Do At this time’s Mother and father Have the Coping Abilities Wanted to Assist A Youngster with Autism?
Credit Colerain Police Department
Tough question. Do today’s parents have the coping skills, the resources, the drive to launch into 5th gear when they have a child diagnosed with autism? Was the 1990s birth cohort of parents a different breed? Or did we have fewer obstacles like a Covid lockdown? When I had three children under 6 with autism, I worked day and night to find answers and get them help – to exhaustion, and still do, 27 years later. But I wasn’t struggling with mental health. I found the biomed community and had support. Is support harder to find today? Seems impossible, but what if the Yahoo group, NAAR, ARI, CAN days weren’t improved as organizations changed and social media came into being?
Abandoning them is the second most extreme example of dereliction of duty. So I ask with all due respect and interest – do today’s parents have “what it takes” to cope? Heather Nicole Adkins, age 32 (hardly a child) is one mother who did not. A follow up story has a chilling response from her, during questioning when asked why she left her boy on the side of a road on a cold, February day: “To save him from me,” Adkins replied. (Source WKYT Cleveland Mother accused of abandoning autistic child speaks out from Scott Co. jail. Of course, it’s a blessing that she did not kill him. But turning him out on a road where he was likely to be killed seems premeditated to me. Thank God a stranger saw something that wasn’t normal – and acted.I hope she gets the help she needs.
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COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio – Colerain Township police say a mother is now in custody after her abandoned, 5-year-old autistic son was found wandering alone last week.
32-year-old Heather Nicole Adkins is in custody in Georgetown, Kentucky, on a local warrant and a warrant issued by Colerain Township police in connection with her son’s abandonment. They didn’t elaborate on the charges filed.
Investigators said the unnamed boy, described as “non-verbal with Austim,” is from Shelbyville, Indiana, about 75 miles away from the Cincinnati, Ohio area. Fox News Los Angeles Reported