I don't know if it affects my child, anyone that spends time with him knows his diagnoses. However, while I would love to say that I am always unaffected by the looks and comments of others, it wouldn't be completely honest. There are times when I catch myself telling strangers that he his autistic because I get tired of people looking at me as if I am a bad mother. However, the majority of the time, I can deal with the looks and comments. A few months ago my son had a huge tantrum at Target, some man had the audacity to ask me what my son's problem was, I simply respond, "he's four, what's yours," then smiled stared blankly at him, he just walked away.

Someone suggested to me once, although I haven't done it yet, to have like a small business card that has ASD and its clinical symptoms on it, then if people are staring,say something stupid, etc-you just hand it to them and walk away. I think as my son gets older I will try that.

I don't know what's worse, people saying something snide and accusing you of bad parenting skills or ignoring the situation before them.
I remember, years ago when my oldest son was having problems, we would go to church and he would have a meltdown. I was a single parent with 3 boys. I would take him out of Sacrament Meeting, into either our gym or mother's room where I would have to restrain him, because if I didn't, there was a good chance he would either hurt one of his brothers or himself.
There we would be, on the floor with him in a four point restraint and me holding him down. People would walk around us, ignoring what was going on and absolutely no one asking what was going on or if I needed help of some sort! Not even looking at us, as if there was a wet spot on the floor they needed to go around. Sometimes, what I would have given to have someone ask me if they could help me in some way or take care of my other sons while I dealt with my oldest!

Sometimes I see a parent in a store with a child who's having a meltdown or something, and I just want to go up to the total stranger and say "God bless you." I just want to let them know someone isn't judging them.

People are always telling me that my 16 yr old is just a normal teenager and do not understand at all the problems we face. In public a lot of people look at his sometimes odd behavior and stare at us, it was worse when he was younger. This has driven home to me the fact that you cannot judge a book by its cover, don't judge someone until you have walked a mile in his shoes, and seeing someone for a few minutes does not mean you know the whole story.