Darcy Lippman: Unveiling a Mother's Dual Insight into Autism at Home and in the Classroom

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make your laugh, some will make your cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World.
Today's guest is Darcy Lippman. She's a special ed teacher,
has fortune one which is autistic, and the stories that
she has are just outstanding. Thanks for coming on. I
really appreciate it.
Well, thank you for inviting me.
It's my pleasure. So let's start this off with how
many kids you have?
I have four kids? Very interesting story.
Okay, and I think you said one is autistic, correct.
I have one who's autistic diagnosed, one is specter.
Me.
We actually adopted three kids and had a surprise all
within the same year. Like literally went from zero to
four kids in about six months. Wow, all in diapers
than So the story, you know, it's it's a pretty
cool story. Okay, Our oldest three are adopted through foster
care and our sibling group. We have had Jaren since
he was born. The other two we were doing respite
for and then when they found out the mom was
hiding the pregnancy because she knew that he would be taken.
Okay, when they found that out, he was.
She was seven months long, so no prenato care. She
was you know, ninety pounds Okay. So when Jaren was born,
it was decided that we would foster him full time
because the foster mom and my other my oldest two
was a saint and angel and everything. We got them
on the weekend. She was a single mom and she
had another son and that was Jaren, and Jared's my
kid with autism. She was born in the like state hospital,
like the one that basically if you go to if
you don't have any They were like, yep, we had
to have escorts take us in, and I mean it
was but he came home absolutely like and he's supposed
to be full term but six barely six pounds. Wow,
he might have been right under when we brought him home.
There's no way he should have come home right. My surprise,
my biological child who actually was born six months later.
We spent lots of money trying to have him. She
came for free, so he's he's been Jaren's like Irish
twin for his whole life. But he was in the
nick que for a month and Jarreen came home smaller
than he was when he came home from the nicqu
wow and he was a borderline failure to thrive. No.
I mean we had to do weigh in's like every week.
He had to be on I mean, he was sensory wise,
just he could noises sounds. But you don't know if
some of that is it due to some of the
birth things, because he you know, birth trauma and adoption
is always trauma. Have you taken you know from your
mom that your body's you know, conditioned to need. But
also I mean she was mulcule a little packs day
and we don't know how much drug use was happening
because she had no monitoring up till then. But he
wasn't born with any drugs in his system, but he was.
He didn't get to be over ten pounds till about
five months old, and so he was delayed and all
of his milestone. You know, the daycare teachers tell you like,
it's okay, it's okay. Some babies just develop, you know,
it's okay, Like, don't panic if he's not eating, like
textures were weird. It took a long time to get
him to eat anything. It was different. But so our
pediatrician is who was like our our saving grace because
at the sixth month appointment, he's like, he's not doing
any of the things, not rolling over, he's you know,
and we're like, I know, but the daycare teacher said,
just because you know, he was borderline failure to thrive,
and you know, he that it's okay. Some kids are
just late bloomers. We were lucky because you have to
have a kid seen within seventy two hours when they're
placed with you. Okay, through foster care, you have to
have him seen. But he was the only doctor that
had an appointment anywhere.
So then what happened.
So he was like, I'm not comfortable with this, but
I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm to let you go.
Hees, we're gonna chicken it nine months.
If I don't see significant changes, I think we need
to do a referral to first steps. And I'm like, okay, fine,
and at the time, I'm here, I am a brand
new mom of four kids, right, I had just had
my youngest Sudent was a pre mei you know, and
it was so stressful and I just wanted to believe
he'll be okay, like it'll be fine. Sure, nine months
came and he's like, this is not okay. I don't
care what your daycare person says. He should be turning over,
he should be doing you know, all these milestones. And
so he's like, I'm referring to first steps. I want
to have him a value, you know. So we ended
up getting finding getting ot services and special therapy where
they were because I mean, he had to be taught
how to crawl any like, I remember him learning how
to jump was the most hilarious thing because you don't
thinking of to teach a kid how to jump. But
it was funny because Jackson, who was six months younger
than him, always thought the therapists were there for him too.
So Jared had a built in pure model like for everything.
