In light of autism awareness month, many parents of autistic children are coming out to share their stories about what it is like to parent a child who has an autism spectrum disorder. On April 1, HLN shared one parent's story about how difficult things can be in nearly every situation in life. As a parent to a mildly autistic child, this examiner can personally share that being a parent of an autistic child is a blessing and the biggest challenge that any parent could ever have.
Many autistic children do not do well with change of any sort. This means transitioning from one activity to the next, moving things around in their room, using different laundry soap, and even how food is cooked for them. Meltdowns are eminent for most because sensory issues come into play and overload occurs. When this happens, a full on explosion of screaming, sometimes self injurious behavior, and tantrums that involve wanting everything and nothing occur. To say the least, doing much of anything is difficult.
Most parents of an autistic child spend nearly all their time simply trying to make sure that their child can get through a day with minimal issues. Personal relationships suffer because most friends and family members don't understand why the parents have such a problem or why the child simply can't behave. It isn't that they don't want to, their personal neurology prevents them from seeing the world and understanding it in a way that someone without autism does. Most parents spend a lot of time shuffling their children to behavioral therapy to learn how to do things properly, speech therapy, food therapy, occupational therapy, and several other therapies to help them understand and cope with being different.
Many children with autism have problems sleeping because they either don't produce enough serotonin in their brain to tell them when they need to go to sleep, or their brain runs on full speed all the time with no off switch that when they do sleep, it is often broken, or short lived. Many parents of autistic children are extremely sleep deprived and have odd schedules because they have to sleep when their child does just as if they would with a baby.
Most insurances don't cover autism therapies, therefore, parents are responsible for paying for these costly treatments out of pocket. Sometimes, these can be such significant costs that bankruptcy isn't a question of when to file but how many times they will have to file. Many parents feel that when they go out, they always have to announce that their child is autistic so that their overly friendly behavior, self injurious behavior, or meltdowns are more easily explained. People that don't have autistic children sometimes feel as if children with ASD should be kept at home, making life even more stressful, especially for single parents.
This is only what a parent has to deal with in a single day. Living life as a parent to an autistic child means that this is what life is like everyday. Deviation is difficult because of the strict routines that most ASD kids need. Most children with autism struggle severely with social and interpersonal relationships. After spending all day being forced to learn social interaction and how to function normally like other children, they are ready to simply hang out with their parents watching a movie or playing with their toys. Sometimes, it is the least stressful thing of all because the two can just simply co-habitate.
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