As a young child, how often did Chris socialize? -

[TrippinKahlua]

I know that sounds like a stupid question, but remember, Chris was as old as six years by 1988. The 80s were still going on and not even Sega and Sonic had made the mark on the autistic brat. There was definitely no internet to suck out the souls of humans either, and I doubt the Television kept Chris entertained with all the Moi-chendising Cartoon shows.

Borb must've took Chris out to gatherings for young children, right? Daycare Centers, carnivals, Sunday School, Phys-Ed, Arcades.

It makes me wonder you know. You could get away with a lot during the 80s. How autistic was little Chris during the few years he was a conscious child in the famous decade.

 

[QI 541]

Can't imagine him being sociable, given that he wasn't even able to talk at the time.

 

[Dork Of Ages]

It's quite likely that Chris's socialization skills when he was a kid were diminished because of the speech loss he suffered when he was 2 or 3 years old. Possibly because of that he still couldn't properly interact well with other kids after he regained his speech when he was 7 years old or around that.

 

[Henry Bemis]

Can't imagine him being sociable, given that he wasn't even able to talk at the time.

There was whatever group he had in his childhood speech therapy. (There's an irony there: children yearning for connection, but unable to express it.)

And there was Sarah Hammer, who from his own writing probably wasn't too keen to spend time with him (see the Casper and honeysuckle incident). It's all too easy to see Bob 'n' Barb shoving Chris off on the Hammers so they could get hammered. In general, I'm just gonna guess that the Chandlers lived primarily surrounded by the middle-aged and elderly, with nary a child in sight with whom Chris could (try to) relate.

And the influence of media aside, he's been out and about enough to experience the gender binary and sympathize more with the feminine side (or, at least, berate the masculine side).

 

[Stuff and Things]

I'd say that he didn't socialized too much when he was a kid, he probably grew up being the mental ill kid instead of the autistic kid that could have been a normal kid after all... ironically, he's now a mental ill adult autistic child that could have been a normal autistic man... but yeah, he probably just spended his days watching tv, filling his mind with stereotypes...

 

[BALLZ-BROKEN]

Chris was in the Boy Scouts, before he was booted out for some unnamed reason. I'm guessing it was because he had the wrong traits, like George Carlin.

“I wanted to be a Boy Scout, but I had all the wrong traits. They were looking for kids who were trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

Whereas I tended to be devious, fickle, obstructive, hostile, impolite, mean, defiant, glum, extravagant, dirty, and sacrilegious.”

 

[Fishkill]

How do we know the speech loss isn't total bullshit?

 

[littlebiscuits]

He looks pretty alone in all his young birthday pictures. It's usually just him holding a present and looking anywhere from mildly disappointed to visibly upset. Usually kiddie birthday pictures have a whole mess of children crowded around the cake or presents. Unless of course, no other children even came to the party. Oh Lord I'm depressing myself just thinking about it....

But really, imagine having to go to Chris's birthday party as a kid!

 

[Pikonic]

Not much, his parents plopped him in front of the tv to watch I Love Lucy and Gilligan's Island. Judging by CWCs taste in early cartoons, his parents probably grabbed VHS tapes from the 3$ bin and thought, "yeah, this will shut him up for an hour."
I speculate Chris was a mistake, his parents were too beaten to care and the inability to speak didn't help.

 

[Zim]

In general, I'm just gonna guess that the Chandlers lived primarily surrounded by the middle-aged and elderly, with nary a child in sight with whom Chris could (try to) relate.

Yeah, seeing how the Chandler's were older then most people who have kids their friends were probably older too. Almost all the photos you see of them are with older people who's kids had grown and left. School was most likely the only place he would socialize with kids his own age and who's to know how much he did of that since he may have had speech or behavior problems.

I want to think he was still in that age where other kids didn't realize he was exceptional yet and that he had a normal amount of friends at this point. Who knows.

 

[Stuff and Things]

Not much, his parents plopped him in front of the tv to watch I Love Lucy and Gilligan's Island. Judging by CWCs taste in early cartoons, his parents probably grabbed VHS tapes from the 3$ bin and thought, "yeah, this will shut him up for an hour."
I speculate Chris was a mistake, his parents were too beaten to care and the inability to speak didn't help.

And since his parents probably didn't knew what autism was, they probably thought that autism = mentally retarded, and that's why they kept chris away from other kids, fearing that he could tard-rage and hurt somebody or himself, and never taught him how to be a normal kid, which is, you know, one of the bests things to do with an autistic child...

 

[Henry Bemis]

It's also possible that-cruel as it sounds-parents wouldn't allow their kids to socialize with Chris. I mean, everything about the Chandler family is suspicious, or at least raises a few flags. You have, among other factors:

-Parents who can qualify as grandparents
-Parents who get really uncomfortable discussing the specifics of their child's condition
-Parents who drop said discussion all too easily, and yet are strangely insistent on never bringing it up again
-Parents who up and move to another county when no, let's, in fact, discuss it
-(let's face it) A special-needs kid. While attitudes about mental conditions changed considerably since Bob 'n' Barb's days of lobotomies and locking tards away forever, the attitude in Chris's youth seemed to be "ignore unless unavoidable."

 

[MysticMisty]

Chris was in the Boy Scouts, before he was booted out for some unnamed reason. I'm guessing it was because he had the wrong traits, like George Carlin.

“I wanted to be a Boy Scout, but I had all the wrong traits. They were looking for kids who were trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

Whereas I tended to be devious, fickle, obstructive, hostile, impolite, mean, defiant, glum, extravagant, dirty, and sacrilegious.”

Bob tried to sue for discrimination because of his autism. My guess is that Chris was anti-social and refused to participate in any activity or with anybody, or he had a tard rage tantrum all the time and they're obviously not trained to deal with that. Hell, the troop leaders were probably confused as to why somebody would enroll a non-functioning retard into Boy Scouts.