So so Jacks would be like showing Jared because he
would be learning like so he would be doing stuff
out of the cape and it was just like learning
to crawl and just people not realizing, you know, like
that's a process. And so initially they were thinking he
might have dyspraxia because also there was no.
Language coming out.
So he did really good. We had so we had
therapists coming in our home through First Steps, which is
like here in Missouri if kids are identified with heavy specialties.
It also sucks though, is that a lot of people
don't have access to these services or they have to
pay a certain amount of money. But he because he
was foster care adoption, he had Medicaid.
Well at least that was some help.
And this is a barrier for so many parents. Because
we have been able to navigate the system. Then people
because people think, oh, you make that much money, you
should be able to afford him, Like you have no
idea how much these theys costs.
Absolutely, so what did that allow you to do for him?
So he did. He started ot We had started having
speech therapists started, so he was getting like OTPT speech
and about eighteen months they had suggested like you know,
we wanted the earliest we can do in autism email
because they weren't seeing things progress in normal ways that
kids like the patterns were different. So he was making progress,
but not in a pattern that was typical for how
kids make person. He did get some language between about
one and eighteen months.
Did that help him a lot?
He was able to say like ten or twelve words,
and then they all went away, just like suddenly.
Wow.
And again we didn't know any different. Sure, he was
our first baby. We believed everyone else, and you know,
we were given like two days notice he was coming
with us, so I didn't have time to you know,
read all the books and do all that. Wow, So
I thought we were actually thinking he might get sensory
processing disorder might be what came out, because he.
Just was so oh sensory sensitive.
I mean it would rotate really dramatic things like he'd
go from one day loving to be in the bath
and playing with water, and then literally like the next
day it became like water was poison and would it
was like you're scarring him. And that would go for
six to eight months, and then just randomly, he'd go
three or four months with thinking water was great and
you would never know what's gonna happen that next day.
And that was constant with his sensory things.
So how did you handle it from there?
What was nice about He was able to be diagnosed early,
which eighteen months is usually the earliest, and people are like, wow,
You're lucky to get that young because we were able
to get a ton of early intervention, which is such
a key thing when working with autism. And I will
say too, like, I'm a teacher. I'm a special education teacher.
I have taught kids with autimate, teach kids with behavior disorders.
A lot of my kids have autism, and so you know,
going into this, I'm like, I'm gonna be like totally
great parents.
And how did that work out?
You know nothing? What you know in the classroom, Like
I try to tell my parents now that get hard
on themselves. And I was like, do you realize that
I I'm here every day with your kids, and I
am celebrated for what I do it.
I am good at it, and I do it.
I go home and we have home therapists who tell
me and suggests the things that I do naturally every day.
It's cool. And I'm like, oh, I mean just stuff
that I'm I said, it's your mom. Brain is so different.
It's like the DBT talks about whise mind and your
feelings mind and you know, it's your own child. There's that,
So I always just try to stress your not I
have a master's in Behavior disorder and special at and
I struggle every night, every single night.
You're going to do it well. People don't understand that
it's really easy to look at someone work with them
for a couple of hours or whatever the time frame
may be. But with your job as a parent, it's
a twenty four hour, seven day a week job. Not
that it's a job, but it's a continual thing where
you have to be there for the highs and the
lows and everything else in between. Some people just don't
get that.
Autism is a particulously hard disability because for the most
part's an invisible disability. Yes there's not you know, when
you're looking at a konnoic down syndrome or if there's
some you know, significant handicaps, the empathy is there. I
hate when there's like severe autism and my old autism,
and like every level of autism has its own struggles
and balances, right, Jaren, we thought was going to be
more severe. Now it's like level one, level two. I
can't keep up with all of that coverage. But he
actually like he is higher functioning. The hard part about
him is he he first off looks like people are like,
I can't see the autism. I'm like, think that that's
a compliment.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of people out there that do
not understand that.
That's not Please don't say that to your parents, because
you know what, I don't care if he looks like
he has autism. Absolutely, we've come a long way to
having to really embrace that that that's part of who
he is. Sure, that's part of his essence. And I
don't want him to not have autism or not show
his autism or not, because part of the autism is
I mean, he's the most he's hilarious, and he's and
right now he's like Napoleon Dynamite full out or his
moon boots. I mean, was wearing a tux Hee's school forever.
