Autistic Mothers of Autistic Children (and the myth of permissive parenting)
Challenging (Parent-Carer) Blame in Autism Service Provision. January 2025.
Happy New Year and thank you so much for all your continued support.
As I move forwards into 2025 I will be completing some on-going projects and beginning some new.
My second book with Jessica Kingsley Publishers is due for publication towards Autumn 2025 and, for those who may not know, is an in-depth exploration around blame towards autistic families. Not only will the book include my own experiences of such but it will take a detailed look at the many ways autistic children, family members and parents are blamed, rather than effectively supported or provided for.
I’m also excited to be contributing a chapter to a forthcoming handbook for social work practice. Having the opportunity to share my experiences of parent-carer blame with the social work sector is incredibly important in terms of breaking down aspects of stigma and stereotyping often wrongly assigned to autistic people (and their families).
I also hope to soon share some academic contributions I have written in relation to social care practice, misunderstanding autism and parent-carer blame. ‘Watch this space’, as they say!
Permissive Parenting - Further research identified:
I wrote about the concept of ‘permissive parenting’ in my November 2024 Newsletter.
Parent-carers of autistic children may find themselves accused of parenting permissively by professionals working with their children who may misidentify the child-led, compassionate parenting approaches often favoured (because they are often the only way not to increase distress) by parents to autistic and PDA children.
In November’s (2024) newsletter I shared a research paper that considered the impact of ‘permissive parenting’ upon autistic children with authors concluding that ‘permissive parenting’ styles had no significant impact upon the ‘internalising behaviours’ (such as social withdrawal) of autistic children.
I have recently read another academic paper which references the concept of ‘permissive parenting’ within the context of parenting autistic children. In this paper, authors reference research finding that:
“Higher maternal autistic traits were linked to a permissive parenting style (responsive, but less boundaried) towards their typically developing children, but not to their autistic children.”
This reference may be especially useful for autistic mothers of autistic children (like myself) for whom involved professionals believe their ‘permissive’ parenting style is causing a specific ‘issue’ relating to their autistic child. Typically, parent-carers share how they are told their ‘lack of boundaries’ is responsible for an environment not meeting the needs of an autistic child (‘school refusal’, for example).
Links to the research papers are below:
Parents on the autism continuum: Links with parenting efficacy - ScienceDirect
For autistic mothers of autistic children who are experiencing parent-carer blame, both research papers highlight how autistic mothers parent with comparable effectiveness to non-autistic mothers. (And why wouldn’t we?! I hold some rather strong thoughts around why it is necessary to establish this - we shouldn’t have to - and why we need to be compared to non-autistic mothers who appear to be held as some gold-standard benchmark to aspire to. Anyway! The research is very much needed to dispel myths and associated blame.)
The research paper ‘Intense connection and love …’ is a validating read for autistic mothers as it also explores specific strengths an autistic neurotype may bring to parenting. I particularly related to considerations of how shared autistic identifications within the mother-child relationship enabled a connectedness. Authors also considered how some autistic mothers may seek ‘high standards of performance’ which brings ‘increased resilience and dedication to the challenge of motherhood’. (Dugdale et al. 2021)
Autistic mothers may be more at risk of parental blame from autism-service professionals (Ferguson and Hollingsworth. 2024; Running and Jata-Hall. 2023) and so sourcing research and academic output that challenges why this may be is of crucial importance.
Until February,
Alice X
Connect …
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