May 19, 2025 • 18 mins
Join us—Angie Matheney and Christi Jensen—for a candid Q&A-style conversation where Christi opens up about what she wishes she could have told her younger self when Alec was first diagnosed.
We talk about the shifting priorities that come with raising a child on the spectrum, the pressure to "do everything right," and the importance of giving yourself grace. Whether you're just starting out or years into your journey, this episode offers encouragement, perspective, and a reminder that you're not alone.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome to the piece by piece autism podcast with
your hosts, Angie and Christie.
They've worked 25 years to helpAlec get the most out of life.
Let them tell you how they'redoing it.
Hello, and welcome back to thepiece by piece autism podcast.
Today, we are going to do alittle throwback time travel
(00:22):
advice by Christie.
We want to have a little bit ofa question and answer.
back and forth because we knowthat being in the moment of an
autism diagnosis has got to bedaunting to say the very least
it is so we want to talk aboutkind of what you did where you
(00:43):
went who did you turn to forguidance what were your first
steps treatment urgency and allthe things so let's let's start
uh started off by telling usabout how did you go about
getting a diagnosis myfather-in-law found a he is a
(01:07):
physician in lubbock texas wherewe were living at the time and
he found a really goodpediatrician to send us to oddly
enough he was an oncologist buthe was just really a gifted
pediatrician and very aware of alot of a lot of things going on
(01:27):
with children and I took him inand he immediately said, have
you heard of autism?
And, uh, I had only barely heardof autism.
So, uh, yeah.
And as a reminder, Alec is now27 years old.
SPEAKER_01 (01:44):
Yes.
And I mean that many years ago,right?
Like autism is such a
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
prevalent word in our community right now, but It
was not so much 27 years ago.
It was not prevalent.
I guess 26-ish years ago becauseAlex was how old when he was
diagnosed?
He was two years old when he wasdiagnosed.
So that guy, the oncologist,pediatrician, sent me to a
(02:14):
diagnostician and shespecialized in autism, which was
amazing in this context.
town of, uh, I don't know,200,000 people at the time.
Yeah.
There was this really good PhDdiagnostician and autism.
And so we took Alec in to seeher at two years old.
(02:37):
And I was so glad that I wentwith her because there was no
credibility issue.
I mean, I trusted her whenever Iwent in and I could see that she
knew her stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
And so I, felt very good about that.
The thing I didn't feel goodabout and that I wish I could go
back and tell my younger self istake someone with you whenever
you get your diagnosis becauseshe told me your son is looking
autistic, but we have to do allof these tests.
(03:10):
We have to send them home withyou and your husband and my mom,
who was really close to Alec atthe time.
And you have to do all thistesting.
And so it would have been niceif I had realized it was kind of
a big deal.
Yeah, that's a lot to havethrown at you.
(03:32):
especially on your own.
Yes.
And I, and I, my husband wastraveling, you know, a lot for
his work and he was, he wasgone.
And I don't know why my momdidn't come with me.
She was probably working.
And so, yeah, that was kind ofbad, but I wish I had not done
that.
And I also wish I had just, Ithink I didn't want to accept it
(03:56):
at that point that he might beautistic because I The
pediatrician before thepediatrician that referred me to
the diagnostician had said hemight be deaf.
And so I thought, I didn't knowwhat I was really looking at at
that point or what was going toend up happening with the
diagnosis.
(04:16):
So I, you know, I wish I hadlooked into autism a little bit
more, educated myself.
Yeah.
I bet those are natural feelingsto just say, wait, no, this
can't, can't be.
There's got to be somethingdifferent or more, but
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
knowing that you trusted your diagnostician or
she had the expertise in thatfield, you kind of have to take
it and run with it.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
and I mean, part of it might have been good that I
had no idea what I was goinginto.
True, true.
I literally didn't know what Iwas going into.
I didn't realize that it was...
as dire as it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought, oh, he'll snap out ofthis and we'll be right back to
normal life.
