One of the things that are difficult in my life as a special needs Dad is coming to terms with my own humanity. What I mean by that is accepting my limitations as a parent, embracing my emotions and not beating myself up for getting frustrated with my kids. There are a plethora of reasons that being human makes Autism and Special Needs parenting more difficult.

For the purposes of this post, I want to talk briefly about frustration.

There’s this unspoken belief that simply because a child is Autistic, has Special Needs or maybe even fragile health, that as a parent, we aren’t ever allowed to be frustrated with them. I don’t know who started this or why it’s such a popular belief but this needs to change because it’s wrong.

I catch shit from people everytime I say this but my kids can drive me absolutely crazy. Their behaviors are frustrating and there are times I just want to run for the hills.

Some people take issue with that statement because saying something like that insinuates that my kids are bad or something to that effect. That’s not the case at all.

My kids are awesome and I love them completely. Yes, they’re Autistic. Yes, there are some very challenging special needs associated with them. Yes, medical fragility plays a daily role in our life as well. All these things are challenging but aside from being Autistic, requiring special care or having fragile health, they’re also just kids.

I’ve said this a million times but I’ll say it again, kids are supposed to drive their parents crazy. We drove our parents crazy when we were kids and now it’s our turn to live the dream. Being Autistic doesn’t preclude them from this time honored tradition. ☺