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Sure have a team around you, but choose to be there. Show your child that you want to be with them with no conditions, no expectations. Cherish this time now, even though you're seeing a bunch of things that you.

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Do not want, want to truly be the best parent you can be and help your child thrive after their autism diagnosis. This podcast is for all in parents like you who know more is possible for your child.

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With each episode, we reveal a secret that empowers you to be the parent your child needs now, saving you time, energy and money and helping you focus on what truly matters most, your child.

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I'm Cass.

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And I'm Len.

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Welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets.

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Welcome, welcome. It's Len. And this week I'm going to dive into three reminders, three really key reminders, and perhaps they're secrets, but I'll guarantee you that their importance is definitely not widely appreciated. So these are three reminders and they all happen to be included in one classic song that you definitely have heard. And I absolutely know that better understanding these three secrets, these three reminders will be useful for you as you show up bigger and bigger for your child on the spectrum. So this is going to be a short and to the point episode, so let's dive in. One of the most challenging aspects of parenting a child with autism, self stimulating behavior or stims, repetitive behaviors that your child may be exhibiting. My son used to have very extreme, repetitive behaviors. Cass and I didn't really know it then, but we now understand that those behaviors, what he was doing, that they weren't bad at the time, they definitely seemed to us, these are bad, they have to go. But what we now know, again with hindsight, is that they were his way of taking care of himself and that everything he did and everything he continues to do, he's doing for a reason. So he was doing those things for a reason. So even though that was the case, it absolutely drove me insane hearing the same song or the portion of a song over and over and over. And even now, to this day, he can watch a movie that he's seen dozens of times and it's still as funny and engaging as the first time he saw it, which I think is absolutely incredible. But going back, my son Ry would watch pieces of movies, particular scenes, or even just five second clips, or he would watch the credits of the movies over and over and again, or maybe the same part of a particular movie. I didn't understand it and I just, it just really, my reaction was really significant inside. I just was like, what the heck is he doing? And then you add on top of that, some echolalia where he was repeating certain sounds lots of times, nonsense sounds, over and over. And that just felt excruciating. I forget what it was like. But with clients and parents who are going through that type of situation right now, it definitely brings me back. So fast forward to today where my son has much less repetitive behavior because my wife and I did our own work. We allowed him the space to progress, and he's made. He's a very different child, or now he's a young man compared to where he was night and day. But he still has certain things that he repeats, like we all do on the way to school. When I drive both my son and my daughter to school, they both like to play their favorite songs, and they each like to play the same songs over and over. And my son was on the autism spectrum, moderate, borderline severe, and my daughter has never been, but they both like to play the same songs over and over, just like a lot of other kids and adults do. But in the last month, my son has become obsessed with the song Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin. Now, this is very likely my fault because we have SiriusXM and I basically default to the 70s channel. And I know I'm dating myself, but long story short, my son is now truly an expert on 70s music. If he ever gets the opportunity to go on Jeopardy. Or name that tune, he will crush the competition. So Cats in a Cradle lately is being played each and every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and often by multiple artists who have covered the song. So aside from Harry Chapin, my son's a big fan of the Johnny Cash version, and I have to say I like that one, too. But the song itself is one of my personal favorites, and it is for a lot of people, for dads especially, it can be a real tearjerker because it's, you know, it's about a dad who really just wasn't there for his son. And I'm bringing this up because, as I mentioned earlier, you know, everything my son does, he does for a reason. So even though now when I ask my son, hey, why are you playing that song over and over, he likes to say it's because of the beat and the tune and the sound, and he doesn't mention the lyrics and the storyline. But I know there's something more going on, that it's not an accident that he's playing it. And since I've had now weeks to take in these lyrics over and over, it really became clear to me that there are some really important secrets and reminders that are within this song and some a little bit obvious and others