My 17-year-old is autistic.
He's an excellent student, but struggles socially.
He can be very rude when someone has an opinion
that doesn't mirror his own
and is very disrespectful to his parents.
You know, uh, first of all, autism is something that we
as a culture and society are, are learning more about.
I think there's more resources that are going into it.
Um, and, and so I, I, I guess my first thought is
for the parent, thank you for reaching out,
because autism in
and of itself, understanding it requires a lot of education,
a lot of time and, and understanding
and working with teachers in school districts,
it requires a lot of energy for everybody.
And, and so thank you for being with us tonight.
Thank you for asking your question.
And, and now let's just talk about your child in general.
Uh, eye contact sounds.
If depending on the level
and severity of autism, there may be certain sounds,
certain energy that's, that's too much.
Um, and, and
so I think it's understanding what's gonna be best for
the environment for your child,
and recognizing that there's gonna be times
where they are not going to agree, they're going to be,
uh, opinionated.
And I'm going to say that that's what we would expect.
Now, with that being said, there are some things that
as parents get more information, they, they begin
to understand how to best understand their own child
and how to help their child, so to speak, regulate
something I was reading and studying about recently.
I was talking, um, there's a, there's a,
something called a safe and sound protocol.
And that's something I mentioned earlier
that we talk about with anxiety.
If you could do me a favor and type in the safe
and sound protocol, go, go.
You don't have to do that now,
but if you do that, you can read some research.
It's called My Unite, U-N-Y-T-E.
And if you go there, you're gonna learn about, uh,
some research that they've done with children with autism.
And, and what they found is the safe and sound protocol.
It's the sound that they put on actually helps interact
with the body's vagus nerve.
Now imagine with me that the vagus is actually like the
break, the vagal break, that's what it's often referred to.
It actually helps all of us with the regulation.
So when we push on the vagal break, it helps with anxiety,
it helps with anger, it helps us slow down.
So accessing the vagal break is something
that was, is good for all of us.
Children with autism also benefit,
and there's research to show that the safe
and sound protocol can be an effective resource
for children dealing with autism, even
with adults dealing with autism.
So that's a resource I would invite you to explore
and understand more about.
The reason this matters is we are looking for more
and more research to help children with autism deal
with the difficult emotions,
because as you were describing this, I I imagine
that there's times where your child, if they, it disagrees,
is gonna, is gonna be upset or angry
because again, part of autism is, is a very focused mind
and, and disruption, loud sounds, eye contact,
too much contact, touch can overwhelm.
And so it's being sensitive.
And, and again, your child may not have all those symptoms,
but, but is aware of what does my child respond to,
what do they not respond to?
And in some situations we avoid situations
because they're so hyper-focused that once they get into
that, that I'm gonna call that arena, it's really hard
for them to think about something else.
So those are some initial strategies.
Um, I would suggest finding autistic experts in your area.
Some schools like we have a local university,
they have a whole clinic that focuses on, on helping
families with autism.
And it's just being aware
and sensitive to the resources that are available to you.
I don't know your specific area,
but my hope is that there are, are either similar
or there are resources in your area.
If not, I would still go to the school,
school administrators and get as much resource
and ideas from them because honestly they also are dealing
with this trying to provide the best education
and support they can for the teachers
and for the parents that they, with whom they're concerned.
One of the, I just wanna say one more thing here.
Over the last few years, Michelle, we've had the opportunity
to work with school superintendents,
teachers throughout the entire country.
And I can just say across the board,
I know this is an issue that they're concerned about.
At least my interactions, uh, have been just
what their desire is to help the best they can with children
and families dealing with autism.
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