This week’s podcast may not be what you expected. Just because our loved ones are affected by an autism spectrum disorder, doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of being little a-holes from time to time. This week, a group of autism parents join me to share their laugh-out-loud stories we hope will improve your mood.
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For years I have struggled with complicated emotions of whether to work outside the home to earn an income to help support my family and the added expense of raising a child with special needs versus staying home to be able to dedicate more time to my children and pursue additional interventions for my struggling child. It was no surprise that there was a tremendous amount of parent interest in participating in this topic discussion. In this podcast you will hear different parent pro and con perspectives related to working outside the home as well as perspectives from parents who staying home to focus their attention on raising their children.
*this episode contains adult language.
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Marriage takes work. This is a common sentiment that rings true for most couples. In prior episodes we have discussed the toll that can be taken on a marriage while parenting your own children with special needs, but on this special episode we focused on an additional niche, parenting a step-child with autism. Or on the opposite side of this topic, working with exes and new step-parents to your child. Emotions can run high when discussing health/safety/discipline needs with an outside yet permanent second party.
Listen in as our panel of autism parents discusses their personal journey through parenting their children/step-children with special needs and maintaining/rebuilding their personal relationships.
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It is no secret, having a child with autism can be hard. Hard on your emotional health, family dynamics, and ultimately can be hard on your marriage. With the average divorce rate in America hovering around 50% adding the strife of chronic doctor/therapy appointments and the stress of paying for said appointments can bring many couples to the brink of divorce.
On the flip side, many parents say that the need for constant communication regarding their children with special needs has strengthened their marriage by forcing them to delve in to the uncomfortable topics and promoting healthy communication across the board.
Listen in as our panel of autism parents discusses their personal journey through parenting their children with special needs and maintaining/rebuilding their personal relationships.
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Tanya Holmes has been a regular guest on ISAAC’s Autism in the Wild podcast since it’s launch in 2019. Each time she joins me, she brings her unique experience as not just a mother, but also a primary school counselor and teacher. While Tanya’s demeanor is soft and more reserved, she is not afraid to challenge her school district when it comes to advocating for the needs of her child in the classroom and fighting for the IEP she knows her child is legally entitled to have. Tanya has taken more IEP workshops of any parent I know – which is why I refer so many of my struggling families her direction. I call her my IEP legal eagle.
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I have had the pleasure of getting to know self-advocate Taylor Crisp since the summer of 2019. Don’t let Taylor’s quiet demeanor fool you. While timid at first, Taylor is not afraid to open up about her experiences growing up in a time where fitting in with her peers meant hiding her autism diagnosis from her friends. Taylor is also a mother and shares some of her experiences raising her young daughter.
In this episode, Taylor and I talk more about:
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Two common sayings you might here me say are: hindsight is 20/20 and wisdom is wasted on the old. There are so many times that I have looked back at a moment or phase in my life wishing that I could change my response to a situation or that I could somehow share some of my current wisdom with my younger self. In this podcast a group of parents joined me to share some advice and words of wisdom that they hope might help other parents along their autism journey.
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In this weeks podcast, I was very fortunate to have an autism mom veteran join me. Clara’s daughter Sophie, now in he early twenties, was diagnosed in a time when there were very little knowledge and resources available to families. It’s moms like Clara that helped pave the way for better services and inclusion for the younger generation of children diagnosed with ASD. In this podcast you will learn about her journey and advice she wish she would have had when Sophie was younger.
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While the decision to have more children may be easy for some families, it can become complicated for others – especially when you have a child touched by autism. Statistics tell us that parents who have a child with autism only have a 2-18% chance of having a second child affected, this information does weigh into some family’s decision as to whether they want to add more biological children to their family. In this podcast, a group of us shared our experiences and thoughts when we made the decision to have more children.
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This is a question that I am often asked by teachers and close friends. What do you do when you notice red flags for autism in a child, but the parents don’t seem to notice or are in denial? A group of parents joined me in this podcast episode to explain ways they’ve encountered these complicated questions and how they handled the dilemma of whether to tell or remain silent.
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