He's way to Titanic, so he was wearing a captain suit.
I mean, he he does the teenage things. He's got
his brother, He's got a brother in the same grade.
He's got two siblings. You know, they're teenagers. They're all
gonna be high school together next year. But he's a mess.
He's got the curly hair, and I mean it's just
but I like his I love when I'm with him
by myself because his brain just when it's allowed to
be and I'm not having to like put on my
I need I get over anxious about like no, I
want you to be safe and I want you this,
Like right now he's over at the neighbors, but he
was over there at eight o'clock this morning too, because
he was wanting to see if they were ready to play.
And having him understand that boundary of you know, and
that stuff like he goes to therapy every o the week.
He has community therapy twice a week still, I mean
so I almost think sometimes I when a kid does
have more severe autism, people are more likely to have
some empathy or but what's hard with a kid like
Jeerin who doesn't look like I mean, looks like Napoleon Dynamite,
but that doesn't scream much, right, but I mean it
they look at him like, you should be normal, You're
speaking normal, right, You're you are going to school on
the butt, you know, you do all this stuff typically, right,
But when you see him, so I feel like I
have to fight all the time and when even when
our friends say, like you wouldn't know, I said, just
hang out a minute, the autism will be here soon.
Don't worry.
It doesn't.
Just you know, I said, kids mask, They they mask,
they masked, They've learned.
To mask, right exactly.
It does bother me because I'm also like, you don't
know how hard this kid has worked. Sure, I mean
he has started first of set ten months, but I
mean he has been an intensive therapy his whole life.
Right, how old is he now?
He's fourteen. He started fourteen, and he knows everything.
Everything that you just said has been told to me
at one time or another. I had a friend that
told me about two individuals. One was autistic, the other
autistic was Down syndrome. It was easier for him to
get the money for the one with the autistic with
Down syndrome than the one with autism because they couldn't
see it.
Oh and in schools, as a special teacher, I'll tell
you that kids with obvious disabilities the kid the teachers are.
And I'm coming from both sides. I am a special
education teacher. I have done this for over twenty years.
Crimelias kids without behavior disours. I had done aba before
when I was first teaching, you know, just to like
I had done all this stuff, I thought I knew
it all. To see what the expectations are for a teacher.
Right now, we're having an issue with there's a kindergartener
who's struggling in regular ed because he doesn't qualify for
self content. But he's naughty. But part of the natty
is that we're trying to make him fit into like
teaching behaviors in a way that we would teach kids
whose brains work, you know, neurotypical, like you have to
teach behavior expectations in a different way. Right the kids
in their classroom that you know are sweet and have
a disability or you know, uh if they're you know,
if a kid is crying but he has and I
keep going downstrom not meaning it's just one of the
more in schools, more obvious disabilities. Sure that does not
bother them, But you have a kid with autism who
can't can't communicate the right words, so then they learn
a lot of kids in schools learn to say you
don't shut up.
Everyone thinks dimming is hand flapping and stuff.
Yeah, everybody seems to have their own perception of what
they think autism is, even though they're probably wrong.
They don't believe the autism because they want to see
autism as no. Kids with autism are sweet and you
know they're in They're kind and they're adorable. But it's
such a spectrum. And I'm like, by the time kids
are school age, if they've been struggling this whole time
and then you shove them into a kindergarten classroom where
there's four hundred million directions a day, you're supposed to
sit still all day. You haven't adapted your teaching to
how their brain is functioning. And I feel like I've
had to learn along the way. I know I become
a better teacher since I've become Jared's mom.
That's what I was going to ask you. You've told
the story of how your son has evolved. Now how
have you since you started learning from the other side
of the fence.
Well, I constantly, as a teacher, want to like go
back and punch myself my early teacher in this face
for the you need to sign those reading logs. I
don't understand, but I'm like, someone in my twenties should
have just been like, lady, you don't know what you're
talking like, I mean, just being a parent change me.
