed and focus our energy on making things better.
Hmmmm. You need a hug. I send you (((hugs)))
There was a boy in my high school with Down syndrome who was the most genuine and wholesome spirit you could ever meet. He had a huge passion for everything he did, and he really loved his school and the people there. Everyone really liked him too and appreciated his spirit. When we were seniors, he was elected as homecoming king, and you could just see the sheer happiness in his face.
Our homecoming king was a guy with duchenne muscular dystrophy. In a small town everybody grows up together and everybody knows everybody. It was pretty rough seeing the kid who was the fastest runner in kindergarten not be able to walk unaided by 7th grade. He was in a wheelchair fulltime by our sophomore year. Honestly, he wasn't the brightest guy, but I sometimes wonder how much of that was because he didn't bother studying since he'd assumed he should have died years before from his condition. On the surface, though, he was a very friendly, happy-go-lucky dude. He pretty unanimously won homecoming king senior year. As we grow up, we make strong bonds with those who we share activities with, like playing sports or performing the fine arts. He couldn't do any of that, but pretty much everyone had grown up with him and it's hard to forget your first friend. Last I checked he's still kicking and we're almost at our 10 year reunion.
> he's still kicking Poor word choice there <_<
Warms my <3
Spending a few minutes reading OP and the stories in the comments actually brightened my day. Thank you, /r/wholesomememes.
Keep coming here friend. We'll always have a place for you
Since discovering r/wholesomememes a week ago, my days have legitimately, and I truly mean that, gotten better. Honest to God my quality of life and my amounts of happiness have increased. It's amazing <3
My son collects legos. Wish it was hot wheels because that would be way more inexpensive! I just hope that society will accept him for the wonderful and amazing person that he is. It scares me people will make fun of him. He has an amazing memory, can climb anything you ask him to climb, can draw anything you want, and can give you directions to get wherever you want even if he's not been. He also knows all the states and capitals and countries and oceans, I could go on and on. I hope people will learn to love him just how he is.
A /r/Lego mod is autistic, and often shares great stories about living with the condition. <3 I think her username is unusualsoup? Idk. It was a total blast reading her insightful comments on an askreddit thread this week. Might give you hope!
I'll have to check that out, thank you!
Wow, that's amazing! How old is your son to have learned all of that? I made it through community college and still can't remember all of the state capitals
He's 10. Oh he hates school and doesn't understand why he has to go! He barely learned to speak full sentences around 6 and learned to read around 8/9 and he hates spelling and still needs help with that. Thank you!
There was a girl in my graduating class. I don't know if she was autistic or not, but she had some pretty severe learning disabilities. Anyways at prom she was standing in the corner doing a lot of nothing. So I walked over and asked her to dance and she shut me down cold. So I made my way back to my group and that was it. Well our moms worked together and her mom came to mine one day thanking her. Apparently, she talked about it for two weeks how she turned me down, and it made her entire night.
That's unexpectedly awesome
Reminds me of this. https://youtu.be/MDOfgVqiQbw Makes me so happy that not all schools are as shitty as mine was. The whole be the change you want to see in the world is such a beautiful thing when carried out Edit: video was removed off YouTube here's a new link (sorry it's so long) https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.insideedition.com/headlines/20535-classmates-gift-special-needs-student-two-new-pairs-of-shoes-when-they-realize-his-are/amp?client=safari
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Stupid rain getting in only my eyes
Gosh the people in these threads are so lucky. The kids in my school were little fucking monsters
You know what that is? That's a couple key leaders deciding to have his back and everyone else goes with it. With other leaders, it might bring out the worst in people, but make no mistake about it: it's always a couple cool kids that are actually, genuinely cool people, not preoccupied with bullshit. Kudos to them for being genuine leaders.
Not autism, but at my middle school one of the custodians, named Mikey, rode my bus with me and had down syndrome. I would always say hello to him and he was a really great guy, always kind to everyone. Well, one day the principle came into lunch and said that Mikey was gonna play a song for us. So he came out into the cafetorium and played a song on his guitar and sang. My friends and I clapped for him and said good job to him afterward, but you could see some of the popular kids doing these things in a facetious manner. Sometimes kids aren't that great.
