How to parents of autistic children cope with life? Speaking for myself, I don't know. I know I'm depressed and tired all the time. Recently I have been getting sick after eating. The stress is killing me. How are we as parents supposed to cope with this level of chronic stress? There is little to no help out there. For the amount of kids that are autistic you would think that there would be more support centers. At least in my area there isn't even a support group for parents of autistic children. We get lumped in with support groups for other disorders. Respite care? What's that? Aside from my parents we get nothing. There needs to be support for the parents because we are all on the front lines.…

We noticed awhile back that Gavin never sweats. Today he was outside running around and all he does is get really red in the face but he doesn't sweat. I was wondering if this was common with autistic kids or something unique to Gavin. Thanks

It's pretty hot out (82F) right now. Gavin through a fit because we made him turn his ceiling fan on. He won't sleep with the windows open either. He sleeps in a sweatshirt, sweat pants and sock all while under his comforter and buried under his stuffed animals. He says he's not to hot but we are afraid he's going to over heat. We don't have central either. Does anyone else have this issue? LT

Something that I think many people forget is just how fragile our existence is. Lizze and I are both dealing with chronic health issues. We have 3 kids. Gavin is our autistic, bipolar, ocd,adhd,ptsd,pica,sensory integration disorder and opositionally defiant 10 year old. Elliott Richard is our "typical" 4 year old. He is the "big little brother". Emmett John is our almost 2 year old. He has a pending diagnosis of autism (possibly non-verbal as he doesn't talk). Lizze is living with fibromyalgia which is a challenge in and of itself. I destroyed my back while working as a fire/medic and have since been limited to what I can do. We both live in constant pain everyday. Life on any given day is an absolute struggle. There are many times we…

There are so many things that are hard to manage when you have a child/children with autism. The  pain often out ways the joy. Fewer things are more difficult than trying to manage your "typical" children along with your autistic ones. It's a constant struggle trying to make sure they don't lost in the shuffle. One of the things that I'm really having a hard time with right now it that fact that Elliott Richard is the "big little brother". By this I mean that Elliott Richard (even through 6 years younger) is Gavin's big brother. Instead of Elliott Richard having a big brother to look up to and be watched over by it's the other way around. Elliott Richard looks after Gavin. He is always reminding Gavin about good choices and…

Emmett John learned to high 5 today. Up to now when I would hold out my hand to high 5 him he would simply put his face or head in my hand. It was kind of our little thing. But today he started actually high 5'n me. He was so excited and I was so excited. We high 5'd all day today. It the seemly little things that have the biggest impact. LT

When you have a child like Gavin and now possibly Emmett John how do you handle certain situations that typical children need to experience. Over the years we have learned that Gavin CANNOT handle even mildly stressful situations. He does not handle birthdays well for example. It is way to stimulating. He will be impossible to control for days afterwards sometimes. So we have learned that Gavin just can't have birthday parties. So we have adjust them so that people kind of filter through over the course of the week and he seems to handle that better. Also if we do have a small low key gathering for him (which again is rare) we have it at someone else's house. The reason for that is because we can physically leave…