Parents, What Can You Do? Autism Awareness Week 1

When a child is diagnosed with autism, the parent is told by doctors that there is no hope for the child. They are usually told they would never talk, read, write, or learn to have independence. Because they tend to believe there is no hope, they end up feeling too much pity for the child that it leads parents to deny that they won't be around forever, having no choice but to feel pity.

However, there really is hope. I will explain why.

First of all, I wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was eight years old. Years before my diagnosis, doctors told my parents the same thing. They even thought I would never go to school without an aide watching over me. Yet today, I have a Bachelor's in Theatre, I have a driver's license, two jobs, and wrote a full-length play that was produced a few months ago. If my parents didn't have hope for me, I wouldn't be writing this blog post right now.

This blog post is mostly for parents. I don't just mean parents of children with autism, but also parents who don't have children with autism (yet). It's not enough to say that you will never have a child with autism because you don't really know that. Even people who say they will never have kids end up having kids. That's because we can't control the way God designed life, and therefore, we can't control the way our children are born. That's just wishful thinking.

This is why I'm making this blog post for parents. Whoever thinks they won't have children, or that their child will come out they way they expect them to come out means they are not fully prepared to be a parent. In fact, nobody is fully prepared. That's why not many parents feel that there is hope for their autistic child, because they have no experience raising a child with a disability.

However, it doesn't have to be this way. This blog can give hope to parents on how to parent a child with autism.

So, what can you do?

Be a Parent, Not a Friend

This may sound a little harsh, but that's not what it is meant to sound. This is supposed to be the truth, and the truth will be painful at times. Although it is important to love your child, that doesn't mean you should be a friend.

You are their parent.

It's okay if you want your child to be happy, but that's my point. If you want them to grow up into happy, well-behaved adults, they must understand rules, limits, and boundaries just like any other typical child. 

While you have set the rules and limits to your autistic child, some may be too low-functioning to even understand the rules. As a result, they may break your rules more often than your typical child. That doesn't mean they should be eventually excused for bad behavior. Now, I'm not saying the child is bad if he/she is breaking the rules. In fact, their brains are wired so differently that they will think breaking the rules are funny. However, they still have to know that you, the parent, don't like when they are using fowl language or being disrespectful.

If you allow them to break the rules too often, their aggressive behavior will be even harder for you to handle and for them to control.

As I said in a previous blog post, children with autism (or even teens) would often have temper tantrums because they don't always get what they want. Parents today would avoid that tantrum even further by eventually giving them the toy they wanted because they didn't want to make a scene. This is a sign of a parent who gives up.

As a child, I once had a temper tantrum for being refused to take a toy dinosaur home with me. My mom excused none of that. I don't remember exactly how long my tantrum lasted, but to me, it felt like hours. Although my mom probably endured most of however long I was screaming (especially in public), I did eventually stop.

The moral to this story is that even though the tantrums may last a long time, it will eventually stop. The best reward I was given for having a temper tantrum was being sent to my room. I was kept grounded, and I recommend you to do the same for your autistic child. Your child must understand the consequences of breaking the rules or having a temper tantrum.

Now I'm not saying that you should be extra strict on your child. Whether or not you are strict on your child is up to you as a parent, but all I'm saying is your child needs to learn to respect the rules. They have to learn that they won't always get what they want, and that they shouldn't be rewarded with bad behavior.

The rules are meant to improve their ability, not their disability.

Get to Know Them

While it is important to discipline your children, sometimes the discipline you have worked out for them doesn't always work. That's why it is important to get to know your autistic child.

You will get to know what works and doesn't work if you keep constant watch over them. I think it is very important to watch all their actions so you know more about him/her. Keep a close eye on their daily rituals, what they watch on television, or maybe what they are watching out the window. Sometimes you have to look even deeper because they tend to see things you never pay attention to.

That way, you could get "deeper into their heads." You would be able to get a better perspective of the way they think, see, hear, or smell.

In a way, they could actually teach you something new about the world you never thought you'd learn. So as a parent, you should play the detective. Just like the fictional Sherlock Holmes, you should look deeper into your child's mind as if you are looking through a magnifying glass. That way you could get a closer look at what your child might be seeing or feeling.

