Amid a surge in autism diagnoses, Arthur Mann found a friend’s children detached and glued to their screens. Is it not more likely, he wonders in the Spectator, that we are suffering from an epidemic of disastrously bad middle-class parenting? Here’s an excerpt.
I recently reconnected with an old friend; I went to his house and met his children for the first time. One of them looked up from his screen as we entered the room, faintly curious about the intrusion. The other, with his back to us and his face obscured by a hoodie, didn’t bother. My friend announced their names as if that was sufficient introduction, but it felt weird that the children did not say hello and that one of them did not even show his face. Was something wrong with him? It was a bit creepy. Obviously I let it go. Maybe he was chronically shy or autistic, or facially disfigured. But the brother didn’t behave very differently, so probably not.
It later emerged that Hidden Face did indeed have ‘social-connection issues’ and that his parents were thinking of seeking a diagnosis for autism. By that time, he had deigned to show his face briefly. He shot his mother a venomous glance when she nervously suggested he might sit up for lunch. He whispered some compensatory demand that was instantly granted. I dread to think what it was. I wanted to shake the parents by the shoulders until some sense emerged. Instead, we had a pleasant chitchat about where to go on holiday and what to watch on Netflix.
It chilled me, the glance he shot his mother. It should have earned him a stern rebuke. But it seemed that he was holding an invisible Kalashnikov. His parents feared him. It chilled me but didn’t massively surprise me. Depressingly, I have seen many such cases.
Most readers will agree with the next sentence strongly, but will seldom have seen its sentiment in print. We are suffering an epidemic of disastrously bad middle-class parenting. Dramatically spoiled children are no longer a Roald Dahl rarity but are semi-normal, and many parents dodge blame through the procurement of a diagnosis of this or that condition. …
To be clear, I am not arguing that most children diagnosed with a behavioural condition are really just spoiled. I know some families with autistic children who have worked hard to socialise them, to ensure that they greet family friends when they come round, and so on. But I also know families where the source of the problem is clear as day: the parents have drifted into the terrible habit of failing to teach their children how to behave.
I nearly wrote ‘of failing to discipline their children’. Maybe that word is best avoided, as it suggests six of the best and so on. But discipline really just means teaching, or maybe ‘deep-teaching’. And a child must be taught how to behave around other people – how to keep quiet about his or her desires, how to behave in a vaguely formal way, even at home if people come round. Even this might sound a bit harsh and Victorian to some. “We don’t want him to conform and be polite, we want him to be himself,” a parent might say. But this is a subtle cruelty, because it will lead him to be disliked.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Nigel Farage has said GPs are “massively over-diagnosing” children with special educational needs and disabilities. During a press conference in Dover, the Reform leader criticised an overdiagnosis of “those with mental illness problems and… other general behavioural disabilities”.
So many of these diagnoses – for SEND before 18, for disability register after 18 – so many of these have been conducted on Zoom, with the family GP. I think that is a massive mistake.
If I’m your family GP, and I’ve known your family for generations, and you’re saying to me ‘doc, there’s a real problem here with depression’, or whatever it may be, it’s quite hard for me as your GP to say no.
So I don’t think any of these allocations should be done by family GPs. I think they should be done independently.
I think we are massively – I’m not being heartless here, I’m being frank – I think we are massively over-diagnosing those with mental illness problems and those with other general behavioural disabilities.
And I think we’re creating class of victims in Britain who will struggle ever to get out of it. That’s not good for them and it’s not good for us, so I worry about those things.
I do accept though, I do accept that repeated lockdowns – particularly the third lockdown – were probably the biggest mistakes ever made by a peacetime government in this country. And they have caused great long-term harm.
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It is a toxic culture it affects everyone.A dose of a poison to which many will succumb and some will somehow manage to survive it and strengthen their immunity. Death is all around us now I think there needs to be a public acknowledgment of this it would be a very healthy step.
Sadly Nigel has this one completely wrong but his dilemma is he stands to win control of 400+ councils on 1 May. And they are all being bankrupted by autism and related neurological disorders caused by vaccines.