not so much. So let's dive in. The first reminder, the big reminder that's in there is about being present. So the lyrics are, when you're. When are you coming home, Dad? I don't know when, but we'll get together then, you know, we'll have a good time then. I think everyone knows the song, but, you know, what's that line saying? It's basically that dad's too busy with work especially and he doesn't have time for his kid, so he puts a positive spin on it and kind of kicks the can down the road. So basically he'll be present with his son at some point in the future and says that, you know, he'll be available to his son then and then they're going to have a great time. We all do that from time to time, right? We all do tomorrow or say we're going to do something tomorrow that we could do today if we made it a priority. And for any child, for neurotypical child, you know, this is hard if a parent's not present. But for a child on the spectrum especially, it's even harder and potentially more damaging. So the key point here is that presence, sincere presence with your child every day. It matters more than you think. But not only is this song about a lack of presence, in addition, in the lyrics, what I interpret, what I hear is perhaps the biggest mistake parents make. At least I know the biggest mistake that I made. And that was judging my son really hard. Really, Like I was full of judgment for him and how he was at the time. All the autism stuff was not okay. I couldn't accept him as he was. That was a foreign thought to me. I thought if I did become more accepting that somehow that was saying autism's okay. And at the time I saw it as a battle against autism. I don't see it that way now. But at the time that just was something I couldn't even get my head around. So when I hear the words, you know, we'll have a good time, then I'm reminded at the time that I was getting my own one on one support. And this is a couple years into our journey and from a mentor. And this was at the Option Institute, which I've talked about before. That is where the Sunrise program came. That was such a game changing therapy, or not even a therapy, an approach for how we were with our son. And I said to the person I was talking with that I loved my son, but I hated the autism. And at the time, that made perfect sense to me. But I think what I was thinking in my head is going back to the song, yeah, I'll have a good time with my son down the road once the autism's gone, but kind of now there's unfinished business. I wasn't going to be okay until he no longer had autism was pretty much the stance I took. And what that really meant at the time was that non acceptance, that's what I was doing. I was not accepting him as he was, meant that I could never really be present with him. You know, I couldn't look at him joyfully, at least not fully joyfully, because I saw him as broken and not okay as he was. Then that non acceptance manifested by me checking out. And you may be experiencing the same thing where it's easier to kind of check out and just do anything else and to be more distant not being as available. And I know I occupied my time with other activities, buried myself in my work and excused it by basically saying, hey, I'm letting the experts, the therapists, the doctors, the occupational therapists, letting them work with my son, that my presence wasn't really needed and that looking back was a big mistake. Sure, have a team around you, but choose to be there. Show your child that you want to be with them with no conditions, no expectations. Cherish this time now, even though you're seeing a bunch of things that you do not want. So presence, it's a buzzword. It's thrown about and mean a lot of different things. But presence, truly being there is incredibly important. And it's so much harder now with all the distractions, all the technology, social media, television. It's much harder than it was over a dozen years ago when we were experiencing and trying to support our son. But you can't be present with your child if you're not accepting them as they are. That was my key takeaway. So the big point here, the second reminder, is that you can accept your child as they are now. And it's a power move. And it doesn't mean that you're waving the white flag. You can accept them and then respond powerfully to meet your child's needs, whatever they may be, that will help them thrive. So that's the second point, acceptance as opposed to pushing away or non acceptance. Because if you're not enthusiastically wanting to be with your child, if you're not sincerely radiating an energy that says, come here, I'm here. And if you're not using your energy to make really exciting invitations, inviting them to join your world, inviting them to be a part. If you're not doing those things, then what are you doing? It's very possible it could be pushing your child away. This is what I was doing. It may be hard to hear, but at least I'm going to share what was true for me. And if this resonates, the question I ask myself now is, was I, at times with my child, conveying victimhood towards him, basically conveying to him a woe is me energy? I felt battered and broken. I felt sorry for myself, and I wanted anyone else to feel sorry for me, too. That's at least how I was thinking internally. I didn't verbalize it, but, you know, there were many times I was looking at my son with this energy of victimhood, you know, and here's my son, who's already got so much going on that he's doing his best to