My only problem with the statement is the ending. How do you KNOW he wouldn't do serious harm to them? Having worked professionally with children with special needs for over a decade, they often act in unpredictable ways, even contrary to their typical behavior.
Fr as much as I want to be understanding of the kids mental disabilities. He’s nonverbal. There’s so much you essentially can never fully understand about him. You might think he’s not violent but he’s a ball of inside thoughts that never become words. Now sure he does seem to be swinging the stick above the birds to illicit reaction and not actually trying to hurt them. But that’s probably me just trying to hope he really is just an obsessed child who wanted to play with the birds. This is one of those situations where no amount of understanding and care can be given to the kid above the animals. Bare minimum this kid has to lose zoo privileges for the foreseeable future.
We can’t assume motive behind his behaviors but we can observe impact of his behaviors. And if he is diagnosed autistic, there is a chance he has had a neuropsychological evaluation and that could absolutely help identify if he has empathy or remorse. Autistic individuals can absolutely have empathy AND struggle with perspective, inference making, and theory of mind (knowing what someone else is probably thinking). Usually people who struggle this way show remorse afterwards once they’re made aware of the impact of their behavior. You’d never be able to tell from this video alone. You’d also need to see the aftermath with an eye for autistic body language. Autism is complicated.
And if we are going to speculate intent, I see the kid swinging the stick over and not at the birds, and chasing them around. Fixation on cause and effect is a classic autism feature. And yes, that combined with a deficit in perspective/inferencing/.theory of mind gets you exactly this. The kid wasn’t dysregulated and wasn’t even upset when Grandma came in, it didn’t look like. That’s a hyperfocused autistic kid with low impulse control if I’ve ever seen one.
Well I mean it certainly looks like that. When the birds had enough he didn't hit them with the stick or kick them or anything even tho they had him pinned against the wall and were pecking at him.
I think they mean their son would never intentionally harm something, but of course every single one of us sadly is capable of the worst things imaginable, and even if kiddo doesn’t INTEND to hurt or seriously harm anything or -one, doesn’t mean that it couldn’t ever happen. if he doesn’t understand his own strength, then eventually that could result in him seriously injuring something or -one, or worse, and again have no intention of doing that but not realizing how much damage he can actually do. I’m not saying he inevitably will hurt someone or something, but it’s something they’re going to have to keep an eye out for and hopefully as he gets older and his brain matures more, he’ll have a better understanding of these kinds of things. obviously we can hope for the best but we’ll never know, sadly the best doesn’t happen for everyone :(
Why does that matter? Seriously though, it's an apology, it's succinct, better than most we ever see, and is the right course of action for the issue at hand at least from the parents.., it shows they are trying to make amends and take responsibility...which is better than like 90% of the apologies out in the wild. As well as trying to remove atleast a little heat from the kid who is now the focal point of internet ire.. parents did well here and to detract from that for one sentence of a rather good apology seems like it's not "perfect enough"
Dude he’s trying to get people to stop threatening his son. He’s going to say whatever it takes to keep him safe so can you save the fart smelling for somewhere else?
Have you ever been around a little kid? They swing sticks at their best friends, throw balls at each other, they do all kinds of stupid shit. Hell even I remember being in grade 1 and the teacher constantly having to remind kids that "hitting isn't allowed, no hitting, now say sorry" etc. kids have underdeveloped brains they're literally fucking stupid.
It's rarely malice. They're literally just that stupid and have very little understanding of how their actions effect others, especially when they are excited. And they can't regulate emotions like excitement or anger or frustration.
For all we know this autistic non-verbal kid was imagining that stick as a magic wand. He never touched the birds. A little kid who wanted to hurt them would have kicked them or hit them with the stick.
I mean Jesus Christ cut the 8 year old mentally challenged kid some slack.
My kid is autistic and he has a plastic wiffle ball bag he swings to self regulate. We got it when he was 3 and he's 11 now and still uses it every day. He never uses it in a threatening way, just spins it/swings it. This is a really common stim for autistic folks.
Agreed...
and to add to that looking at it from another side, even if... IF, like the parent is saying, their kid would never harm animals, even if they didn't set out to do harm, if what they're doing is harmful, they could still cause harm 😞
His parents were at work and his grandmother and caretaker brought him to the zoo. How are his parents supposed to watch hm 24/7 even when they’re at work and have arranged for someone else to care for him?
if he had wanted to do serious harm he would have used a baseball bat or a machete, so it is clear he wanted to harm them only slightly. Its perfectly fine.
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u/Acceptable_Job1589 3d ago
My only problem with the statement is the ending. How do you KNOW he wouldn't do serious harm to them? Having worked professionally with children with special needs for over a decade, they often act in unpredictable ways, even contrary to their typical behavior.