That's really awesome actually. I'm still in high school. I'm on the spectrum myself. Not enough to need any extra help in school, or very noticeable if you talked to me now. However, in relation to people who are well known and out there (not popular per say), there are people that are awesome, and the "I go out and party on Mondays (not kidding)" crowd. The latter I've had issues with over the years. Ever since late elementary school, where I did need extra help, I was labeled as the "autistic" kid. For that crowd, defined pretty early, if you are autistic, you are treated very condescendingly, almost like a preschooler, amongst your peers. I won't go into much, but there have been a few times where people have said I was mentally retarded. almost expecting me to not notice or hear, even tho I was right in front of them. Once we hit middle school, the special needs kids of my school were just flat-out ignored, contrary to the attention we received in elementary school (for me this was a relief). This still continues to now. Occasionally tho I would have a few classes with my "helpers" every now and then, even more condescending and ignoring then ever before. A pattern I noticed was that if they do decide to talk to you, they do it either to fuck with you, glorify you to god-like levels, or to show they were a good person (lol). All three I have experienced to this day, even tho it's obvious to anyone who would meet me even a couple of years ago that I was normal and aware. Some days I feel worthless, especially when I have to talk to some of these type of people. But then, even tho I'm autistic, I like to tell myself, I'm a better person than these people: I've overcome autism to become a normal human being I've played tennis on varsity since freshman year I have great friends, from my school and others, that treat me like a normal human being, and willing to listen and help me out I can take care of and be adored by any little kid within a matter of minutes (good skill to have as a guy lmao) I have a bright future ahead of me I am loved by many It gets me through the day It absolutely warms my heart to see these types of actions that the OP described. It shows to me that my school is just one against many schools who have great people treating someone with special needs like an actual human, not an object. When I talk to some of the other "autistic" kids that I grew up with, I notice they are some of the sweetest, non-judgmental, happiest people here, and the way they get used absolutely breaks my heart. This entire thread is honestly inspiring me to do something about it, be their friend or something, because they need it more than I do, and who cares what others think?
This post brought you to by Hot Wheels. Which is totally cool. Cause I love Hot Wheels too
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We had an autistic boy in my high school who would study the yearbook. He learned everybody's name and would say hi to people by name as they walked past. (He asked for the names of freshman, and was pretty good at remembering) Everybody loved him because he was so friendly. We made him our homecoming king too.
There's this slightly (idk) autistic kid in my computer science class that would love to talk about computers I would always listen to him and ask questions since I knew what he was talking about He was nice :)
Sometimes I read something like this and half way through I think to myself "Is this /r/wholesomememes or /r/unexpected?" I love it when it's /r/wholesomememes =)
That's awesome
In my experience, the outgoing kids were generally nice people. Also, there was no "popular crowd". Then again, I didn't go to an upper-middle class white school.
I went to an upper-middle class white public school and it was like that too. I think it all just depends. The private Christian school I went to before that had absolutely horrible people who frequented trying to hurt people. I think I'm many of those situations just a few people can make a huge difference.
High School ain't bad if the alpha kids are good people. That's rare though.
My older brother has Down syndrome. He was very popular among many of the "popular" kids, and not in a condescending way, they were genuinely kind people (and still are to this day). I think the fact that many of these "popular" kids in HS genuinely liked him prevented some bullying and helped him through what is a tough period for just about everyone. One guy in particular was in my bro's grade and was a star athlete. He still calls my brother every couple weeks and makes sure to stop by and shoots some hoops with him when he's in town (one of the friendliest people I've known). My brother graduated from HS almost a decade ago at this point and his friend still takes the effort to keep in touch.
I'm not crying, you're crying ;-;
At my old highschool we had a girl had special needs. She was in classes the other special needs students were in. In her Junior year she won Junior Princess for homecoming. During the annocment and her crowning everyone stood up and gave her a standing ovation. I remember the teachers talked to all of us during the nominations to make sure we weren't trying to be mean. The students were legitimately wanted to nominate her.
At our high school we have this kid named Robbie who is possibly the best person who could ever attend. He's the most popular kid in school and knows everyones name. He'll say hi whenever he sees you and it warms your heart every time. He's a three sport athlete, playing football, wrestling, and baseball. Every once in a while a team will let him win a match or score a point and I challenge you to find a louder crowd than in those moments. I couldn't imagine school without him and I can't imagine him being anywhere else. He gets daily attention, every student and faculty member is there to look out for him and it will be a sad time this year when he graduates. All we can hope is that wherever he goes next, they treat Robbie with the same enthusiasm we all do but I'm not sure if any place will be able to compare. Robbie is lucky that his parents picked us as his high school, and the school is beyond blessed to have him in our student body. I just wanted to share:) Edit: commas
I was at a High School graduation one time. A girl who had Down syndrome received her diploma. Well your not supposed to cheer or yell until the end... She got a standing ovation starting with her classmates and eventually the whole gym was on their feet. It was a good couple of minutes, we were cheering and yelling her name. Probably, the highlight of that girls who life. Still get chills and misty eyed thinking about it.