It will help you find some things to improve on so your child can feel safe and secure in his/her environment. This will help build confidence in your child and it will be easier for you to communicate with him/her.

Sometimes it's best to relate to your child as well. As I said in a previous blog post, you and your child might have something more in common than it seems, even when you don't have autism. For example, if you show up at a gas station and your child kicks and screams, the problem might be that something doesn't smell right. Although you might not know what the smell is, it's probably because you learned to adapt to it even when you don't like the smell. That might be the reason why it would be hard for you to smell the problem, because you never reacted that way or because you never saw another child react that way. However, it should be obvious that the autistic child doesn't usually like the smell of gasoline because neither do we.

While this is only hypothetical, this might give you the idea. That's why it's important to get to know your child. Because while the small beeping noise might sound annoying to you, it is painful for the autistic child. If you smell something rotten in the refrigerator, it may sting the autistic child's nostrils deep inside. While your bare foot steps on a fork and it feels as if you might have lightly cut yourself, your autistic child steps on the same thing and would have felt as if he/she was stabbed.

This doesn't sound easy, but I hope this is helpful.

Engage Them into Activities

My dad once told me this story about the time when we were at a restaurant. It was a few years before my parents divorced, and I was at least two years old at the time. At the restaurant, I pointed at a public phone booth (which was common in the 90s since there weren't any cell phones at the time) and I would have a meltdown just because I wasn't close to it. My dad - not knowing how to react to a child with an uncontrollable tantrum - had no choice but to take me to the booth. For forty-five minutes, I picked up the phone and said, "Hello! Abadubaduh... Bye Bye!" and hung up. For quite some time, it was hard for them to take me at a restaurant before growing out of the "phone obsession."

Nowadays, it is hard for parents to take their autistic kids out in public due to the fear of how society is going to react to them. Parents are afraid that they would be judged as "bad parents" or disturb the people since children with autism are more likely to cause a scene. I can't blame parents for feeling this way. It's a hard feeling to be given awkward stares when your child reacts differently. Some people shake their heads in disbelief, while others look out of concern.

In spite of this, however, you MUST take them out. This is one of the lessons Dr. Temple Grandin herself had been teaching throughout most of her lectures.

In fact, when Temple Grandin was a teenager, her mother told her that she would be visiting her aunt's farm for the summer. Temple was hesitant due to her growing anxiety and her fear of being away from home until Temple was informed that she could either stay for the whole summer, or just for two weeks if she didn't like it. Either way, she was still going. Temple ended up staying for the whole summer after figuring out that she liked the farm.

Because of staying at her aunt's farm, Temple was inspired by the idea of creating a device called the "squeeze machine," which helps individuals on the autism spectrum as a form of therapy to feel hugged (or at least feel some physical pressure for sensory input) since they are sensitive to physical touch. She also felt a connection with cattle while visiting, inspiring her to become a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.

Temple Grandin credited her mother for taking her out because she wouldn't be where she is today if she never visited her aunt's farm. She wouldn't have invented the squeeze machine, nor would she have written those bestselling books.

I found my passion as an actor when I was repeating lines from movies and T.V. shows every day growing up. As a result, I got involved with musical theatre. Through that, I discovered my gift as a singer. While I was in college and I had trouble getting a descent part (mostly because of my size), I began writing plays. I wrote a thirty minute romantic comedy that kept everybody laughing their pants off. A year after graduating from Seton Hill, my bully-prevention play, Behind the Mask was produced at the Center for Applied Drama and Autism with a positive response, making my life more meaningful.

That's why it's important to take your autistic children out. It's important that they see the world outside of their comfort zone and get more experience. If they don't get the experience, they will never learn to grow spiritually or emotionally. It may sound hard, but really that is just part of being a parent. They have more potential than they show, and taking them out is one of the best ways to motivate them.

That's how they grow up to be independent.

Conclusion: Can They be Independent?

Speaking of independence, this will be a part of my next blog post. I will be writing about how your autistic child can learn to make choices, having different teachers in their life, and how soon they must be taught. This will help you learn what you can do if you want your child to learn independence. They already have their likes and dislikes, so now they must learn how to overcome them.

Overall, if you have any stories you'd like to share concerning disciplinary action, feel free to comment below. Overall, have a great weekend, and God bless you!