My son Matthew is approaching his 28th birthday. That would make me a well seasoned autism mom who has learned from doing and  making a zillion mistakes along the way.

Here is a partial list of key mistakes that I have learned from:

• Stressing math and reading at every IEP meeting. What good was math and reading if  Matthew couldn’t connect with his teacher and his classmates? If I could do it over again, I’d encourage his teacher, his aide, and everyone in his therapeutic circle to engage with him in a relationship based way.
• Finishing Matthew’s sentences. People learn nothing if you are always finishing their sentences. I’ve learned it is better to be patient, and to wait…….and to  listen.
• Being the parent who was “better” with Matthew. “You’re better with Matthew,” my husband used to say. So I was exhausted and resentful. I should have demanded that Peter “be better” too. I did, eventually, and now we are (almost) even, and that is the way it is supposed to be.
• Hoping (even assuming) that Matthew’s siblings would be movies-made-for-TV-super-siblings. They are currently in the super category, but it was a process.
• Trying too hard to “make things right” for Matthew’s siblings during difficult times.
• Not getting professional help when I was overwhelmed. “Talking to a therapist is not going to fix anything. I just have to tough it out.” Not true.
• Not connecting the members of Matthew’s treatment team. Why didn’t I do that? We were all managing Matthew’s challenges in different ways. It must have been so confusing for him.
• Doing too much for Matthew. Not only was Matthew capable of doing so much, he loves working and the praise that follows.
• Leaving Matthew with a sitter that I wasn’t sure about. Ugh.

Enough for now. I’m sure I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and remember more.

What have you learned from your autism parenting mistakes?

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Next time: Autism parenting then vs. autism parenting now.

You might also find the following posts helpful:

10 things to be aware of about autism

Advice for parents of newly diagnosed children

On autism moms 

 

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