And at the time of thediagnosis, did they have
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
an idea as to his severity level at that
SPEAKER_00 (05:11):
time?
Yes, they did.
Okay.
So you did know.
They said he was severe.
Okay.
Yes.
He was, I mean, just hisbehaviors and absolutely zero
development of speech.
Right.
Zero.
No mama, dada, nothing.
Yeah.
So...
All right.
Well, then once you had thatdiagnosis, what then were your
(05:34):
next steps?
Well, I went home and weactually did have internet then.
We had dial-up.
You've got mail.
So yeah, we had dial-up.
And so I got on and I wouldlook...
up what to do.
(05:55):
And the main thing that I sawwas this data driven, proven
method called ABA appliedbehavior analysis.
And I just took that and ranwith it.
The thing that I wish I couldchange is that I would have
advised myself to just chill.
(06:15):
yeah chill out don't panic it'sonly been six months since his
diagnosis and i had a homeprogram set up at six months now
that i look back on that i gocrazy whoa because i also have
three other children my husbandtraveled five days a week we had
a pretty uh hectic and robustlife and so to think that i
(06:42):
could pull all that together insix months i'm not really even
sure how i did it yeah so i meanincredible that's quite the
achievement but hindsight you'resaying it
SPEAKER_01 (06:56):
maybe wasn't
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
that dire it may be yeah
SPEAKER_01 (06:59):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (06:59):
because i mean we were starting early is what i'm
saying we were already startingearly so like so what so wait
another month and don't be sopanicked you know yeah yeah but
i just felt like ah i was in arace against time and and the
sooner you do it but he got anearly diagnosis at two right and
if the doctor had been better atthe diagnostician he could have
(07:22):
been diagnosed earlier sorrythat's what that's an aside
there okay okay So the otherthing I would say is to pay
attention to your gut, yourinspiration, whatever your
guiding force is.
I've said it in other podcasts.
I maintain that that's anincredibly important part.
Yeah, your mother's intuition.
(07:43):
Exactly.
And I'm glad I did that.
I'm really glad I did that.
If I had it to do over again, Iactually did it this way before.
probably by accident i set up myapplied behavior analysis
structure first getting theconsultant hired and then as
quickly as possible i got thespeech therapy and then the
(08:07):
occupational therapy right soyou know that was good that was
all good i just didn't realizeit was good and i didn't get to
celebrate Because I was feedingmyself up because I wasn't doing
it faster.
I mean...
So anyway.
So that brings me to my nextpoint.
(08:28):
Give yourself grace.
Chill out.
Ask for help.
Savor your child's childhood.
Because your child is still achild.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:41):
And you're bringing in this intense therapy because
it's...
what's proven to work so you'regoing yeah I need to do that but
you also have to It's not thechildhood you expected or hoped
for, but it's the childhood thatyou have.
And so just to enjoy littlemoments of that.
(09:02):
I wish I had done probably alittle bit more of that and not
felt so, oh, we've got to hitthis hard.
We've got to lose thisdiagnosis.
Push, push, push.
SPEAKER_01 (09:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:12):
I wish someone had just said, hey, you're not going
to lose the diagnosis.
And, you know, we did eventuallyhave consultants that helped.
that told us you that bluntlylike oh he'll live with you
forever or he'll always needyour help or whatever so but i
don't want to frustrate anyonewe're in such a good place now
and so there's there's greatthings that that can be done
(09:33):
there's a lot of hope awesome ialso wanted to say i i have
friends along the way that had ahard time listening to
professionals and actually doingwhat they said, I think it's
incredibly hard to 100% of thetime do that.
(09:55):
I just think you have to runyour family the way you run your
family and you have to makedecisions based on how much time
you have to devote or whatever.
SPEAKER_01 (10:03):
For sure,
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
yeah.
So you just kind of have to makethat judgment and then apply
what you're learning from theprofessionals.
If it makes sense to you, if itfeels your gut check is good...
Your inspiration is there,whatever it is that's driving
you to make the decisions.
And then my thing always comesback to the mom versus the
(10:31):
teacher.
