Teen Rights, Creative Minds, and More of Your Comments

Readers are sounding off in the comments all over this Parenting Special Needs blog, but it can be hard to find and respond to those opinions when they're on posts past the first page. To give you an easy view of the outrage and the outreach, here are some of the things your fellow readers have been saying in the past couple of weeks. To join the conversation, click on the link to get to the post, then click on "comments" to read the entire comment and add your own two cents.

"Do not be fooled into believing that teens need a great deal of freedom. You can still set limits -- on where and when, use of the phone, computer and car -- that will protect your son. He will appreciate it, even if it is not immediately evident." -- Barbara on "Is This a Good Sign or a Bad Sign?"

"One should remember that some of the greatest and most creative minds in human history have been people with variations of autism and/or bipolar disorder: Kim Peek (the man who inspired the movie Rain Man), Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the man who wrote about Sherlock Holmes), George Orwell (1984 and Animal Farm), Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart, Vincent van Gogh, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, James Joyce, Isaac Newton and Jonathan Swift. But sadly, the socalled 'normal' people have a tendency to view those with original and unconventional ideas as oddities -- despite many of them being centuries ahead of their time in music, art, science and literature." -- Kjetil on "Let Alex Barton Know He's Special"

"I personally wonder about parents of children with those severe allergies and their choice to send them to public school and subject them to those dangers. At what point does that become child endangerment and against the law?" -- Daisy on "Peanut-Butter Ban Stirs Up Strong Opinions"

"I’m betting it’s probably easier to raise a reluctant reader now than say, 20 years ago, since there are so many other sources of information besides books now. I know my own mother worried b/c my little brother didn’t read willingly and she feared he’d grow into an uninformed, undereducated adult. (didn’t happen, though)" -- Amy on "Is It Ever Okay to 'Give Up' on Reading?"

"If we do not step out an make our kids voice heard then who will? For example, if I go and spend time with my daughter at school then even though Abbey can’t talk I can talk for her. I can say Abbey loves that song too or Abbey dances to the radio at home too. Then her classmates see how similar my daughter is to them as opposed to always being the odd woman out." -- Aimee on "Why I Volunteer"