Move Slowly And Wait For Society To Catch Up..

   What would a perfect world be like for families dealing with autism or any different ability? Here is what I would have liked to see when the autism came our way.

   I would have liked to open my phone book and looked up autism, to find options. People trained specifically in what we need, who will say to me..."first I am going to spend time with your child like a family member or caregiver would do. I am going to spend time getting to know him, playing with him, interacting with him as you would. I will do that until I am comfortable implementing a strategy to feed his gifts. I will not get out a jug of bubbles and see how angry he gets when I stop blowing them because you already told me he gets frustrated when he can't communicate. I will trust you as his parent when you explain to me what his autism brings to the table, because you are the expert until I understand him nearly as well as you do. I am the only person he will be seeing because I understand the more faces and places he is thrown into, will overwhelm him." Then I would also like to flip through my phone book for schools and find programs built just for kids with sensory differences. Without having to settle for whatever is available and hope they might know what they are doing. An education system built for the needs of each child and based on understanding.

   I would like to hear someone say to me...I am tossing out the guidelines for autism because I have never met an autistic child that fits directly into them. I am not setting out to fix your child or force him into the social norm, because I have never met a child or adult who is socially perfect. Some of the greatest contributions to our world were made by people who didn't fall in line and people didn't always understand them, so it is perfectly OK for your child to be different. We aren't going to talk about the cause of autism because at this point it's here and it's not a disease. The emotions you will feel towards autism are largely due to society and lack of knowledge, not the difference in your child. I will not allow you to blame every little thing on autism, because a child is a child and we are going to remember that every day.

   Yes, this would be a perfect world for many people and would help parents to feel strong and confident in the diagnosis, which is also a word I have grown to dislike because it puts the difference in a disease category from the start. 

   Wouldn't it be nice if a parent who has just been told autism is going to be a part of life, could feel confident and secure in whatever they decide to do from that point on. If I ruled the world or if our son ruled the world, this is what would evolve for all of the families effected by autism. For now we move forward very slowly, taking time to stop and breath. Maybe then society will have plenty of time to catch up.