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Background: My answer on a question was deleted, which was my first engagement with this community. There were a few reasons given by the moderator. However, even if my answer wasn't high-quality per the guidelines of this particular community, I don't believe it would have been deleted except for the over-abundance of caution against dishing out medical advice.

My concerns/question: If parents aren't allowed to talk about neuro-divergent conditions of their children, I feel like we're leaving a lot on the table. As a parent of neuro-divergent kids, I would feel like an entire (large) subset of my parenting concerns would have a (frankly disturbing) soft ban. Won't we be cutting off a lot of valid questions and discussions? Won't we be ostracizing one of the sub-communities that most need advice? enter image description here

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The main reason for deletion is the first bit of Stephie's comment, and that is what you should be focusing on here. Trust me, it was deleted for not meeting our quality requirements, no matter what you believe. Parents are absolutely allowed to talk about their kids' ND conditions

The 2nd bit is some background for you, in that this site is explicitly not about medical advice - and that is a deliberate decision.

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  • Other SE sites would have helped guide me to a better answer, rather than delete the answer outright. I humbly suggest similar policy here. Parenting, by its nature, is emotionally charged. Probably better not to drive away new users.
    – bobsbeenjamin
    Commented Nov 17, 2023 at 2:04
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    As a moderator on multiple SE sites, I would suggest that while some may do that where possible, many do not. Remember that guiding you to write a better answer takes the time of volunteers. On a small site, it can often be a challenge to edit a post that requires a lot of work.
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Commented Nov 17, 2023 at 10:00
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Neurodivergent and potentially ND kid questions are abundant on the site, and there are some very good questions and answers pertaining to the issue. Neurodivergent kids are not off-topic, and unless someone is asking about medicating them, they are usually fine. The title of the question, though different from the body, is worth addressing.

This community may be too careful about medical advice

For the record, if anyone on this site is overly cautious about medical advice, it's me. I trained in Family Medicine and practiced Emergency Medicine, and have a lot of experience with kids with all kinds of problems, including neurodivergent kids. I would be far more comfortable with medical advice if 90% of the time, it wasn't wrong.

Everyone has some experience with health care, and every culture has certain beliefs as well which are often repeated. This tends to engender a feeling of confidence in the medical advice one gives. However, one person's experience, or knowledge of a friend's or an acquaintance's experience does not a medical expert make. As a real-life "medical expert", it's easy to evaluate a user's advice, and I have absolutely no issue with it if it's correct. However, much more often than not, it's incorrect but still gets upvoted because someone else believes the same thing, and occasionally it's downright dangerous. So, rather than having someone on the site responsible to evaluate all the medical advice given for accuracy and challenging the erroneous advice in comments (which almost always digresses into a discussion and someone taking offense), it just isn't allowed. That is really the best course for this site.

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    Your answer led me to other meta conversations about this issue (whether there's a good balance of avoiding medical advice), which was at least an informative and interesting journey. Thanks for the 2 cents.
    – bobsbeenjamin
    Commented Jan 11 at 0:17

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