PARENTING A CHILD WITH ASD AS A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL (DURING A PANDEMIC) There is a saying in the ASD community: “When you’ve met one person with Autism, you’ve met ONE person with Autism” meaning Autism Spectrum Disorder is different than other DSM-5 disorders because it can look vastly different in different people. I understand what I have to share will not apply to every child or every family living with an ASD or special needs family member, nevertheless, I am hopeful you will get something useful from this article. Please also know my son with ASD helped me with this article, and I have his permission to share everything I have written. In my son’s case, he has difficulties with executive functioning skills, difficulties with some fine motor skills, and difficulties with social skills. His frustration tolerance is also very low. While his intellect is on par with a college student, socially, he can come across quite a few years younger than his chronological age. He has trouble modulating his voice, i.e., speaks too loudly sometimes and also may say inappropriate things. As is in the therapy room, I had to recognize “it’s not about me, it’s about him and it’s about what works for him” rather than my pride as someone who earns an income helping other families with similar issues. In light of that, in order to help him with some of his executive functioning skills, shortly before the pandemic, we hired an amazing
tutor / personal coach so he could have someone other than his parents working with him. When the pandemic hit, we lost that resource and my husband and I became more than just our son’s parents - we became his teachers, his life coaches, and much more along with being his parents all rolled into one. Additionally, he did not transition to online learning as efficiently as his neurotypical siblings or his classmates. I must admit, even though I knew better, I fell prey to a common assumption about people with ASD, in that I thought that online learning would be “easier” for him. I thought it would be easier because he would not have to deal with the areas that challenged him, i.e., social skills. I thought online learning would perhaps be more efficient for him and less stressful. It turned out to be the opposite. For someone who has challenges picking up on facial expressions, tones of voice or “reading between the lines”, having everything online is quite challenging. Especially when the person who experiences challenges in those areas assumes everything is” fine” and keeps moving on, not realizing he is missing important information or leaves an online meeting without truly understanding what is being asked of him. Thinking he understands it, telling his parents “I’ve got it” only to find out the day before or the day something is due, he did not completely understand it and now there’s not 22 INSESSION APRIL 2021
