Saturday, September 17, 2011

This post was stimulated from one of the blogs, Achieving Extraordinary Success, I read and enjoy. You can see it here. Hopefully the link works...

Hello,
Hmmm. I'm definitely one of the parents that continue to blog about the sorrows and more importantly the joys of raising two children with Autism. I guess the reason I do it is because I don't find alot of parents with adult children on the spectrum continue to blog. I also have typical children. One of the things I have learned is that parenting isn't over once any of my children has become adults.

It has changed dramatically. I have become more of a consultant than a teacher at this point in all of my children's lives, well except maybe the last one. (Almost though, he’s 17 years old.) All of them, except the youngest, live on their own. This includes the ones with ASD. Given that I still am involved in their lives, I still have something to blog about.

I baby sit my grandchildren. I still manage the extensive services one of them receives. I try to keep the 18 year old focused. I’m still raising the last one, sort of. I’m kind of busy for a hobby. Oh yes, I also work as a disability advocate for a living and am on at least one group working on Employment for people with developmental disabilities, like Autism and Aspergers.

So maybe you can answer a question for me. I read several blogs by adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders. At least a couple if not more of them are really antagonistic towards their parents. I’m at a loss to figure out why. We did this before our children are able. We do this when some of our children are not able to do it.

Please, really, explain. I definitely would not be doing this to hurt my daughters. And please don’t lock me off your blog, I really learn from it.
Thank you!

2 comments:

  1. You don't have to worry about offending me, and as long as your children are aware of, and all right with you writing about them, I have no problem with it.

    However, I do think you should be teaching them to advocate for themselves and manage there own lives. From my own experiences people with autism just get stuck in a rut, expecting the same thing forever, unless a change is somewhat forced on them.

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  2. I have taken what you said to heart. Just recently I am working on one of the daughters being on a committee by herself. I even think I have figured out how to work it out if the staff can't/won't go, so she can go without me.
    Thanks for the prompting.

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