HOLLY ROBINSON PEETE: AUTISM “DESTROYS FAMILIES”
Rodney Jr, Holly, Ryan Elizabeth, Rodney, and Robinson at Zo's Summer Groove (Jul 11).
For actress Holly Robinson Peete, the subject of Autism hits close to home. Ever since one of her sons, Rodney Jr,11, was diagnosed with Autism several years ago, Holly has been quite outspoken about the developmental disorder.
Though her family is well in tact, actress Holly Robinson Peete says that having a child with Autism can be quiet costly and can “destroy families”.
“You can’t even know how expensive it is to treat a child with autism, especially families who don’t have insurance - it’s next to impossible. It destroys families.”
Holly says that she and her husband, former NFL player Rodney Peete, started their foundation HollyRod to raise money for people suffering from both Parkinson’s and Autism.
“We started the HollyRod Foundation years ago to help people with Parkinson’s disease - my dad had Parkinson’s and then about five years into the foundation, my son was diagnosed with autism… Much like Parkinson’s, autism is very expensive to treat so we started raising money for the quality of life for people suffering from both because of our personal experiences,” she revealed at the 11th annual DesignCare event in Hollywood just last week.
Holly added: “We raise money through these fundraisers and we beg people to use their gorgeous homes, we beg all of our friends to get dressed up and play with us.”
Visit HollyRod today!
wow this must be pretty common, toni braxton’s son has it, tisha campbell’s son has it, and holly’s son too? people take health for granted…i know i do
my son was diagnosed with autism just a few weeks ago and i am still trying to figure out what the hell is going on. i guess i am going to research it.
I don’t take health for granted at all.. I thank God daily for a healty son whom is very active. Holly has a beautiful family, I wonder how she felt whith her other two boys about givin them shots when it can time for vaccinations?
I don’t think autism destroys every family that have someone that is autistic. I think it’s the family that destroy themselves. You have money Holly, of course u have to pay. There is help for less fortunate people who can’t afford the treatment for themselves or their family members. If people would stop thinking that their world is perfect and they suppose to have the perfect family/children, would be a betta place. I’m pretty sure it is alot of people who wish they was in your shoes, so that they can hire a nanny/personal staff to help with a autistic child. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? sometime to and for themselves. At least your child is healthy,happy,loved and rich, stop complaining about the things u can’t change.
I think ya’ll are saying the thing…she wasn’t saying that it destroyed EVERY family but that it can destroy families because of how much it cost for the treatment for the people who don’t have the means to pay. I’m sure there is help but not to cover all the cost that goes for assisting an autistic child and the rest of their family. I also don’t think she was thinking that she should have the perfect family but I think we can agree that she had hoped for a healthy family. The fact that she didn’t get that is unfortunate.
Luvi there are so many things that insurance will not pay for for these children. All the parents I know who have autistic children and some I’ve seen on HBO and Discovery Health Channel documentaries struggle with affording medication and some testing. The financial stress puts a huge strain on the parents relationships and I think that it contributes to divorce.
I think that you know nothing about Autism. It doesn’t matter how much she has, her child is in a situation that even with money, there is little that you can do. No there are not a lot of things that people who don’t have money can use, because you see there is so little known about Autism and we are reaching for straws to help us find out all that we can. I’m sure that Holly isn’t asking you to feel sorry for her son, none of us are; but I would like for you to spend more time learning what there is to know about autism before you are so quick to refer to her as a whiner. I ran to doctors for years before they were able to tell me what was wrong with my son. Yes, I was financially able to do that, but it certainly didn’t make it any less harder for me to know that my child had problems and I couldn’t know what they were. You have never walked in Holly’s shoes and God willing, you will never have to. Just be a bit careful how you indict people. Contrary to popular belief, money is not a panacea.
I have a son who is autistic and I think it destroys families who cannot cope with an ‘imperfect’ world. One of my sons friends lives with his grandmother because as soon as the mum was told that he was autistic she put the child in foster care. Regarding the immunisations, I left it until my second son was three before letting hime have his as any syptom would have shown by that age. He is 4 1/2 and developing normally. I also have to point out that in some cases it can be hereditary as my father had classic symptoms of Aspergers which is on the Autistic Spectrum, we just though that he was difficult and particular.
That’s interesting because I never heard that it was hereditary. But they really haven’t know a whole lot about it. I know they have said that is more likely that a male child will be autistic than a female. Thanks for that info.
I am so glad that she stood up the the news people when they tried to quiet her because she is a star. My son is Autistic and 38 years old. I do all I can to help whereever I can for Autism. While it may not be able to help my son, maybe what I do can help some young child. We have so little resources. Thanks to Holly for adding her voice.
Just wondering why all of a sudden we have all these children being diagnosed with autism. When I was growing up you never heard about autism, you were considered to be “slow” or “mentally retarded”. I pray one day a cure will be found.
