Neurodivergent parents blamed for behaviours of their autistic children

Single mothers and neurodivergent parents are frequently targeted for inadequately helping their autistic children, creating a ‘climate of real fear’ amongst them.

A new report – Parental Blame and the Pathological Demand Avoidance Profile of Autism – based on a survey of more than 1,000 families, shows the ‘fear’ among neurodivergent parents about disclosing to social services and other authorities that they themselves are autistic.

Autistic parents were found to have pathological demand avoidance (PDA) – a disorder which causes people to avoid every day demands through the use of social strategies. 

Following this, parents were blamed for their child’s refusal to attend school, told to seek support with their own mental health and were accused of inventing or exaggerating their child’s needs, or of emotionally harming or neglecting their autistic child.

The findings from the research also imply safeguarding procedures, which can lead to the child being taken into care, or a criminal investigation into the family, are more frequently being taken against single mothers and neurodivergent parents than the others surveyed.

Out of 1,016 respondents to the survey, 111 families had been subjected to some element of formal safeguarding procedures which stated that they were at fault for their child’s behaviour.

Co-Authors of the report, Alice Running and Danielle Jata-Hall are both mothers to autistic children and Alice has also been diagnosed with autism. Their research was prompted by their own experiences of being ‘subjected to misaligned scrutiny and blame by their respective local authorities’.

Nearly nine in 10 of parents who responded to the survey said they felt blamed for some part of their child’s behaviour or lack of progress and 53% said professionals supporting their child had raised concerns about their own mental health.

One parent, included in the report, said: ‘Every time I raise an issue my child is having [or] request further support, the school directly reply with a safeguarding concern.’

Another mother said: ‘A teacher told the school my child was not autistic and that probably her mother was harming her.’

However, due to false accusations, some children were taken away from their parents and placed into care, but within the report some families said their children had died whilst in inappropriate placements.  

Against this backdrop, research from the Autistic Society displays more than one in 100 people are on the autistic spectrum in the UK.

Photo by Dmitry Schemelev