I bring a bag of things to do—a book, a journal and pen, a music player and headphones—for when I need to chill out. If I get too overwhelmed, I take a walk in the cold air. When I take enough breaks to disengage, I can enjoy spending time together with large groups of relatives!
Autism acceptance, for the author, means recognizing that her autistic daughter “already is happy; she has a good life. So do a lot of people who go with their humanity unrecognized and unacknowledged.”
So what’s going on here? Does my autistic son lack social skills or does he not? The answer is that context matters. Socializing costs a lot of tokens. When he is in a situation that is already difficult for him, he won’t have those tokens to spare.
On Chanukah accommodations: “All those candles A had carefully placed and lit, he blew them out. Technically that’s a no-no in Jewish rituals. But we march to the beat of our own little yiddishe drummer boy around here, and eternal or not a flame is still a flame.”
How the right accommodations helped one autistic student instantly go “from being a misunderstood, odd child with behavior problems to being a supported autistic child.”
There really are no good articles on how to help an autistic person process grief. It is with this hole in mind that I create this article.
I am very grateful to have this new piece of information about myself. I don’t consider my diagnosis to be an answer to all my life’s problems, nor do I consider it to be a deficit. What I see it as is a new lens to see my behavior through.
My particular form of prosopagnosia (facial blindness) includes inability to recognize faces and names. For example, every year I dreaded our family reunion and the inevitable awkwardness of seeing cousins and aunts and uncles and having no idea what their names were.
Let me stim: Holidays mean hanging with folks who might need a gentle reminder about kindness and accommodation for autistic kids and adults, on being nice about understanding autistic behaviors versus assuming naughtiness.
When it comes to Halloween and autistic kids, parents need to be clear-headed, creative, and flexible, and prioritize our kids’ needs and stamina. So, if you’re in the market for Halloweening advice, let me dump some on your head, courtesy of personal experience, friends’ adventures, and the Internet.