I don't know what the neighbors around 14 Branchland Court were like at the time to say if there were as lot of neighborhood kids or just Sarah Hammer. Although Sarah wasn't very nice, to say the least, I feel bad for her, that she was evidently being forced to play with Chris all the time. And seeing how well roller skating went...yeah, he probably never wanted to do anything Sarah wanted to do and there is no compromising allowed when your playmate is speshul.

 

[CatParty]

He's still a child

 

[Coldgrip]

Not much, his parents plopped him in front of the tv to watch I Love Lucy and Gilligan's Island. Judging by CWCs taste in early cartoons, his parents probably grabbed VHS tapes from the 3$ bin and thought, "yeah, this will shut him up for an hour."
I speculate Chris was a mistake, his parents were too beaten to care and the inability to speak didn't help.

And since his parents probably didn't knew what autism was, they probably thought that autism = mentally retarded, and that's why they kept chris away from other kids, fearing that he could tard-rage and hurt somebody or himself, and never taught him how to be a normal kid, which is, you know, one of the bests things to do with an autistic child...

I think another major reason they kept Chris locked away was so nobody would start questioning their ability to be functional parents. Both Bob and Borb we know booze-hounds and Barb probably had reputation of being a man chaser (consider how aggressively she pursued Bob) so when when people they knew found out they had a kid on the way, they started keeping Chris out of sight to avoid any funny looks or questions from people.

And so they could go out drinking. That was another reason.

 

[sparklemilhouse]

I want to scrutinize Chris's birthday photos now, but da wiki is down.

 

[Tubular Monkey]

Bob tried to sue for discrimination because of his autism. My guess is that Chris was anti-social and refused to participate in any activity or with anybody, or he had a tard rage tantrum all the time and they're obviously not trained to deal with that. Hell, the troop leaders were probably confused as to why somebody would enroll a non-functioning exceptional individual into Boy Scouts.

I'll bet the little jerk was a biter.

On a brief aside, my parents were both den leaders when I was a cub scout. There was always one kid whose parents would drop him off a half hour early and pick him up an hour late. I just know that Bob and Hoardzilla would have been those parents. Just another place they could drop him off and be away from their little screamer.

 

[Stuff and Things]

Not much, his parents plopped him in front of the tv to watch I Love Lucy and Gilligan's Island. Judging by CWCs taste in early cartoons, his parents probably grabbed VHS tapes from the 3$ bin and thought, "yeah, this will shut him up for an hour."
I speculate Chris was a mistake, his parents were too beaten to care and the inability to speak didn't help.

And since his parents probably didn't knew what autism was, they probably thought that autism = mentally retarded, and that's why they kept chris away from other kids, fearing that he could tard-rage and hurt somebody or himself, and never taught him how to be a normal kid, which is, you know, one of the bests things to do with an autistic child...

I think another major reason they kept Chris locked away was so nobody would start questioning their ability to be functional parents. Both Bob and Borb we know booze-hounds and Barb probably had reputation of being a man chaser (consider how aggressively she pursued Bob) so when when people they knew found out they had a kid on the way, they started keeping Chris out of sight to avoid any funny looks or questions from people.

And so they could go out drinking. That was another reason.

That could be another reason too... well, the first one; They were ashamed of themselves for having chris, obviously chris was an accident (i am not trying to sound -ing here...) so, blarb (and probably bob) was all paranoid about their reputation... that's why they taught chris to use his autism as an excuse for "defending" himself, in a way, they were trying to "defend" themselves too... but that doesn't answers the question: "As a young child, how often did Chris socialize?" too much...

 

[Coldgrip]

That could be another reason too... well, the first one; They were ashamed of themselves for having chris, obviously chris was an accident (i am not trying to sound -ing here...) so, blarb (and probably bob) was all paranoid about their reputation... that's why they taught chris to use his autism as an excuse for "defending" himself, in a way, they were trying to "defend" themselves too... but that doesn't answers the question: "As a young child, how often did Chris socialize?" too much...

Well, considering Borb was dead set on mainstreaming him and the fact that they'd often use Toy's 'r' Us (or any place that they could drop him off at) as a daycare I'd say he probably had the opportunity to socialize, but due to the 'tism didn't know how to or couldn't. I also think Chris was one of those kids that didn't really talk much or want to socialize with other people unless they were doing or talking about something he was interested in. And considering Chris was dressed as a special needs kid his peers probably avoided him unless some adult told them to include him.

So I think Chris got to socialize as much as he wanted to/could stand. It's just other people probably didn't want to socialize with him.

 

[Henry Bemis]

I think another major reason they kept Chris locked away was so nobody would start questioning their ability to be functional parents. Both Bob and Borb we know booze-hounds and Barb probably had reputation of being a man chaser (consider how aggressively she pursued Bob) so when when people they knew found out they had a kid on the way, they started keeping Chris out of sight to avoid any funny looks or questions from people.

And so they could go out drinking. That was another reason.

That could be another reason too... well, the first one; They were ashamed of themselves for having chris, obviously chris was an accident (i am not trying to sound -ing here...) so, blarb (and probably bob) was all paranoid about their reputation... that's why they taught chris to use his autism as an excuse for "defending" himself, in a way, they were trying to "defend" themselves too... but that doesn't answers the question: "As a young child, how often did Chris socialize?" too much...

It's also telling that the only measure Bob 'n' Barb took with dealing with his autism was the speech therapy. Not so interested in giving Chris the tools he needed to overcome his disability and forge relationships as they were in masking (arguably) the most apparent symptom of his condition. (Yep, Bob 'n' Barb are a latter-day Donner from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.)