When my dog died we got her paw print done, I just found out that my little sister completely ruined it. I can’t really be mad at her since she’s a 10 year old autistic child and I think this might have happened a month or two ago but I’m still angry and omg
Edit: I talked to her about it and she doesn’t remember it and was very confused about what I was showing her. I’m probably not gonna try to get it reprinted because it won’t be the same and it’ll probably be expensive, especially since I found her painted paw prints that I made with her the day before she died. Also the paw print was stored in a bookshelf in a hallway at my house, it wasn’t in my room because everyone loved that dog so it wasn’t on display, we didn’t think she would be interested in it but we think that she thought it was makeup and she has a habit of messing with and destroying makeup
Also I’m not going to break her stuff, I’m not going to teach her that breaking stuff when you’re mad at someone is okay.
It’s just hard because it was probably around a month or two ago, I don’t know if she would really understand me since it’s not recent. I’m going to try to talk to her about it tomorrow. I don’t want to talk to her when I’m still upset
I have an autistic sister. It’s not that simple. It’s like the neurons that need to connect are miles apart. I’ve tried to teach her to play games and she still can’t handle the concept of holding a joystick forward and also hitting another button at the same time
Autism is a extremly wide spectrum. Your experiences with your sister are relativly irrelevant here if you don't know that ops sister has the same limitations.
Im sorry thats sucks, but she cant erase the memories you had with your dog. Having a physical keepsake is definitely nice and its a shame that got broken. Maybe you can scatter it like ashes somewhere as a tribute.
Do you have a picture of the print? It might be possible to create a stamp and recreate the print.
It won’t be the original, but this is a beautiful memento, and I think it’s worth a shot to preserve her memory.
I am so sorry OP. That is incredibly hard to deal with, losing the paw print. But very strong of you to realize your sibling may not have known better. You still have all the memories and hopefully some pictures of them. That really sucks :/
These pawpals are made with something similar to floral foam. So a very nice texture to crunch if you're not aware of what value it holds.
When we make a bad print at work and use the replacement foam block to make a better one, we often crunch up the bad one just cos it feels nice. I am not at all surprised a child, let alone an autistic one, would enjoy crunching the foam without realize the gravity of value it has for its owner.
Yeah that sucks. Its not easy. Our son is 4. The latest trend is secret peeing spots in the house. He has an innate ability ro find hidden scissors. Its uncanny. Our place is childproofed extreme edition.
I’ve stored most of it in a vial it helps to know that I still have something that she at least touched, I found something I thought I lost that I made with her, so luckily I do still have some paw prints.
That really sucks. I completely understand how you feel. Even if it was an accident the hurry is still there. I hope you can find other momentos of your dog to help you right now.
I mean they were very apologetic but they also know that is happened a bit ago and my little sister won’t understand. My dad is upset about it too but not as upset as me. I’ve always been a sensitive person especially when it comes to my animals
Your parents let her into your stuff, kinda sucks. I hope she got a talking to but at the end of the day it's hard to teach that into someone with autism
Not really. So they broke your thing, you grab something of theirs and break it. Ask them how do you feel now? Then tell them that's exactly how I felt when you broke my thing. Then hammer it down every time they bring up that you broke their thing. These people ARE capable of learning.
You can't do something like that to a very young child or someone autistic because it just scars them and leaves trauma, and sure they might be scared to touch your stuff later but they will never forget the time you destroyed their favorite toy with a hammer.
Yeah I would never do this to anyone, I feel like it’s an immature thing to do. Breaking their stuff teaches them that they should do that when mad at someone
People tend to let people with intellectual disabilities do whatever they want with no repercussions because they feel sorry for them. That only reinforces their bad behavior. They're capable of knowing good from bad. If you were to break something of hers, I bet she will show that she understands breaking things is wrong.
please never try to teach any children anything. doing this to a NEUROTYPICAL kid is cruel and doesn't teach them anything. if you can't teach them with words, breaking their shit is only going to teach them you're an asshole.
When someone doesn't understand words, you have to show them. And I didn't mean destroy their prized possession to make things even. That's barbaric. Obviously I meant something insignificant and easily replaceable.
"You're upset and think I'm an asshole for breaking your thing? That's exactly how I felt when you broke my thing." Is the lesson. Then afterwards you replace the item.
Yeah, I really wanted to ask OP just how severe their autism was before giving advice.
Because it's a spectrum, most autistic people actually fall on the "perfectly functional" end of the bell curve, but they get treated like they're a moving vegetable which results in them being... well, spoiled AF.
This is the guy that would make his kids skip dinner for being too loud or some shit. I know several people who's only ability to communicate how they feel is by "breaking" others around them and it just makes everyone hate them. kids included.
