If you’re a neurotypical parent with an autistic child, it might sometimes feel like your kid is a whole different species than you.
When you see them playing with their toys on the floor and you just want to wrap your arms around them and smother their adorable face with kisses, they might get mad and push you away, leaving you feel rejected.
When you were at the store and saw Paw Patrol mac ‘n cheese, so you bought it because you know they love the show, only for them to push it off the table and spill it onto the floor at dinner, it can leave you feeling like your efforts to show them your love goes unnoticed.
Learn how can you show your autistic child you love them in a way they’ll understand from an autistic parent of an autistic child.
- No pressure interactions
If your child is appearing stand-offish to you, try some no-pressure approaches. For example, your kid might be sitting alone at the block party. Instead of walking up to them and talking to them with small talk, quietly sit down next to them, facing the same direction they are with some space (4-6 feet) between you two. Don’t start with a question, but with a statement they might relate to such as, “it’s really loud over there, this is a good spot to take a break from that.”
Your autistic child is alone for a reason. Perhaps they are overwhelmed. If you’re trying to bond with them while they’re in this state, then it’s best to commiserate with them than to add more emotional labor to their plate by asking them questions or expecting them to talk. Simply existing near them while talking about relatable stuff might help them feel more comfortable thinking, “ah, this adult gets it!” which could lead to them conversing with you about what’s bothering them. - Join in on their interests
Does your kid love a show you hate? Perhaps you really dislike Micky Mouse Clubhouse but kiddo comes home from preschool saying they could “hear the song in their mind.” You wish they’d at least watch Bluey instead because it’s more enjoyable and yet, they live for that ridiculous Hotdog Song.
You could keep telling them how much you think it’s a terrible show every time the theme song plays but that would just make them feel bad for liking it. You could also forbid them from watching it but that would trigger a meltdown.
Remember, you’re the adult in this situation. You have the skills to tolerate something you don’t like while also not expressing your displeasure over it. And, you love this tiny human enough to do that, right? So join them. Dance along with the Hotdog Song. Shout out the answer to every single one of Micky’s obvious questions to the audience. Get creative and answer them wrong sometimes so your kid corrects you. Autistic kids love correcting others, and you can demonstrate what it looks like to be wrong sometimes, how to accept having your mistakes corrected with grace. - Include them when they ask
So your kid asks to help make dinner, but it will definitely make preparation take longer and they will surely screw something up. Let them help anyway. We subscribe to Blue Apron in our house, so I’ll cut open a packet and then hand it to my kid to pour into the bowl. Kids are mediocre at stirring, but it gets done, even if you do it better and faster afterward.
Does your 3.5-year-old kid want to help you put away the dishes? They might break something. Let them try anyway. Help them succeed by reminding them to use two hands when handling glass and open the cabinet door if they’re using both hands. Could you have done it in the time it took them to walk over to it? Yes, but they want to feel helpful to you because they love you. - Build on the things they’re already doing
Is your autistic kid an eloper? Do they run away a lot? Figure out why they’re doing what they’re doing and use that as a foundation.
Are they running away because it’s a need to run or are they trying to play with you?
Every day after daycare, my kid loved to run out the door and into the parking lot. That was a need. So I turned that into an “invisible hippo race” where I’d shout in a funny announcer voice welcoming people to the daily race where it was my kid versus an invisible hippo and they’d race down the sidewalk to the car. The first one to touch the car wins. I purposely parked at the end of the lot for maximum race track.
Sometimes they’d lose the race (like once every two weeks) and that was good practice for feeling those big feelings, understanding they were temporary, and learning how to be a good loser and a good sport.
Now my autistic 4-year-old can be trusted to run out the door at pickup time and everyone knows they won’t run into the parking lot. They’ll wait in front of the car (it’s taken us about 6 months to get to this level of trust, by the way).
At bedtime, kiddo also runs away for everything, be it taking asthma medicine, getting into pyjamas, brushing their teeth, etc. This is partly a need but also because they want to play and all of those things are boring. So do those things while playing.
We’ll play first, maybe pretend play with stuffed animals for 2 minutes, then put on a pyjama shirt. Next it might be running to put on their bottoms, so I ask them to run down the hall and back, to see how fast they are, before putting on the bottoms. I marvel at their speed, then the bottoms go on. I ask to see their super powers before giving them their inhaler.