With applied behavior analysis,it's kind of a way of life.
It's a way of thinking aboutevery interaction you have with
your child.
Yeah, it's not
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
just...
nine to five clock in clock outyeah
SPEAKER_00 (10:49):
no and so that can get blurry as far as like the
lines on that and so i wouldjust say be aware of it and
decide how you're going to tomake that work right because you
still have to stay sane at theend of the night you know that's
preferred it's preferred notalways achievable yeah at every
(11:13):
moment but it is preferred yesanyway
SPEAKER_01 (11:18):
well we know a typical kid is called an adult
which is crazy at the age of 18.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Adult in quotes, right?
Yeah.
It still is laughable.
But what did you experience asAlec transitioned into
adulthood?
Well, I was in denial big time.
And I realized looking back onit, I go, oh my goodness, why
was I in such denial?
But I think it's, I envisionedhim just being a child.
(11:50):
Like I always have envisionedhim way younger than he is.
I think that's natural with hisdevelopmental delays to
SPEAKER_01 (11:59):
kind of see him a little bit younger, needing a
little bit more support in areasthat his
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
peers may not need would lend to, know wanting to
keep him little and you'reprotecting him and yeah he's
just your baby too he was youryoungest and i thought he would
always want to live with mom anddad and just be happy there just
with the warm cozy life we hadgiven him he had his own room he
(12:28):
had his barney on the tv i justthought how cozy is that but
guess what he wanted to be anadult
SPEAKER_01 (12:36):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (12:36):
and because he could express himself on his letter
board he could express this oh iwant to do things that my
siblings are doing who have gonebefore him because he's the
youngest of four and he's seeingthem going away to college then
them get married you know yeahlife moves on from mom and dad's
(12:57):
home Yes, they moved on from momand dad's home.
So he's, he kind of craved that.
And I wasn't ready for that.
I was just like, wait.
So anyway, that that was rough.
The other thing was rough, likejust the years of having
caretakers in and out.
in and out, coming in and out.
(13:19):
And I think especially as he'sbecome an adult and we have
people who come in overnightwith him, it just feels like
it's a revolving door of peoplecoming in and like us getting to
know them, getting to love them,and them graduating from college
(13:39):
and moving away.
You know, it's like I wish Icould have...
brace myself better for that buti guess you handle what you
handle right as it's given toyou and uh so i would also uh
give myself more grace which ithink everybody probably needs
(14:00):
to do at one time or another inyour child's development and
your autism treatment and that'sjust saying you know you're
doing okay you're on the righttrack you're giving him a full
life It's enriched.
And if he has to spend a littlebit of downtime sitting in his
(14:21):
chair, taking an app, that'sokay.
SPEAKER_01 (14:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:24):
And just kind of chill out and let adulthood be a
little bit more chill approachthan his direct trial, you know,
table trials, et cetera, that wewere doing.
That just...
(14:44):
we're go go go push push pushlots of programs lots of data
lots of all the things when he'syounger to meet all these
expectations and milestones yeahand I think you pull me back
sometime right now because Itend to be hard driving as far
as like wanting him toaccomplish more because I just
know he's got a lot of oh yeahyeah and I think I would
(15:09):
celebrate the wins more andworry less about his
deficiencies because he stillhas a huge deficiency when it
comes to receptivediscrimination.
If I say, go get your toy, hecan't do that.
And that bugs me because we'vetried every program that we can
(15:29):
possibly think of, and we havenot been able to teach that.
It's truly a deficit that...
I don't think can be overcome atthis point.
If you say he's 27 years old.
So just accepting that somethings will be, he'll keep
learning and he'll keep growing,et cetera.
(15:50):
But we can celebrate that he canski down a mountain
independently with.
Yes.
Like, did you ever dream when hewas a little tyke that he was
going to be zooming down themountain with the coolest ski
instructor next to him?
Never.
Never.
With the amount of independencethat he has done.
It's incredible.
(16:11):
No, and that's what I'm sayinghere.