keep it together. And I was unintentionally giving him something more that I felt he needed to learn, and that was how to comfort me because I felt so wounded, you know, I was basically conveying an energy to him as, hey, look what you're doing, as if he was doing all the things he was doing on purpose, you know? So I realize now that he was not conspiring to make things difficult for me. He was not trying to intentionally cause me inconvenience, frustration, fill in the blank. You know, it's so easy for me to look back on it now, say, you know something, it wasn't about me. This was him doing him the best he could. So that's the second key reminder or secret. It's about acceptance. Stop judging your child. It's just not useful for them or you. And it's about what they need. Meeting your child's needs, not about you. So now, moving ahead in the song comes the third reminder. The lyrics. I'm going to be like him. Yeah, you know, I'm going to be like him. That's what the son was saying. And at the end, the father realizing as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me he'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me. So that ending is such a truth, right? It's true in the song. It's true in real life. Our kids are learning from us every day, from what we do primarily, maybe a little bit from what we say, but otherwise they're going to learn from what we do. So in the song the boy learned from his father how not to make time for the people who matter. And the son grew up just like the father. We spend so much time with our kids, they're going to be just like us in so many ways. Yes, they're their own person, but they will learn from what we do. So the question then becomes, what are we doing? And for myself, what was I doing? Well, I wasn't present. So if we're not present, our kids are not going to be present either. They're not going to learn how to do that. If we're not accepting, they're not going to be accepting of us, of other people, of other things. If we hate ourselves, they're going to go around hating themselves as well. If we're walking around depressed, they're likely to be depressed. So we have to become as parents, what we want our children to be. So whatever we want for them, we can't be hypocrites. We have to do the work as well. Which is why parent transformation, really taking stock of how you're operating and making changes so you can navigate this journey more effectively to get whatever it is that you want. That's the key. We have to be what we want them to be. And that's what really woke me up. So two quick examples of that. We did not want our son or our daughter to become glued to the tv, glued to technology, staring at their phone, even though early on we gave our son, I think he was one of the first people to have an ipod at the time, or I think it was an itouch. So we knew that's not what we wanted. So we got rid of TV and electronics for a couple years. And that was hard then, would be even harder now, but we didn't want that for him. And so we took that action to show what that's like. And then the second one that I think is really powerful is what are we teaching our kids? One of the most important lessons I learned that then I every day try to instill in my children is that I wanted to teach them how to be happy or okay even if you don't get what you want. So tantrums, outbursts, defiant behaviors, self injurious behaviors, all those things are so common with an autistic child. We experienced and saw all that. There's frustration that our son was feeling when he didn't get what he wanted, when things didn't go his way. So as much as possible, the key thing for him to learn was even if something didn't go his way and even if he didn't get what he wanted, for him to learn to be happy, even if he didn't get what he wanted. So that was a key lesson. We wanted less tantrums. We wanted a more, less volatile child. And so that meant that we had to model that behavior. So the next key point is to model the behavior you want to see in your child, starting with being happy, even if you don't get what you want as the parent. So if I asked my son, made a request and he didn't do it, I had to show that I could not get unhappy myself, not have my own tantrum if he didn't comply. So being happy, even if you don't get what you want, was something we wanted to teach, and therefore we had to model it. So this third key point can be summarized with don't be a hypocrite. Right? Don't ask or expect behaviors from your child that you're not willing to live every day. So to recap, there's three key reminders in this One, song, Cat's in the Cradle, number one, be present. Two, acceptance, not judgment. And three, don't be a hypocrite. So fast forward 10 years, 20 years. Let's say 20 years. If in 20 years you're looking at your child saying, they're just like me, and then you fill in the blank, what does that mean? What qualities do they have? If you like what you're seeing, then keep going. Keep doing what you're doing. But if you're on a road, a trajectory towards your child having qualities that you don't want, qualities that are undesirable, then there's so much you can do. Now to course correct. And thanks to Harry Chapin, I'm reminded that these three changes are worth focusing on. More sincere presence, more acceptance, and less judgment. And to model what you want to see in them, by focusing on these three key things, you are showing your child the way forward in a direction that you both will feel great about.