I’m now envisioning a car wrecking its way into a house, and then trying to make cat sounds with its engine and stuff (the meows would be kinda hard, but whining would be easy enough) at the door of the restroom, and then the tires just squeal as it zooms away as the person opens the restroom door. I’m envisioning the sheer, overwhelming perplexity on their face.

I’m completely cracking up over this image. It’s amazing.

This is so cute and weirdly wholesome

In that case, yeah, you’ve got an admin problem. I’m sorry - that really sucks. The entire system desperately needs an overhaul. The education system in Canada is a dumpster fire, and the US is even worse. Dealing with behavioral issues is one of many major problems…

You might have had bad teachers and bad admin, true - but more likely, the school can’t do anything.

I’m a teacher, and I cannot tell you how incredibly frustrated I am at how tied my hands are. The admin can’t do much, either.

My options: talk sternly to the student. Talk sternly to the parent/guardians. And… that’s it.

Send them to the office? Sure. The principal also has those two options, for the most part. Suspending students is something we only do in very rare circumstances, but they really, really try to avoid it, because so often, kids are acting out because of stuff at home, so suspending them only makes the behaviour worse.

We can’t do detentions after school or on weekends - we can’t force parents to bring their kids in then. Lunch hour detentions, we can’t afford dedicated staff to run them, especially since we’d also need them to chase the students down, because it’s not like they’ll go just because they were told to. We can’t fail students any more.

Our district has also even gotten rid of prizes for achievements - no more honor roll, no awards, nothing. Apparently this makes the low performers feel bad, and we couldn’t have that.

And talking to the parents? Most parents are honestly great, but also, I never talk to them, because the kids with the great parents, I never need to call home. The asshole kids? Their parents are almost always a nightmare. And it’s a waste of time to talk to them.

One kid last year, went after another kid’s field trip paperwork with a pair of scissors. Ripped into her like no one’s business. Sent an email home describing the situation. I was pretty sure, based on her history, she wasn’t really going to destroy his stuff, she was trying to get a rise out of him, so I said something like, “while I believe she was only intending to annoy him, not actually destroy property, it is critical for her to understand that this is absolutely unacceptable behaviour” or something like that.

So rather than telling her kid off, mom goes to the principal to try to get me in trouble for calling her kid annoying.

In application? Doesn’t matter what the teachers or even admin want to do. The district, province/state, and country have taken away practically every carrot and stick, when it comes to students with extreme behavior.

It’s a huge mess.

Or maybe it’s a joke on a kid pretending they’re an adult and ready for a TTRPG with adults? Because that is definitely annoying. I haven’t played random online pickup games in forever, but I was extremely opposed to playing with kids, for many reasons. Teaching them how to play is one thing - I helped run a DnD club at the school I work at - but that’s definitely sharing the hobby rather than games that I actually enjoy for myself.

I didn’t see this as him saying that people know better than doctors.

I saw this as him saying that self diagnosis, especially with multiple tests from reasonably reliable sources, is a valuable tool in a wide variety of circumstances, and with autism in particular, has very few ill effects and is a net positive.

Including as a first step in the official diagnosis process.

There may be a number of reasons not to get an official diagnosis. When I self diagnosed for autism about… maybe 15 years ago, there was a three year wait list for the only psychiatric diagnosis thing I could afford. (I can’t remember the details, it’s been a while, but it was some government funded program.)

I have since gotten an official diagnosis, but getting the unofficial one first was extremely helpful for me in narrowing down where I should focus my efforts.

The guy, towards the end, was even encouraging people to get the official diagnosis - if they’re able to, financially, etc. But starting with self diagnosis makes a great deal of sense.

The whole thing was about cutting down the myths and attacks around self diagnosis and saying people should be allowed to start there without getting attacked for it. That’s all it is.

I, incidentally, am not anti vax or anti science. I’m a science teacher, as it happens, and science is totally my jam. I love how he included study information on accuracy rates of self diagnosis, and misdiagnosis rates for mental health issues with the medical field. I love how he encouraged people to get official diagnoses, and how his suggestions for the medical field were to increase access and affordability for people. This video did not strike me as anti science or anti psychiatry at all.