Through the eyes of a child

In our life we make choices that affect the way we live, the way we think, the way we see people, the way we feel and the way we interact with others. Among other things we make choices because we can. We make choices because we believe that we know what the best is for ourselves. Sometimes the choices we make not only affect our lives, they often times have a domino effect on other people's lives, other people's opinions and at the extreme public perception. Choices are there for us to seek out the path that will be better for us.

But there are some people inflicted by the consequences of choices they did not make or could not have made. These inflictions come in the form of hereditary diseases, odd ball families and social status. Many of us are born into these inflictions, consequences of the choices people have made long before we had the power over choice.

Children with autism suffer in this manner. They did not choose to be born that way, but they were. They were born in a situation where it is hard for them and it is also hard on the people around them. Their condition calls for special attention and special care. Autistic children live in a small world inside their minds where everything is perfect and reality is distorted to fit their needs. In their world they experience no fears, no hate and no boundaries.

Unfortunately though, because of the condition of autistic children, people have distanced themselves. They fear the unknown and they fear without basis. They have no knowledge of the true predicament that these children are experiencing. People that are ignorant of their condition judge them from the little that they know about them. It is quite unfortunate but it happens.

Now there lessons to be learned by the community about these children, lessons we can would help them better understand how and why these things happen. One is that they have no choice and it was never their choice to be special. Before they where born they had no control of how they would develop. They can't possibly be aware of the factors that can affect their mental growth.

They are still normal children. They have feelings and they have can have traumas and they know what we are saying behind their back. Autistic children are not mute, deaf or dumb, they are just slower in development. That means they can process our negative thoughts, and our comments about them.

These children can be taught and they have the skills to make it through life if we give them a chance. Even though a lot of autistic children suffer from regression or they can have a stage of normal development and then slip back in to having poor communication and social interaction skills. They are capable of storing knowledge and having real skills but during the time when they are experiencing regression is not the time to keep away from them. It is the time when they need our help and they need our support.

Children with autism are the victims here and not us. If our standards of normal are based on the things that we know and we are familiar with then we should rethink what is normal because it may not be how it really is