Autism awareness or acceptance or neither?

So apparently April is Autism Acceptance month. When I heard that, it didn't sound good to me; the word 'acceptance'. Maybe because it doesn't go far enough...I don't want my family and me to simply be accepted, that feels like a low bar! My good friend suggested that autism celebration month would be cool and I do love that! However, I also appreciate that ever single variation is problematic for some people as we are all so different. For some autistic people, autism celebration could feel like we weren't acknowledging their struggles; I know one of my children would say this.

In the past we used to have autism 'awareness', however this is now considered to be linked with disease and disorder and is simply about knowing autism exists which people do nowadays. The move to autism 'acceptance' was with the intention of embracing people as they are with their strengths and weaknesses. I think the intention is ok; I personally just don't like the word.

So I had all this floating around my head whilst I was walking in the woods with my son today. Sometimes when he gets out the car, he leaves his phone. Sometimes he brings his phone on the walk and watches YouTube as he walks around. Today was a day where he needed the comfort of his phone. Nobody said anything when they walked passed us but I sensed some judgemental looks and I felt like I needed to prepare what to say in my head in case anyone said anything. This made me think about sunflower lanyards and that if my son had been wearing a lanyard I bet people wouldn't have given the same looks. I imagine they would have thought, oh he's probably autistic that's ok, that explains it. And the same when he was flapping his hands and jumping around like usually a much younger child would do - the sunflower lanyard would have made others more comfortable; they would have understood and 'accepted'.

Use of sunflower lanyards can be so helpful, we've used them in an airport and couldn't have managed without them. I also think it's such an individual thing so there's no judgement from me about whether you use lanyards regularly or not. However, I just found it interesting that without a lanyard we were be being judged for certain behaviours and with a lanyard we would have likely been fine. This isn't ok! This isn't where I want society to get to! It's progress I guess. But how about a society where everyone can be themselves without judgement and that it's ok to flap your hands or walk around in the woods watching YouTube just because you want to, not because you are autistic. I think we have long way to go in terms of truly understanding what inclusion means as a society.

My final thoughts as we headed back to the car were around judgement. I wondered why we judge others; I'm sure we all do it at times! I bet the psychology around judging others is fascinating but I wont go into that now. I think that judgement is about the person doing the judging, not the person being judged. I think that when people judge it often helps them feel better about themselves. I also think that most people have a strong sense of what is ok and not ok for themselves and their family and they struggle to consider that another way of being is ok for another person or family. I wonder whether jealousy comes into it too. I bet loads of people would love to jump and flap around the woods watching YouTube! Or maybe not that exactly, but I bet loads of people would love to be able to express themselves more fully and more freely!

Hanna