I try to exhale you in pain.

A lot clicked for me when my mom said the reason she was so reactive towards me as a kid was that she assumed intent behind things I did, rather than recognizing my behaviors for being normal kid behaviors or normal autism behaviors. So I got treated as if I was an adult who was intentionally doing things to upset her. She'd react to me like I had the maturity and wherewithal to do things in a cruel or manipulative way, making her life harder, when I was just existing. Just trying to learn how to cope and be a person myself. When she told me this I stopped in my tracks trying to process. Why would anyone's default assumption be that a kid is trying to antagonize them instead of like, struggling with something they're experiencing? But she was also raised the exact same way, treated like everything she did carried the weight of adult responsibility, not seen as a kid.

As a child therapist who focuses on audhd kids THIS!! So often parents put intent behind kids actions when it’s just “kid trying to feel safe and comfortable”. babies are not trying to “manipulate “ you, kids and teens are just pushing back to figure out the boundaries of their world, if a kid doesn’t like something don’t force it on them. Stop expecting better emotional regulation from your child than you’ve ever shown them.

Stop expecting better emotional regulation from your child than you've ever shown them.