As an example, last September Plymouth Council reported that it has 376 children in 37 private schools in 2024 at £43,000 a year per pupil. In the previous financial year, the council spent £8.6 million on independent special education with its one source of government funding a long way short of what was needed. Its then budget for transport for children to school was more than £1 million.
No council spends that kind of money on dodgy GP diagnoses.
GPs don’t diagnose for SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disabilities]. It is done by specialists.
The problem has been building up over two decades and has reached crisis point.
The true problem is the numbers of kids so severely affected they have to be sent to specialist residential schools. That is a major crippling cost for local authorities.
The kids concerned are so severely affected it would be difficult not to diagnose them unless one was blind, deaf and dumb.
This will be a problem after the Council elections if Reform wins the projected 400+ councils and will be forced to lay the blame where it should lie. All the other political parties who have gone around parroting that vaccines do not cause autism.
This is not a good time to win control of Councils.
Will Donald J Trump with the help of RFK Jnr save the world – again?
RFK Jr claims US government will know ‘what has caused autism epidemic’ by September Liam O’Dell The Independent Friday 11th April 2025
Exactly the argument made by Jane Wills in an article on The Conservative Woman and on her substack today. There’s more on The Autism Tribune. If they win seats, Farage will have to rethink. The epidemic is real.
Is it “it is”, or is it “is it”? Sorry to be pedantic, but another “is it” could be: is it an emerging redefinition phenomenon, with some cases being classified under it, rather than real, novel occurrences?
Bad (often referred to as ‘soft’) parenting is indeed a factor that needs further investigation. However, the evidence that environmental toxins are the underlying cause of brain injury (i.e autism/ADHD/tourettes etc) is compelling. These toxins have several delivery pathways starting pre-conception, in-utero up until the day one dies, namely:
1) drug abuse prior/during pregnancy (alcohol/recreational drugs) and throughout one’s life
2) scans during pregnancy (ultrasound/x-ray/MRI/CT etc) and throughout one’s life
3) vaccines (and the vaxx schedule)
4) food additives (dyes/preservatives etc)
6) pesticides used in agriculture
7) water fluoridation
8) plastics
8) every-day cleaning/sanitary products
9) bug sprays and repellants
10) all medications
11) EMF (electromagnetic radiation i.e WiFi/Bluetooth/5g/4g/3g/all smart devices/all wireless devices/GPS etc)
The argument for bad parenting is a valid and convincing one but until the above is ruled out by rigorous scientific inquiry, it’s merely a distraction from a far more serious problem.
Toxins make you rude and self absorbed?
What toxins are these that the kids are absorbing but not the parents, who in that story at least we’re still courteous and let’s say, “normal”?
Yes, via a brain injury. Everyone is exposed, but parents have significantly lower exposure levels than their children.
“What toxins are these that the kids are absorbing but not the parents”
Parents of an affected child may not be observably affected. Not everyone reacts in the same. Not every child in the same family of an autistic child is autistic.
So your question is not apt.
That vaccines are one of the causes if not a major cause is beyond doubt but not if you are part of those in control of medicine and medical publishing.
I agree wholeheartedly. There is real neurological damage. At the severe end we see rising numbers of children with profound autism, unable to speak in many cases, in nappies, self-harming and needing care for life. At the other end there are remarkable rates of immune damage evidenced in allergies, crohns disease etc Recent data from the US found rates of Autism at 1 in 31 8-year-olds. In California it is 1 in every 12 boys at this age. Rates in Northern Ireland are the same. This condition is diagnosed by specialist clinics, not GPs. It is an epidemic. As usual, we are waiting for RFK and DJT to lead the way. They need our support. Hopefully, Farage will pick up on what they doing to halt the disaster of chronic disease. Our children and families are suffering. There is more on the autism tribune on substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/theautismtribune?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1s85wn
Parents who allow rheir children to display bad manners and no courtesy in front of them either have no manners themselves and therefore nothing to teach, or are weak and afraid of their children which of course won’t garner any respect from them whatsoever.
Either way, not a good look.
Read and weep –
https://vaccinepapers.org/
And send to Dr. Peter Hotez.
The fact that mainly adjuvants cause autism has been known for decades.
