Four Pieces of Advice from the Mother of an Autistic Child
I’m often asked what bits of advice would I give to parents of newly diagnosed children. Or, what would I say to my younger self to make the autism journey easier. That question always makes me think. What would I say? It’s hard because I feel that so much of it we just have to go through. It’s almost a right of passage and a journey of self discovery.
These are the four things I wish I could’ve told my younger self about relationships, behaviors, hope and challenging my child.
What would you tell a parent of a newly diagnosed child?
https://youtu.be/FTA_T_q2Fe8
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Hi Kate! I just found this, as I saw your post about a tough day the other day. As the father of a son on the spectrum, I absolutely get it. My son turned 7 in August, and he was diagnosed when he was 4. We should have done it sooner, but his mother and I were in denial. Straight denial. I am sure you can relate. That being stated, those 4 things above are pretty much the exact same things we went through with our boy. I had to stop babying him, we had to stop letting him get away with misbehavior, we had to help him find his voice, understand his triggers. When I explain autism to folks, I explain it as “a constant buzzing in the child’s head”. This buzzing can be so loud and intense that they cannot hear you, they want to, but they can’t. I have to explain that eye contact is painful for an autistic child. That as a parent, you have to be patient with them and give them a chance to answer you when you ask a question. There are times when my son gets in the car after school (2nd grade), and just flops into the back seat and begins to STEM (scripting, movie lines, etc), and I just let him go, because I know he has worked twice as hard as his fellow students to try and understand the same material, and he just needs to decompress. Finally, to your second point, I look at it this way. There is a reason that Autism is a puzzle piece. Just as you find the lock for your child and you are on the same page, the child grows, his/her brain grows, and the autism changes. You have to find a new key to the same lock you just opened, and it is so incredibly frustrating. But at the end of a day, when I put him to bed, we pray, and I sing to him, he hugs me so tightly, and says “i love you dad.” I would go through over and over again for him, all of it, 1000 times, for him. And one more thing, my daughter is 9, and she loves her little brother, cares for him, looks out for him, so much that we have to remind her that is not her job. They are nearly inseparable. He loves her right back. He just wants to be wherever she is, wants to know where she is and why she is not there. They are best friends.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for this. I will be signing up and following, and sharing this with my network as well. All my very best.
Toby Moore
Bellingham, WA.