Autistic children are not necessarily slow. My son is 38 and Autism has been a round for a while. It’s just the until the movie RAINMAN, many people didn’t know about it. Now that they do, you hear about it more. It used to be, before my son, a psyche would rather tell you that your child was retarded than to tell you that they were autistic, because they had absolutly nothing that was there for you. I hope and pray that one day it will go away. Where Rainman was outstanding with Math, my son is that way with spelling, addition and reading. He started reading before he was 4 and if he sees a word he can spell it forever and if he has never seen the work he can phonitically spell it. There is a lot lot more to it than just being slow.
absolutely. they were discussing this recently on The View. about the autism spectrum, high and low functioning, asperger’s syndrome, etc. basically saying that it’s been around for a while, people were just improperly and misdiagnosed and there simply wasn’t enough information available at the time. posthumously, they’ve tried to identify people in history who may have been on the autistic spectrum, like Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein and Mozart.
i was always under the impression that autistic kids were extremly clever, but found it hard to deal with their emotions/feelings? not sure, i haven’t had first hand experience myself, it must be hard on any family whether u are rich or not because its an emotional problem, i do believe its true that the baby shots have something to do with bringing it on, u hear so many mothers saying that their child was perfectly fine until after they had their shots, it happened to a family member of my friend, i believe any mother would know instantly if their child suddenly changed, i know i would. did u kno that if u pay to have the shots separately there is a much lower risk? our english prime minister paid to have his son done that way but yet expects the rest of the country’s children to have them all in one go because the cost is too great? there must be something in it don’t u think?
This is something that you wonder about and try to think back on every time you hear of what may have been the cause. I know my son was moving along just fine after birth and then seems suddenly he stopped. I never heard my son call me Mommie again until he was about 3 years old. I just noticed that he stopped babbling; but I can’t say that it happened right after the shots or not; I just can’t remember. He wouldn’t talk but he always wanted me to read to him and he always wanted to hold my finger on the words. I have always been an avid reader and so have all my children, but with him it was different. I was going to doctors and they were telling me that he was retarded but there was something about the way he was that couldn’t let me belive that. Attending meetings and being always involved, I came to learn that even though he is Autistic, I am one of the more fortunate parents because he has never been wild or the other really hard situations that many parents have to experience everyday. He holds a job and is very good at repetative chores. You wonder everyday of your life if it was something that you did and then you realize that you have to accept that they are Autistic in order to help them move on. I have always been open to using his name and allowing him to be a part of programs that I felt may be able to help others who are autistic. Our family lost the father, I guess he just couldn’t handle it; but basically my son has been happy I think. I hope and pray that one day they will really find out what causes this so that we can end or at least curb the number of children who are autistic. They used to call it childhood Schizo; but they finally changed all that. Sometimes you feel if you could just turn that one little button one/tenth of an inch, things would be fine, at least with my son.
He is blessed. Are you from England. I had heard when my son was small that England was far ahead of America when it came to autism. We moved there and found that their treatment of children who were autistic was not up to par. Our son bumped a child who had been waiting for 4 years for a spot in the program and we had to sign a contract saying that we would be a part of the program for no more than 3 years. Well, we found the program no more than a glorified babysitting facility and they had the children in a special school that kept them away from the “normal” children; where in America we were working to intergrate them into the normal classrooms, at least for some of the studies. They were shocked to learn that we had been told that they were forerunners in Autism because they wanted to know from us all that America was doing. We kept our son there for 1 1/2 years and returned to America where we found that North Carolina, Chapel Hill UNC was really the forerunner with a program called TEACCH. Which did more for our son than England ever could. But then all this is after Autism; I guess your Prime Minister took the pre-Autism with the shots. At that time we did not know about the shots being the possible culprits. I do know that UNC has been doing the Fruitfly research but have heard nothing about it lately. I am always hoping for something to help our children. He is my baby child and I know that Wynton Marsalis has a brother who is also autistic. Someday!
hi khrish, yes i’m english, but i don’t think we in england know much more about it than anywhere else as you sadly discovered, it must have been hard moving here only to find that out.
i’m glad you finally found somewhere more helpful for your son, its a shame that people don’t know more about autism, and also that governments are still willing to risk the health of children for the sake of saving some money! my daughter had the shots and luckily she’s fine but i think that next time i have a child i will pay for separate shots… what do you mean by the “pre-autism” with the shots? i’m not sure i know about that?
i’m so happy to hear that your son is able to hold down a job and have a fulfillng life, i hear so much about people with this condition that don’t get anywhere in life, maybe thats just here in england? and also maybe to do with the amount of parents who just give up on their children, its so sad, i expect it was your good attitude and willingness to help your son that got him where he is today.
i wish you and your son the best and i also hope something will be discovered/done to help all these children.
HANABO It’s so good to talk with you. I can’t find out where I used Pre-autism. Looked back over my post but couldn’t find it. I guess maybe it was the part where I said that my son received the shots but that was way before they ever started talking about the shots maybe being the culprit of this disorder. There have been a few things that I have learned from watching different programs that have been shown of television. I know that my son will allow us to hug him but it’s like a slow lean in for the hug. I heard recently that when they are touched it’s like the shock you receive from static electricity. that was a real help to me and his siblings because now we take it really slow when we hug him. While we didn’t find the help we needed in London, I must say that the family and I truly enjoyed our stay there. I really love London and so do my children. I got to see so many things that I had read about in novels and learned while studying English Lit. And Christmas there was magical. Since I don’t like the hot weather, the temperature was perfect and I never mined the rain. But I did develop an allergy to the roses as much as I love them. We lived in Hampstead and I loved walking around the area and met so many wonderful people. So it was not a total lose. I hope we can keep in touch and you can let me know how your son is coming along. Take care. Good talking with you.
best looking hoolywood family,they always look good
As well as a loving family. She is a great advocate for Autism,
my son is 14. he was diagnosed at age 2. at that time there we’re no af/am families celeb or not that i could relate to..now there are and i don’t feel as alone as i did years ago.