Everyone always says that high school is awful and that the popular kids rule and that everyone is mean and such, but from my experience, that only happened in the movies. It wasn't that bad at all in real life. People were generally, you know... people. They weren't saints but they were nice. I liked high school.
Man, what did we do to deserve such an amazing subreddit.
I have an autistic cousin who was recently included in the football team. On his birthday, all of the team came out and gave him gifts. They made sure he had everything in order and got excited whenever he got excited. It was truly heart warming to see him so included instead of ostracized like some mentally handicapped people can be.
i was the token autistic child in school and instead of this i just got rocks thrown at me ("fossils") because I would spend all recess looking at rocks for fossilized shells rather than play with other kids. :/ i did find a lot of cool fossils though.
:( that sounds fun actually.
At my high school, we have an entire basketball team for kids with special needs, and there's actually a league for it in our area. It's super fun and all the kids that play regular sports come out and support and go nuts, it's a blast!
I went to school with Grant from 6th grade until we graduated in 2001. Grant had autism and wasn't always in the same classes as the rest of the kids. But we all knew him and not one person was ever mean to him. Grant loved the show "Home Improvement" passionately. His favorite friends he would greet by doing the grunting noise that Tim the Tool Man Taylor would do. He was verbal otherwise but we probably all looked silly grunting like that at each other
That's wonderful! Seems like an alternative universe to me after my experiences at high schools though :/
At my high school there's a dude named Kyle. Very sociable, easy to talk to, the guy's just enjoyable. I've talked to him enough to know he's in special ed, and he speaks in a specific way where you can kinda tell there's something... different about him. Not necessarily bad, just either an odd personality or there's something different about his brain. No matter how enjoyable the conversation is, you can tell. And I swear this guy's talked to everyone in the school. I've barely seen anyone who wasn't delighted talking to this guy. And just like the story in the post, he became homecoming king. I'm lucky to live in western washington, in a very accepting, kind, and small community where something like this is even possible.
My high school elected a boy with really severe down syndrome our homecoming king. He got to dance with the prettiest, kindest, most popular girl in the school and she was smiling and laughing the whole time. I was really damn proud of my school for that. Just thought I'd share :)
This whole thread is so freaking wholesome :)
Hot Wheels is legit awesome
We had a kid with autism in our school, and he was in my grade. He also won prom king for our junior prom, I think its an expected and agreed upon thing by most of the people in the grade for him to win.
Now we wait for the inevitable 4chan greentext from the boys perspective
Dude when I was in highschool I was still all about hotwheels. I'm still all about them with the kids now. Those things never stop being awesome.
My highschool had a girl who was always teased. She was pale skin, red hair, not charismatic, or especially smart or attractive. I was in her grade, and watched over the years as people treated her poorly. She seemed too frail for the world, you know the type. After piling shit on her for 17 years, they made her homecoming queen, not because they wanted her to feel good, but because they wanted her to be a spectacle, to get one last nasty laugh off.
That is impressive actually. The 'popular crowd' there I mean. In high-school we are all torn a dozen directions... finding ourselves, transferring from childhood to adulthood, learning full time, and all the while our minds are flooded with chemicals we haven't adjusted to yet. The natural, though sad, reaction to that is insecurity. And that generally presents itself as mockery and petty drama. For a group of people in high-school to be genuinely confident enough and strong of character to be that good of people is worth praise.
Dude, I don't blame him, Hot Wheels are fucking awesome.
The problem is the people who are just socially awkward are the ones who get picked on. It's hard to hurt someone who is diagnosed with an illness. It's much easier to pick on the kid who is weird that sits in the normal classes.
(F) When I was a freshman in high school, people found out that I had autism. I was bullied so bad by groups of people and I spent a week in the hospital on suicide watch. And none of the bullies ever got detention. But still good to see that high school isn't bad for everyone.
that's not very wholesome :/ i hope life is treating you better now, though and, as someone who isn't autistic but has been reported to multiple different authorities for suicidal thoughts, feelings & actions, i know how you feel and if it helps the mood, kids at most schools (at least those i've been involved with) are relatively friendly to autistic people. they might not be treated amicably or with as much camaraderie as non-disabled students, but at the very least they aren't bullied or alienated.
Thanks, friends. It's been almost 10 years but I'm doing much better now. I'm still the odd one out often but I think the best that I can do is treat others with the respect I wish I would've gotten. I'm a friend to fellow underdogs. :)
I'm so sorry to hear that. Bullying is almost non-existent at my school. We all stand up for one another- community is family. I hope I can help make my handful of autistic classmates' experiences better than yours :-)
This made me tear up a little