It's like, just enjoy thosethings.
Yeah.
That's kind of a big thing, buthe does a lot of little things
that are like, you know, oh mygoodness, just getting his shoes
on before we're going to gosomewhere.
Of course, that's in context,right?
(16:32):
rd but he's doing it yeahreceptive discrimination yeah
and so just celebrating thoseand and and so if i were to
travel back in time those arethe things that i would really
want to tweak a little bit orenjoy a little bit more or be a
(16:55):
little bit more chill about no ilove it word words to the wise
right you've been there you'vedone it Um, be kind to yourself
and reach out, get the support,have the doctors and those
working with your child beexperts in their fields and
(17:16):
really be able to know with yourmom intuition, whatever you want
to call it, that you're makingthe best decisions for your
child.
So not
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
only that, but still balancing.
and having the energy to also
SPEAKER_00 (17:32):
enjoy your other children and to run your home
and to support your spouse andwork and other demands that you
have.
And take care of yourself.
Yes.
The balance of it is reallycrucial.
You know, maybe I should saythat would be a regret too.
I feel like that.
Yeah.
You always get, leave yourselfto last and it is so hard when
(17:58):
you're in that caretaking role.
But for sure.
SPEAKER_01 (18:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
Well, we are so glad that you joined us today.
That's a wrap for today'sepisode of piece by piece.
If you're loving theseconversations as much as we are
hit the follow button, share theshow and help us spread the word
because every piece of the storymatters.
If you've got a story questionor idea slide into our DMS to
shoot us a message.
We'd love to hear from you.
(18:25):
You can find us on Instagram
SPEAKER_01 (18:27):
and Facebook at Peace by Peace Autism Podcast.
That's P-I-E-C-E, Peace by PeaceAutism Podcast.
Until next time, see you later.
SPEAKER_00 (18:38):
Bye-bye.
Welcome to the piece by piece autism podcast with
your hosts, Angie and Christie.
They've worked 25 years to helpAlec get the most out of life.
Let them tell you how they'redoing it.
Hello, and welcome back to thepiece by piece autism podcast.
Today, we are going to do alittle throwback time travel
(00:22):
advice by Christie.
We want to have a little bit ofa question and answer.
back and forth because we knowthat being in the moment of an
autism diagnosis has got to bedaunting to say the very least
it is so we want to talk aboutkind of what you did where you
(00:43):
went who did you turn to forguidance what were your first
steps treatment urgency and allthe things so let's let's start
uh started off by telling usabout how did you go about
getting a diagnosis myfather-in-law found a he is a
(01:07):
physician in lubbock texas wherewe were living at the time and
he found a really goodpediatrician to send us to oddly
enough he was an oncologist buthe was just really a gifted
pediatrician and very aware of alot of a lot of things going on
(01:27):
with children and I took him inand he immediately said, have
you heard of autism?
And, uh, I had only barely heardof autism.
So, uh, yeah.
And as a reminder, Alec is now27 years old.
SPEAKER_01 (01:44):
Yes.
And I mean that many years ago,right?
Like autism is such a
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
prevalent word in our community right now, but It
was not so much 27 years ago.
It was not prevalent.
I guess 26-ish years ago becauseAlex was how old when he was
diagnosed?
He was two years old when he wasdiagnosed.
So that guy, the oncologist,pediatrician, sent me to a
(02:14):
diagnostician and shespecialized in autism, which was
amazing in this context.
town of, uh, I don't know,200,000 people at the time.
Yeah.
There was this really good PhDdiagnostician and autism.
And so we took Alec in to seeher at two years old.
(02:37):
And I was so glad that I wentwith her because there was no
credibility issue.
I mean, I trusted her whenever Iwent in and I could see that she
knew her stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
And so I, felt very good about that.
The thing I didn't feel goodabout and that I wish I could go
back and tell my younger self istake someone with you whenever
you get your diagnosis becauseshe told me your son is looking
autistic, but we have to do allof these tests.
(03:10):
We have to send them home withyou and your husband and my mom,
who was really close to Alec atthe time.
