“Bad Parenting” Doesn’t Cause Autism

“Cold mother”: the myth of cold and indifferent parenting and the connection with autism in children.

In the 1940s, Austrian psychiatrist Leo Kanner came up with the term “cold mother” to describe a mother whose cold and uncaring parenting style so traumatizes her child that he retreats into autism.

The concept caused enormous pain for many families for decades before it was disproven. Famed psychologist Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, believed that virtually all psychological problems stem from childhood trauma.

Autism was considered a form of mental disorder, and so it was logical to assume that it was caused by childhood trauma. Later, when Kanner and autism expert Hans Asperger began studying the disorder, they worked primarily with upper-class parents whose behavior might seem formal and cold. Although Kanner believed that autism could be congenital in the child, he also noted the apparent indifference on the part of his patients' mothers and suggested that this contributed to the problem.

It is important to note that the research of both Sigmund Freud and Hans Asperger has been refuted and found unreliable due to the strong influence of their biases on their work.

Bruno Bettelheim, a renowned professor of child development in his day, was best known from the 1940s to the 1970s. He was a great self-promoter and was often quoted in the media.
He latched on to the idea of ​​a “cold” mother and compared these parents to guards in a Nazi concentration camp. Bettelheim's book, The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of Personality, as well as his appearances on national television shows and in popular magazines, helped spread the concept of the “cold” mother.

Bernard Rimland, the late founder and director of the Institute for Autism Research, deserves credit for refuting this myth. As the parent of a child with autism, he had a special interest in researching and better understanding the causes of autism and erasing the popular concept that bad parenting can be blamed. His research, as well as his work to unite parents as self-advocates, has changed the understanding of the roots of autism. By the early 1970s, the idea of ​​“cold mothers” was no longer accepted, and parenting approaches were no longer the focus of research into the causes of autism.

Today, there is general agreement that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is not associated with “cold parenting” and simply represents one form of neurodivergence.

Advocating for the rights of autistic people is difficult in a disability-phobic society, and although the idea of ​​“bad parenting” as a cause has been debunked, many parents still feel guilty when their child is diagnosed.

It is important to understand that you can be a caring and accepting force in your child's life, but it cannot cause, prevent or cure your child's autism.

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