The trials proving otherwise are a complete sham.
There has never been made public a major trial of jabbed v. unjabbed kids.
And there never will be.
I wonder why.
Just as an aside, mmRNA jabs don’t require any of the classic adjuvants.
Doubtless because they keep the immune systems on high alert in any event leading to even quicker immune exhaustion.
Given the dire circumstances I feel very impressed with the young people these days. They shouldn’t have to go through this and become hardened but I admire their stoicism, no interest in Hedonism or materialism. In my day it was about going out and having a good time and enjoying the finer things in life. These days they know these things will be out of reach forever so they live a chastised Spartan existence but still recognise the importance of keeping the human spirit alive.
You can call them tough little cookies or broken monsters. The last twenty years have sharpened their skills and their senses. They look on us as bloated useless deluded fools.
No sign of an epidemic of autism among the youngsters I recall watching from the touchline a few years ago, when our offspring were growing up and playing organised sport. Those since come across playing adult sport seem pretty well adjusted.
Looking on the bright side, perhaps Mr Mann will visit his friends in a few years time and be greeted by two charming young men, now grown up beyond teenage awkwardness. Time will tell.
Imagine being eighteen years old in our time. University will be an horrific corporate fleecing experience. In my day we were carefree because there was no debt. Fornication, masturbation, alcoholism – these were all things that you were granted licence to do. You worked your way through them and came out better the other side. It should be a time of experimentation.
I know two people who had normal children until the MMR jab….
I do agree with the point that Nigel was making. But “If I’m your family GP, and I’ve known your family for generations…”?!
That type of GP is long gone. GP’s nowadays work in large surgeries and you see a different doctor every time you go there. You are nominally assigned to a single GP at the practice, but you are quite unlikely ever to see that particular GP.
For most, ‘seeing their GP’ is a rare pleasure, as they are normally seen by practice nurses or nurse practitioners in the latest fad of seeing how few skills you need to treat patients. ‘Here’s the treatment the computer tells me has a good probability of working for you. If you don’t get better, and you haven’t died in the meantime, come back in three weeks,’
I don’t know what this whole autism, mental health crisis is about, but we need to get to the bottom of it. There might have been a couple of shy and awkward kids in my class 50 years ago, but it has gone off the charts in recent years. I suppose one difference was that then, parents just wanted their kids to be normal, conforming, social, to ‘fit in’. Now it seems like parents fight tooth and nail for their kids to have something wrong with them, to be ‘special’, receive special treatment, etc.
“For most, ‘seeing their GP’ is a rare pleasure”
Yes rare.
Pleasure no.
I never know whether to take any notice of what my GP says nor what nonsense my GP practice is being fed on a daily basis.
Take a look at this idiotic paper [link below] which is clearly nonsense but passed peer review and was published. It was only when it was pointed out is was total balls – in fact too many balls was one of the problems – that it was retracted.
See the hilarious rabbit illustration [4th page of 12].
Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway – TYPE Review PUBLISHED 13 February 2024 DOI 10.3389/fcell.2023.1339390 – Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology
Here is the page 4 illustration. And look at all the completely made up medical terms which are in reality completely nonsense words with no meaning whatsoever.
So next time you see your GP take a copy of the paper with you and ask how can you tell if your GP is giving you reliable medical advice.
I believe it’s the huge number of vaccinations given to babies over the last 25 years or so. My 22 year old grandson has ADD and Asperger’s Syndrome, diagnosed when he was 7, he failed miserably all through normal school, however he is now a time served, fully qualified electrician.
Not a shadow of doubt about what has been causing this. Sorry to hear of your grandson. One of a huge number sadly.
It is also possible to explain why the increase is incremental every year for over two decades.
If the maths fits, in this case, you can believe it.
I have close contact with a completely non-verbal, incontinent four year old who has two polite, sociable and high-achieving older siblings. The youngest is a diagnosed autistic child who is bewildered and unhappy and needs constant care. It is heartbreaking. The last thing parents need to hear is that they have failed in any way. Politicians must not generalise – there is a serious problem here and EMFs are highly suspect as are vaccines.