Gift #1: Creativity

If you are a parent of a child with autism, you have no doubt experienced some degree of shifting in your pre-child ideas of how parenting was supposed to unfold. I know I did.

There are certainly many potential challenges in being a parent of a child with ASD–and with that, thankfully a lot of attention and research is now being focused upon current areas of concern– such as increased parental stress and high divorce rates among parents of children with autism.

While quality information regarding all things autism-related has increased dramatically especially over the past five years, as a parent I occasionally find myself  longing for more parent-targeted reading material that focuses above and beyond merely “making due”,  “adjusting”, and “surviving” as a parent of a child with autism…

Please don’t misunderstand me, anyone who knows me is aware that I strongly advocate for every parent taking the time to fully experience the process of grieving, accepting, and adapting to a new diagnosis. But with more and more parents of children with autism now psychologically maturing toward the pinnacle of accepting the amazingly unique person their child is and enjoying the experience of life itself (rather than simply surviving), I find it appropriate for us to spend some time shamelessly reveling in the joy of a few of those unique gifts we may not have otherwise been gifted had we not been so poignantly introduced to autism.

So for this post and the next two that follow that are penned by me, I will share one of these gifts that I personally have noted in my own life on this adventure. I invite you to sit back and reflect for a moment, and hopefully join in our conversation by sharing your own insight about how autism has enriched your life.

Growing up, I considered myself a reasonably creative individual. Outdoors, I could entertain myself for hours building forts out of sticks and sculpting mud villages. Inside, I could spin an intriguing yarn at the family typewriter and could even charcoal-sketch impressive illustrations to make my literary work complete.

With my older two children, I was a very young parent who was attending college with both little ones in diapers simultaneously. I was accustomed to having little to work with in regard to educational toys for toddlers and preschoolers–but was able to make due quite efficiently and successfully by being handy with scissors and construction paper and by frequenting neighborhood garage sales.

Living again in rural Appalachia when our third child was diagnosed with autism at the age of two, no prior experience could have prepared me for the level of outside-the-box-thinking required to create an intensive early intervention program for our child with little more than duct tape, empty coffee cans, and a wide array of ordinary household items (yes–we literally used duct tape and coffee cans to create therapy materials). Even if we could have afforded it, there simply was no effective programming to be had for our child within a 100 mile radius. When Ben turned three years old, our local school system had promised at our IEP that they would provide us with a teacher’s assistant for our home ABA program, but later reported that there was not a qualified person to be had among all they had interviewed. You could have heard a pin drop at the IEP meeting when my husband proposed that the school district just pay us to be our son’s home ABA therapists since we were already doing it. And so it was….we were added to the school district’s payroll….

It has been my observation that parents are not only quick to discover the untapped value of household sundries and on-the-spot negotiations, but also the creative maneuvering of work schedules, insurance coverages, and finances to accommodate intervention needs. I’ve seen parents faced with the child who eats nothing but Cheetos and applesauce– grind, mix, and puree ways to get adequate nutrition into their child; and the parent with the child-equivalent of Houdini find ways to keep their child safely inside the car seat, house, or yard–without the help of Invisible Fence. Some of the most innovative problem solvers I have ever known are parents of children with autism.

My personal motto on obstacles is they are meant to be gone around, over, through, underneath, or just plain moved . Use the tool of your choice….sledgehammer, shovel, bulldozer…even dynamite. Just ask any BCA team member….Rule #1: Don’t come in my office with a problem without at least two possible solutions you’ve thought of yourself.

And I graciously admit– I have my child and autism to thank for the creative, mountain-moving skills I have today. What about you?