But sure, being a pative parent of Jaren and I
always Jaren has probably been he's he's been my passion
because he was such a teeny.
Tiny little guy and he just now you wouldn't know.
He's like four inches taller than me. He's got a
deep voice. It's funny.
But he was always this itty bitty bitty guy and
it was my job to fight for him. And so
I had to learn so much. Even though I was
a special education teacher. There were so many things I
didn't know right about what I could ask for or
what I could what services could be available. And again
because he was higher functioning and he wasn't you know
he was speaking. That's hard. Part. If not autistic kid
is is verbal, they are not given the same and
there's no well they don't seem autistic, like there's this
and like Jared is verbal's heck, but his language, I'm
telling you he is not processing what you're saying or
what he and you see it when you have conversations
and he's like you're like, oh my gosh, that's right.
Well let's go back and rethink that. But they see
you're verbal, you're fine, You're okay. But I had to learn.
I had to finally sit on the other side of
the table with all of the special people on the
other side, you know when they bring the big team,
because you're a mom that knows data, and I'm thinking,
I know all this stuff and I'm good at dad,
I'm good at pulling his things. I'm good at doing
this sure.
And it's hard.
What about these parents that just got the diagnosis at
four or five or six.
Absolutely, it's really tough when they first find out.
I remember his preschool when of his the first going
from first steps where we had all up until three
you get first steps, and now we had all the
therapists come to our house, and it was brilliant because
when you having to take a kid to a center,
like you learn the stuff there, but when they do
it in your home and you're present and you're seeing
how they do these things in your home, that was powerful.
So I always I know people when I talk to
new parents and they're like, oh, you know, our house
is a mess sometimes and blah blah blah, and I'm like, oh, please,
I have four kids.
Yeah, it's always a mess.
I learned so much by having the lessons taught how
I was able to see how the therapist taught him
in his environment, and then I was able to mimic
that and learn from that. I wouldn't have been able
to do that sitting in a center. So I'm always like,
you have an option for home services, I would do
it every time. And I do the same thing as
a teacher now I ask if like OT or PT,
I'm like, can you do it in the classroom? Can
you come in my room?
And I'm a self contained room so I only have
seven kids.
But I'm like, if you came in, then I could
make sure as a teacher, I'm mimicking you and I'm
doing this so they're not just getting at the two
half hours a week. You know, I could do stuff
every day to mirror this and that directly, because before
I'd be like, oh, no, you know, take them, take them.
But now it's like, I see how important it is
to see that. But being like in his first preschool
evaluation and after he'd had such intensive first step services
for you know, over two and a half years, the
whole team was there and they went from I remember
one of the things was they were going to give
him thirty minutes of speech once a week. I had
to have his first speech service there, and I was like,
but he gets two hours of speech once a week,
you know twice. He gets an hour twice a week
right now. And that was the only time we finally
saw progress in his language was when it went from
one hour to two hours. I said, because of his
anxiety and how like he was very much a scared
of the world kid, so it to every situation took him,
like he had to get his toe wet and he
had to it so it And they're like, and I said, okay,
so does that mean like you pick him up and
he has thirty minutes from time to pick him up,
And they're like, yeah, you know, he walked down. And
I said, but he's he's showing he's in the less
than one percentile for speech in language. Why wouldn't you
put most emphasis on that right there, because you're telling
me that's his primary like right now, that's what's holding
him back.
But you're going to give him.
Half an hour once a week. And this isn't a
special education pre school. So we thought we fought for that,
and thank goodness the speech therapist are there because I
wasn't smart enough to know all of the you know,
that's a whole other specialty. And so what schools do, unfortunately,
is they talk down to the parents.
They talk over the parents.
They make sure that the parents feel like we know best,
we're the smartest, we know everything, right. I became my
biggest passion now is I make sure that parents when
I get a kiddo, by the time I get a kiddo,
they have gone through the gamut because it's really hard
to get into my program. I'm always like, I will
be point blank transparent with you every time. And I said,
and I don't care if I get I'm always laughing
like I have tenure. Nobody wants my job, so we're trying,
but I do. I tell of.
Parents, I'm like, I can't answer for this, but you can.
