On the Autism Spectrum
BY AIZA DELA CRUZ
“AUTISM doesn’t come with an instruction guide. It comes with a family who will never give up.” These words of Kerry Magro, an autistic best-selling author, professional speaker, and anti-bullying activist, could not be truer.
Parenting is already hard enough and having a child on the spectrum makes it even more challenging. No one is ever prepared to be a parent but more so when a child has special needs and considerations.
As a parent of an autistic child, the moment you get the diagnosis or even before that, when you observed there is something different with your child, you get the feeling of helplessness. When it was slowly dawning on me that my child could be on the spectrum, I remembered having that gut churning feeling, like nausea and the space around seems to be closing in on me, with my ears ringing numb as if I would go deaf. Yes, it was the feeling of despair and helplessness. Despair because I did not know what to do. It’s not like there was a manual which could teach me how to deal with my son.
I am grateful that I was able to overcome my emotional crisis and gotten over it quickly. With what I went through, I would like to share how I was able to help my autistic son.
Acceptance
The first step to helping my son was recognizing he was different and accepting his diagnosis. Acceptance is important as this is a realization that my son needs more help than other kids. I have to understand that his brain functions differently from that of a typical child. Accepting his autism diagnosis meant that we can now move forward to take the necessary steps in helping him.
Acceptance is actually not easy. It is very hard. It takes time. I would advise other parents to give themselves some time to emotionally process the diagnosis. It is also important for both spouses to be in this process together because acceptance from both parents is needed to help the child.
With acceptance comes understanding your child, his uniqueness, his strengths and weaknesses, his fears and apprehensions, and his aspirations and potentials.
As a parent, I have to accept the reality that I would prioritize my son over everything else, especially if I want him to become an independent adult capable of supporting himself. This means sacrificing some aspects in my life, like work and further studies. I have to be the one to educate and nurture him, and not just rely on his teachers and therapists. It is accepting my role as a hands-on parent to ensure that my son grows up to be a well-rounded individual.
Knowledge is power
Even before my son was diagnosed, I was already researching about autism. This helped me a lot in accepting his diagnosis. Acceptance gave me the drive and motivation to help and understand my son.
I read about autism from different sources which led me to join various autism groups around the world and attend a lot of lectures and webinars because I was hungry for knowledge on how to help my son. I did not delve on the negatives and stayed clear from people who would only focus on the disadvantages of autism as if it’s an incapacitating disease. I carefully researched on doctors and therapists, checking their backgrounds and asking about their reputation and service from other parents, because I only want to deal with people who truly want to help my son and who look at autism positively.
Knowledge about autism gave me a purpose and goal. That is to ensure that my son develops his potentials. And I will continue learning about autism as my child grows.
Parents should accept and brace themselves because autism is a never-ending learning process. There is always something new to learn with an autistic child.
Advocate
As parents to an autistic child, it became a conviction for my husband and I to advocate for our son. It was paramount for us to speak for our son as he could not communicate verbally at first. This was our way to make the society safer for our son. I believe that an informed society will make it a society accepting of people on the spectrum.
Advocating for autism started within our family. We explained about our son’s autism to the grandparents, uncles, and aunts. They were supportive and understanding, and earnestly tried to understand our son’s wants and his emotions especially when he was three years old and could not verbally communicate then. We also educated our nannies and helpers on how to deal with our son.
My husband advocates by sharing and explaining our son’s autism to his co-workers, especially if he brings our son to work.
We bring our son with us to parties and gatherings, and tell our friends and acquaintances about autism especially when they ask questions. We are sensitive to off-handed comments, especially to stereotyped labels, but we don’t get insulted easily. We don’t get offended but instead see it as an opportunity to educate someone and correct them about their misconceptions on autism.
Now, I am sharing my experience as a mother to an autistic child as another way to advocate for autism.
I enjoin everyone to have more compassion and understanding for all children with different abilities. I will now use children with different abilities, instead of children with special needs, to emphasize and promote their abilities, capabilities, and potentials. It is also in recognition of the neurodiversity of people.
I would also like to hear the experiences of other parents who have children on the autism spectrum. You may email me on genevieveaiza.delacruz@gmail.com. I am a member of the Autism Society Philippines, a national non-profit organization dedicated to the well-being of persons on the autism spectrum disorder./PN
