I am the Parent of a Child with Autism
If you see me about and I look like I’ve had no sleep, know that you are not wrong. The last thing I want to do most days is plaster myself in makeup.
I’m clean and I’m showered. My hair is slapped back and that’s enough. I bump into people I know and maybe some who I haven’t spoke to in a while and I know people mean well but I just need to explain something about autism.
If you’ve met one person with autism you’ve only met one person with autism.
I am the parent of a child with autism.
I don’t need the following:
To be told, oh. I just thought it was badly behaved kids who need a good slap, because with this your also insinuating I’m a bad parent.
I don’t need to be starred at because my child is ignoring you in the supermarket when your talking to him at the checkout and he gives you zero eye contact and you say, oh, are you being naughty?
For you to look at my son and say he doesn’t seem autistic…What does autism look like?
Should I buy him a t-shirt or write it on his head?
I worry everyday what type of a life he will lead and what he will do when I’m dead.
I don’t believe in God yet I pray my daughter will not feel to burdened when they only have each other.
I attend at least one appointment every week for him or I’m making numerous phone calls daily chasing people who are meant to be calling me back and dealing with ridiculous NHS wait times and funding problems.
You’d think paying private would be just as easy but for some services it’s not.
He is nonverbal and struggles to communicate.
He struggles with eye contact.
He struggles to settle down and to stay asleep.
He struggles with paying attention.
He struggles to walk without falling.
He struggles emotionally.
He struggles with getting his hair cut and spending more than an hour and a half at school.
He is also just a little boy who is absolutely beautiful.
He gives the best cuddles because when he gives them he 100% means it.
He has the best laugh.
He understands a lot more than you think.
He’s good at puzzles.
He can swim faster than a fish and loves trampolining.
And he is who he is and he won’t “grow out of it.”
Just be kinder and educate yourself more.
Written by, Emma Roberts
I am 34 years old and mum two beautiful kids Summer (9) and Mason (3).
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Beautifully written and you just keep doing what your doing. I have also found that the public perception of my child is sometimes harder to deal with than the behaviors themselves! I have a hard time dealing with a grown adults reaction to my child not doing what their “supposed to do” . And I’m sorry (little rant here) but disabilities physical and non physically obvious have been around since he beginning of time. People should know better. But they don’t and I’ve come to the place where I realize they don’t -want- to know. Because maybe it would mean they’d have to show some grace and kindness and maybe it’s not in them. That’s their problem I say lol.
Have you reached out to the Scottish Rite?