The three things that we all want are:
1. We want our children with and without autism to be happy. I did a few video blogs about happiness in the recent past, and I know that happiness comes from the ability to make choices. It also comes from having work or demands that are at the appropriate level and reinforcement that is dense enough to provide a good atmosphere for the child or adult. I’m a big proponent of counting smiles, counting laughs, taking data on affect to see which activities (if the child can’t verbally tell you) what they like best, what their favorite activity is and what their favorite movie is. We need to be good observers and document where the child is going to be happiest.
2. We want our kids with and without autism to be safe. Safety for Spencer (who’s in college) involves making good choices, and safety for Lucas involves a lot of oversight and supervision. I did a blog recently about crossing the street and how that’s just not feasible. Even if you have a teenager, if they’re functioning below an age 10 child, cognitively, language-wise, developmentally, they simply can’t be left to cross streets. It’s not safe. We need to keep our kids with autism safe, but we definitely desire all of our children to be as safe as possible.
3. We want children with and without autism to be as independent as possible. My college-age son is totally independent now. He’s flying on airplanes alone. He’s responsible for all his school work, coordination of when he has tests and everything. For Lucas, he’s become a lot more independent over the years as we’ve taught him to be independent with many of his daily activities like showering, tying his shoes, getting dressed, making small meals. We’ve taught him systematically to be as independent as possible.
To get you started turning things around for any child with autism, you can download my free three-step guide, which covers three steps you can take today to start turning things around. I hope, if you like this video, you’ll give me a thumbs up, leave me a comment, and I’ll see you right here next week.