Right, Here's some things you are entitled to, but that
unless you go to this. I make sure that they
always know if you are wanting thinking something, I will
help you fight for it because I'm not going to
judge your want as something that is is I needed.
And I think for the first time parents feel like, Okay,
finally someone is not talking to us like we're dom
And I think that sometimes having a child with similar
disabilities helps parents to also be like, Okay, I'm not
going to get judged.
Sure, that's a big deal. No one wants to feel inadequate,
especially when they're trying to learn and help their children.
Hey and Limon Land, we were whatever you want you
to show up. You know, it's like they don't have
to worry about all those little things that had nothing
to do with the child learning and you know, being
safe and feeling because if kids don't feel safe, they
can't learn. In kids with autism, I think it's even
more because we don't know how to communicate safe, right.
It doesn't matter how amazing we are, we have to
Every kid is so different and it's not the same
way you communicate safe to neurotypical kids. Sure, you have
to take the time. And that's where I love My
job is self contained because I get the kids all
day and I can get them over multiple years.
I think that's great. Now you had mentioned something else
that just came up that helped them a lot. Can
you expand on.
That something that's been really cool? It's come up in
the last year is Jared had started out having a
home therapist like through his autism fun Again luckily because
he is Medicaid, so we were able to qualify for
like the maximum amount of you know, state autism funding.
So he's got to do horse therapy. Started with horse
therapy in first grade. He does that once a week.
We drive about forty five minutes away. He does it
for an hour and we drive forty five.
Inspect So what does host therapy entail? Can you give
a little bit more information about that?
Well, it's it started off. It was really unique for
each child that participates, and there's usually a class of
about three, four or five kids. Okay, Jaren's what the
initial thing that was so great is first, Jaren loves animals,
has always loved animals.
That's been his thing.
But at the time when Jared started, he was so
his body was not in control. He was not perceiving
how his impact was on others. And that's a hard pot.
We don't think of that as being hard, but if
she's with autism, like that's a struggle thing done right.
They can't identify with what you're feeling. Because Jaren has
a hard time understanding how he impacts others or his
actions impact others. He's always done good with the animals.
We had a greyhound that Jared was attached to Jaren
from the time we brought him home, and Jaren for
speech for a year sat and stared at the speech
therapist who had come every week and they worked through music.
Jared's very into music, so she would start, she would
do songs with him, That's how she would start, and
so he would not say a word, would not make
a sound, and then as soon as she left, he
would go and sing all.
The songs to the dob Oh that's so great.
Yeah, it was, and she was such a saint.
It was. It's hard because we have a new dog now,
and our new dog has his own issues, right, and
Jared just can't understand, you know, because Danico was still loving, right.
But the great thing about the horse is it's such
a big being. And Cooper was they they set him
up with the littlest horse because he was this teeny tiny,
tiny little guy. And he got up there and Jarreen
was scared of the world, like scared of everything, but
not scared to be on a horse.
It was weird.
Wow, because they have.
To go to a test thing.
They the therapist, the horse therapist, leader, whatever was able
to talk to me because Cooper would be naughty on
the horse and we've been honoring and we kind of
like try to bite the leader or we're.
Just oh, yeah, that a horse.
Yeah, And but he understood. This is why I'm like,
we have to have people in our lives that are
experts that aren't us, because as a parent, I can
know all these things, but I don't. There are other
people who are better teachers than my child. I actually
didn't have my thirteen year old help Jared with Ami
virtual homework the other day because I was losing my mind.
And as a thirteen year old, he was able to
be like so and and part of it is they're virtual.
Twins, right, I mean they hate each other half the.
Time, but I mean, but she was able to explain
to him, like, Cooper's anxious, Cooper's worried, his tummy feels
weird because he feels your body is not strong and
is not calm, and so do you want Cooper.
Cooper's getting in trouble right now.
He's being told no, no, no, no, and that you
know and and do you want Cooper to be told no?
And Jared was like, no, oh, my gosh, I don't
want Cooper to be in trouble. And that was just
she was so good on getting him in tune with
just if my body's okay, Cooper's okay, and we worked together.