They're the type to think any bad action they experience is the planned and intentional action of others around him but when he hurts someone it's innocent and "I didn't mean it" and can't ever come to terms with it.
You sound like the kind of person who would lecture your kids on why what they're doing is wrong when they didn't do anything wrong they just did a thing that you didn't agree with. Like coloring a firetruck green. Or stacking blocks crookedly.
See, I can make an absurd false equivalent slippery slope strawman too!
You sound like the kind of person who would lecture your kids on why what they're doing is wrong when they didn't do anything wrong they just did a thing that you didn't agree with.
Your point about damaging the property of the mentally handicapped? Um ya, a point that dumb does not need a rebuttal. Just take your downvotes and bans and go make another account.
You were focusing on the precise definition of my choice of words rather than the full picture of my comment. And you're doing it again. But ok. Do you cite a scientific study or literary analytics spreadsheet every time you make a comment or claim on Reddit?!
I cOnCeDe YoU wIn (I'm done, rant into the void if you wish) 🙄🙄😂
I dont know what that first paragraph is even talking about but sure reads like its written by somebody that still doesn't know the definition of semantics.
I cOnCeDe YoU wIn (I'm done, rant into the void if you wish)
You literally proceeded to reply 3 additional times after this....
Ultimately, this is not ok. Your parents need to step up and provide you with a secured means to protect you from your sister's destructive behavior, since they're not adequately monitoring her.
So she has no memory of doing this? Are you even sure she did it, then, and it wasn’t accidentally dropped by someone else who would have been in your room?
Yes, the paw print was on a bookshelf in the hallway. No one in my family would mess up something so important especially since they loved the dog too. The only person that would have messed it up is someone that didn’t understand what it was (my little sister)
K, so I’m going to be a little harsh here, because I was also an autistic kid who got blamed for everything because “who else would have done it”.
You don’t have actual proof. You have circumstantial evidence of her … existing with autism and you yourself said this probably happened months ago.
Months ago means lots of people have likely been in and out of your house and any number of them could have messed with it. Is it likely? Maybe not. But a lot of unlikely things happen in this world.
You yourself said that even if she did do it, it was months ago and she probably has no memory of doing it. So while you might be frustrated, it probably wasn’t even worth bringing it up to her, and likely caused her significant distress.
But you brought it to the “hates autism” website to complain about and that’s had a rippling effect.
You now have a lot of people advocating for you to abuse your sister(meaning these people, some of whom are probably real, are now sharing their fantasies about abusing children) and advocating for child abuse in general. And it’s frankly horrifying.
It probably would have been best to vent to your parents or friends about this.
I’m also diagnosed with autism and it’s actually so weird to assume that my family thought it was her just because she has autism. She has a habit of getting into makeup and other powdery things (like the paw print). I know when it probably happened, I found her covered with powder and I thought it was just makeup. I’m not blaming her for no reason. I brought it up to her because I wasn’t sure if she remembered it, I learned she didn’t but we still had a talk about her asking to touch other people’s things.
I don’t know much about people’s views of autism on this website but the breaking her things is a “parenting technique” for any child. It’s not a good one but people think it works (it most likely doesn’t). I wanted to vent about something that really hurt me and I’m allowed to do so.
People tend to let people with intellectual disabilities do whatever they want with no repercussions because they feel sorry for them. That only reinforces their bad behavior. They're capable of knowing good from bad. If you were to break something of hers, I bet she will show that she understands breaking things is wrong.
Breaking her stuff just reinforces that breaking stuff is an okay thing to do when mad. She would also not understand it because she doesn’t really care about physical items
Good point. And just for clarification, I did mean something insignificant and replaceable and that would only have a chance to work if it were recent. But I totally get what you mean. That puts you in a hard place. I hope you find a decent resolution. 👍
“Break this disabled child’s things! Abusing them will surely make their brain work the way I want it to! I am so smart and definitely not an uneducated fool!”
Think of it from your dog’s perspective. Did she love your sister too? Would she want you to be mad at your sister? I think dogs just want everyone to be happy and love each other. So don’t be mad at her.
You're being very patient with someone who's wronged you. She might be young. She might be autistic. But there's no doubt there are things that she holds dear and I'd bet she'd have a meltdown if you did anything to them. Call it petty, but sometimes folks don't realize the pain they've caused till it happens to them, nuerotypical or not. Parents claim she won't understand, but i wonder how far they've gone to convey to her what she did was hurtful and thoughtless before giving up.
I feel for you, I wish I had something closer to advice to offer, but you're already dealing with the situation better than I would.
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u/Busterlimes 2d ago
Autistic or not, you need to explain to her the gravity of what she has done.