"AUTISM: RETHINK IT!”

I have an 11 year old highly functioning autistic son. He was diagnosed with everything from Aspergers to Autistic Spectrum Disorder from the age of 2 till the age of 7 which is when a pediatrician finally gave me a written diagnosis of autism. Parents of autistic kids can sense from an early age that something is not right but we live in denial thinking that our child is just quirky and that they’ll grow out of it. And when we do finally accept we set out diligently to solve it, to fix it. We change diets, introduce vitamin regimens, sign up for social skills groups and so forth.

For these parents it’s important that they realize as soon as possible that having an autistic child is a lot like planning a trip to Rome but ending up in Amsterdam. Neither is a better or worse European city - they’re just different. The point is, both cities ar egreat and offer a lot to enjoy and learn from.

This made so much sense. While I was frantically searching for that ‘magic bullet’ to cure my son’s ‘disease,’ he was having the time of his life just being a kid with all of the newfound wonder and discovery that belongs to every kid be they ‘neurotypical’ or not.

The truth is, the elusive solutions to autism that we seek for our kids are really comforts that we are seeking for ourselves; something to make our kids shiny and perfect like those well behaved kids we see in the park, in school and on TV. But the truth is that all of life is less than perfect - and that’s the beauty of it.

It’s time to rethink autism, and spend less time looking for magical cures and spend more time enjoying our quirky, funny, insightful, maddening and ultimately beautiful children and their fascinating childhood.