[grkvlt]

i find it incredibly hard to believe that you "didn't ever do anything wrong on purpose" since you disclosed the fact that you were once a child. are you perhaps meaning something along the lines of "didn't ever think that things i did on purpose were wrong" instead? the thing that upset you when you were punished would then be that your definition of wrongness was different to that of the person punishing you?

most kids want a combination of 1.) approval from parent(s) and 2.) stuff that makes them happy and when 2 conflicts with 1 there can be issues, and it is a rare child that seeks only approval from their parents in all circumstances, as you also point out.

[nicoburns]

I think a big issue for many autistic people is that they are often perceived as wilfully misbehaving when they they have actually been trying very hard to behave. And this is particularly confusing for autistic children as the rules for them are different to the rules for the adults whose behaviour they are modelling.

[andai]

That is a great point. I got into a lot of trouble for treating people exactly the way they treated me. (That usually didn't have the intended effect of enlightening them, unfortunately...)

My reasoning was, if you don't want it done to you, don't do it to me. If you claim this behavior is so bad, why do you repeatedly demonstrate it? That too made me lose a lot of respect for parents, teachers etc.

[lostcolony]

Oof, that rings familiar. I was anti-authoritarian as a kid, but not as a "rebel against the man" or anything so much as the concept of authority from position being completely alien to me. I respected authority from knowledge mind you; someone who knew things I didn't I would listen to, ask questions of, seek to understand; when it became clear I knew more than the teacher, had better understanding, etc, I would disconnect and stop listening to them.

[grkvlt]

i guess, and intent is important as a factor, at least somewhat mitigating. teaching that actions have consequences based on their outcome, nom matter how well intentioned, is important though, as is the lesson that life is unfair, or at least does not care about what you wanted or intended to happen ;)

i think i actually have a similar problem about asccusations of lying that often get thrown around in arguments etc. when the peoson accused has simply made an error in good faith...

[Werewolf255]

This comment and the previous one in the thread feel very salient, especially in the view of assuming good or bad faith. We've all been children, it's the burden of our human condition, but it feels like assuming others had less-than-pure intent as children because that was how you viewed the world as a child, speaks very directly to the environments in which we're raised along with changes in social mores over time. I'm mostly interested in the dynamic where one person assumes that children act in bad faith, I assume because they think kids are 'trying to get away with it', while the other person points out that from a child's perspective, they are trying their best to model behavior of those around them.

I guess it seems like if you're raised around people who are always acting in bad faith on some level ("Everybody is doing it", "It won't hurt if nobody notices", etc) then you're going to assume that there is always some ulterior motive even without any further evidence.

[andai]

I had an insight about this which isn't really novel but it finally clicked for me on an experiential level: if you assume bad faith, it makes you feel really bad about the other person, and from that feeling flow words and actions that screw up the relationship (even if your suspicion was completely unjustified and the other person had no ill intentions whatsoever!)

[kayodelycaon]

Having mental disabilities and being frequently punished for them is counterproductive.

A lot of ADHD symptoms are identical to lack of maturity or laziness. In my case, being punished for inability to pay attention after school, frequently forgetting things (1), or failing to think about the long term consequences of my actions in the moment was incredibly damaging.

It’s little different from punishing a kid who is missing a leg for “slacking off” in gym class.

1: On top Of ADHD, my mom had and her mom had short-term memory issues due to lacking sufficient enzymes to process folic acid. Me having the same genetic short-term memory issues was treated as laziness by my parents.

[andai]

How'd you determine the folic acid thing, is that common? My memory is awful (and I have various strange conditions mental and physical), I'm thinking I might benefit from some genetic testing.

[kayodelycaon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenetetrahydrofolate_redu...

For me, this is fixed by an L-Methylfolate supplement at a dosage of 15mg/day.

[GavinMcG]

> "didn't ever do anything wrong on purpose"

The fact that there are two ways to read this comes up in the criminal law context, where there's a question as to someone's mental state.

You read "on purpose" to attach to "act" – as in, "none of my wrong acts were acts I purposely engaged in." (Such statements can often be read this way in the law – it's about whether they intended the act, not the consequences.)

But I think most people stating that sentence intend to communicate that the wrong (or harm) was not deliberate, in that they had innocent motives, or a non-culpable mental state. And that claim shouldn't be all that hard to believe.