Vanessa's Blog - April: Oughtism and Autism in a Pandemic
I recently read a brilliant essay written by Mairi Evans1 about ‘Oughtism’. In this she talks about the difficulties that come from telling others how they should be, what they should be doing and what they should like in order to fit into the norms of social standards. A lot of this occurs in relation to all children and young people; ‘he ought to enjoy playtimes’, ‘he ought to have hit this milestone by now’, ‘she ought to enjoy playing with dolls’.
Whether you have someone with autism in your family or you are someone working with those who have autism, I’m sure at some point you have all heard stereotypes of how an autistic person should be (they are all either Sheldon Cooper, or Rainman right?). Oughtism can cause issues for all of our autistic young people, but particularly girls with autism, or those who fit into the PDA profile and as a result struggle to get diagnosed or to get the support they really need. Mairi concludes by saying that we should re-author the phrase to value the wonderful individuality in autism; ‘you ought to do what makes you happy.’
It strikes me that a lot oughtism is going on during this pandemic. A quick glance on social media would have you believe that we all ought to have learnt a new skill, mastered making banana bread, sewn our own face mask and cleaned every inch of the house. Parents who are home schooling feel they ought to be doing a perfect job of educating their child(ren), with Pintrest worthy project work, whilst balancing their own home working commitments. Well done to whoever these perfect people are, but I don’t know any of them! The truth is that lots of people are anxious, lots of people are having good days and bad days and most of us are just trying to get by!
Thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you have to have all of your needs met, before you can hit ‘self actualisation’ at the top of the pyramid and achieve all of your potential. Most of us are right down in the basic needs at the moment, just working on feeling safe. This goes for young people with autism too, whether their safe space is being glued to their computer screens or pacing the house in a mode of constant sensory stimming. Very few will be able to voice that anxiety, so they show us in their behaviour.
Please don’t feel that your children ought to be doing the work that teachers are sending home, or that they ought to be home learning for a certain number of hours per day. This may work for some of our young people and that is great, but others need to feel safe before they can make any progress. Lots of you are worried about your children falling behind, but what if they learn life skills instead, like helping around the house, or helping with the cooking? What if they learn better social skills through playing games and having more time to talk? From my perspective that feels a lot like work on their psychological needs, which will create an excellent foundation for making progress when they do get back to school. Maybe your child is not ready for that stuff either and they need to just keep doing the things that make them feel safe; that is ok too and may be the best thing for them right now. No two children and no two families are the same. Some of your young people are the ones putting pressure on themselves, as they feel they ought to not fall behind. They may need to be reminded that we are not expecting home to mimic school. Click here for a social story about this.
So what is my conclusion? To paraphrase Mairi, you ought to do what keeps you safe and gets you through this. School will be there to get you back on track when it is safe for the children to come back in. Nobody knows what is going to happen in the coming weeks and months, but I do know that wellbeing needs to be our top priority, as it creates the foundation for everything else. I also know that wellbeing does not look the same for all of us, especially for young people with autism. The outreach team are here to help you in any way that we can. We update our resources several a week here: https://www.freeoutreach.org.uk/Resources-for-working-from-home/ and if there is anything specific you need, please feel free to email me or one of the team.
Stay safe and well
1 Evans, Mairi (2019) "Oughtism and Oughtistic Narratives in the Lives of Autistic People and their Families," Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture: Vol. 1 : Iss. 1 , Article 9. Available for free at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ought/vol1/iss1/9