That was incredible. There was no amount of therapy. I
mean when and that happened so quickly in and he
just he could articulate it.
Now, Cooper's the horse, right, yeah, Cooper's a horse, Okay.
Now how big a horse is he?
Cooper was a normal sized horse, but on the very
small side. Now he rides one of the biggest horses.
That's great. How long has he been riding for?
He has been riding since first grade. When he came in.
Initially it was just they have horse leaders, they have sidewalkers,
and so Jaren loved that because he was like, whoa,
this is awesome. And by that time he had started
talking like a fiend okay and wanted to talk to
anybody about everything, and he had an audience there that
just would so it was that was therapeutic for him
to just be like, I get no one's telling me
to be quiet. I can tell everyone about every Titanic
thing that they need to know.
Well, that's good that he can be around people that
don't judge him and he can just say pretty much
anything that he wants to say.
Jaren, just because we do a big talk at our family.
We have a daughter that has severe mental illness from
her trauma. And one thing we always are is we're
very transparent. I always I tell the kids.
We don't lie. Okay, we don't tell, we don't keep secrets.
And I think, especially for someone like Jaren has such
high anxiety and OCD, things about if he doesn't do
certain things, the family will die and stuff. So he
doesn't understand that he shouldn't tell all the horse leaders
about his puberty.
He shouldn't tell them all about it, and but he does.
And I love that. There are places that I cannot
have to overthink, like, oh my god, what is he saying?
Oh my gosh, what are they interpreting it?
Right? But no, as he got or he became, he's
so connected. Now. He rides off lead, he trots, he's
in horse shows. People ask like, gosh, that's an hour
and a half long trip every week, And I said,
it is literally one of the most because Jaren's body
becomes different when he sits on that horse.
Well, that's a great thing about all those programs out there.
I have to inform a lot of these parents about
the autism funding out there, and I was lucky that
we have connection to the First Steps. We had an amazing
therapists and they're the ones like, oh, yeah, go apply
for this, go do that.
But I'm still finding out stuff.
So I tell him, I'm like, these are the options.
Like there's like he goes to Camp barnabas Now, which
is this great camp in Missouri. It's a sleepway camp
that you go for like a week and they have
all different kinds of disabilities and there's different weeks, different
you know, they have different disabilities. He's gone on weeks
with chronic illness. He's gone on weeks where you know
it was kids who were blind. And he goes every
year at least once a year, and he became a
different child when he spent a week in his element.
That's so good.
He had a they have like what's called a your missionary.
You have you have a one on one like college
kid who's with you. You're with just everybody is unique
and everybody is doing things differently, and I he came
back a different child after that week.
That's really good to hear. It's always great to be
able to take them to a place that they can
just forget about everything and focus on having a time. Now,
you did mention something that's pretty big in the autistic world,
and that's puberty. It affects so many different teams and
so many different ways. Can you expand on that just
a little bit.
When when Jared's buch younger had gone to some panels
about puberty and autism and that could be its own podcast.
You got parents.
Because no one could have prepared us for what comes
with puberty and autism because you put all those hormones,
so you've got all the emotional things and all, and
then you're trying to like, thank god, he has an
amazing therapist that he's had, you know, since he was little,
and he's you know, we've had we've we've brought services
back into our home because we are at the point
of exhaustion with when I'm able to step away and
I'm able to like.
Not be in the mix of all it.
I have so much, I'm just like, how the hell
does Jaron deal with the fact that he has to
interpret every freaking situation.
Yeah, it's a tough thing because kids just are so
overwhelmed in the neurotypical world and then you add autism
to it and it just adds that much more to it.
So by your ability to take them to that horse therapy,
it seems like it helped out tremendously.
That's that's been a huge part of like i'ntel you.
Horse therapy was the start where all the moms and.
I were just like, you can say things you wouldn't
say to normal people, and you can admit that you're
really frustrated about something which you wouldn't want to And
we all had different levels of things we were dealing with,
but we had one common stream. I remember once Jarin
fell off a horse and I felt horrible because I
didn't see it happen because I like, we were doing
our mom or.
We were just checking it in sometimes it's talking about plans.
That was great that you got to connect with other
moms and just go over things. When you first moved there,
how was it, How did you adapt? How did you grow?
Did things fall in place fairly? Easily.
At the time we were new to Kansas City, we
were very isolated. We joined a church. We didn't join them.
We start going. We're Christian, their Methodists, but.
They were really great.
That was a huge thing because they just embraced every
kid for who they were.
They had.
It was an amazing church that probably saved us in
those early early years. It didn't matter what was going
on people were. They met jarin where he was at.
And part of the reason elementary was so good as
Jared grew up with those kids through church and there,
you know, got went through elementary together and they were
at church stuff together and then they went to middle
school together. And so elementary was pretty good for him
because he had a group of and he had his
group of odd duck friends where the moms and I
all became They were all in social group together and
literally the oddest like I loved them. The moms and
I all became friends. We did play dates with each other.
Finding those parents that was huge.
That's great. So it sounds like you've got things pretty
much under control. Now, how does that compare to when
you first started.
I was paralyzed with parenting for a while because I
was like I'm going to mess him up, I'm going
to do something wrong, I'm going to make something worse.
And I had to look at like what can I do?
What is important in our lives? But again that is
because I've had good therapists and good people.
So now that you've got pretty much everything under control
and the people have helped you and you've learned, is
there anything else that's on your mind for the.
Future, What parents like me need who now have like kids.
So I know all about the beginning stuff like this
starting out, but I'm desperate for information from parents of teenagers,
the transition piece. I'm trying to seek out every parent
I know who has like a high schooler, because Jared
will going high school next year. I wan, please please
tell me what I'm in for.
Well, hopefully there's going to be some parents that's gone
through what you're about to go through and can reach
out and give you a lot of information. That's the
great thing about this community. They help each other out
and it's just just an awesome thing to do. With
that said, this has been a great conversation. Do you
have anything that you'd like to leave us with.
It's hard because I want to say, go find another parent.
I would caution them to not jump on every autism
Facebook page or group. Some of them are very judgmental.
Do your own research a little bit too. If you
feel like a group is attacking, you're not.
The bad guy. You are the parent.
You still know your child best, Your child is still
everything that you thought they were. It's just they're cooler now,
Like now you get to change change how you think,
and like your brain is opened up. There are parents
I see that are beaten up. They get a later diagnosis.
Don't put your kidna. You're torturing them, You're you know,
don't do this, or you're you're telling them, or if
you want them to do anything that's typical, then that's
And I'm just like, it is hard enough to be
a parent first that gets diagnosis because you go it's
okay to mourn it. I tell parents, like, it's okay
if you're not happy about this, it's okay. If you
are sad and depressed and you feel like something has ended,
it's okay. That that's a normal process that all autism
parents go through. And and don't let anybody think you
should be like, oh, you know, you'll get there. You'll
get there when you find other parents. I would say
not try to do too much at one time, a
lot of like that's something that some parents will be given,
like here's here's one hundred percent of here's all these
things you can do, and here's all this contact these people,
and they're still trying to cope with the fact that
I just got my kid identified. I would recommend parents
get their own counselors and therapists because this is a
journey and your paradigms have to switch so much. And
if you aren't taking care of your own struggles and
your own stress, and it's not because something's wrong or
you have a mental illness, it's just raising a child
with a disability in a world that is not made
for them.
You are always on.
You don't ever get to not be off. So that's
the number one thing I would I mean, that would
be right up there is like go get support for
you and your spouse. It's okay if you don't do everything,
it's okay one thing and decide like, okay, we're going
to do this one thing.
You can decide.
People don't have to like the decisions you make. You're
still the parent and you can do this, and you
you are capable, and you just sometimes your brain has
to open up in different ways that maybe it hasn't
been challenged before. But I've never met an autism parent
who hasn't taken on that challenge. I mean that hasn't
gotten to that place. You'll get there, but don't try
to do seven hundred things at once.
That's really great information. I've really enjoyed this conversation, and again,
thanks for coming on.
Yeah, it was fun talking about it.
Yes, for sure, I had a great time. Thanks again,
thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule
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