And you have to do all thistesting.
And so it would have been niceif I had realized it was kind of
a big deal.
Yeah, that's a lot to havethrown at you.
(03:32):
especially on your own.
Yes.
And I, and I, my husband wastraveling, you know, a lot for
his work and he was, he wasgone.
And I don't know why my momdidn't come with me.
She was probably working.
And so, yeah, that was kind ofbad, but I wish I had not done
that.
And I also wish I had just, Ithink I didn't want to accept it
(03:56):
at that point that he might beautistic because I The
pediatrician before thepediatrician that referred me to
the diagnostician had said hemight be deaf.
And so I thought, I didn't knowwhat I was really looking at at
that point or what was going toend up happening with the
diagnosis.
(04:16):
So I, you know, I wish I hadlooked into autism a little bit
more, educated myself.
Yeah.
I bet those are natural feelingsto just say, wait, no, this
can't, can't be.
There's got to be somethingdifferent or more, but
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
knowing that you trusted your diagnostician or
she had the expertise in thatfield, you kind of have to take
it and run with it.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
and I mean, part of it might have been good that I
had no idea what I was goinginto.
True, true.
I literally didn't know what Iwas going into.
I didn't realize that it was...
as dire as it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought, oh, he'll snap out ofthis and we'll be right back to
normal life.
And at the time of thediagnosis, did they have
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
an idea as to his severity level at that
SPEAKER_00 (05:11):
time?
Yes, they did.
Okay.
So you did know.
They said he was severe.
Okay.
Yes.
He was, I mean, just hisbehaviors and absolutely zero
development of speech.
Right.
Zero.
No mama, dada, nothing.
Yeah.
So...
All right.
Well, then once you had thatdiagnosis, what then were your
(05:34):
next steps?
Well, I went home and weactually did have internet then.
We had dial-up.
You've got mail.
So yeah, we had dial-up.
And so I got on and I wouldlook...
up what to do.
(05:55):
And the main thing that I sawwas this data driven, proven
method called ABA appliedbehavior analysis.
And I just took that and ranwith it.
The thing that I wish I couldchange is that I would have
advised myself to just chill.
(06:15):
yeah chill out don't panic it'sonly been six months since his
diagnosis and i had a homeprogram set up at six months now
that i look back on that i gocrazy whoa because i also have
three other children my husbandtraveled five days a week we had
a pretty uh hectic and robustlife and so to think that i
(06:42):
could pull all that together insix months i'm not really even
sure how i did it yeah so i meanincredible that's quite the
achievement but hindsight you'resaying it
SPEAKER_01 (06:56):
maybe wasn't
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
that dire it may be yeah
SPEAKER_01 (06:59):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (06:59):
because i mean we were starting early is what i'm
saying we were already startingearly so like so what so wait
another month and don't be sopanicked you know yeah yeah but
i just felt like ah i was in arace against time and and the
sooner you do it but he got anearly diagnosis at two right and
if the doctor had been better atthe diagnostician he could have
(07:22):
been diagnosed earlier sorrythat's what that's an aside
there okay okay So the otherthing I would say is to pay
attention to your gut, yourinspiration, whatever your
guiding force is.
I've said it in other podcasts.
I maintain that that's anincredibly important part.
Yeah, your mother's intuition.
(07:43):
Exactly.
And I'm glad I did that.
I'm really glad I did that.
If I had it to do over again, Iactually did it this way before.
probably by accident i set up myapplied behavior analysis
structure first getting theconsultant hired and then as
quickly as possible i got thespeech therapy and then the
(08:07):
occupational therapy right soyou know that was good that was
all good i just didn't realizeit was good and i didn't get to
celebrate Because I was feedingmyself up because I wasn't doing
it faster.
I mean...
So anyway.
So that brings me to my nextpoint.
(08:28):
Give yourself grace.
Chill out.
Ask for help.
Savor your child's childhood.
Because your child is still achild.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:41):
And you're bringing in this intense therapy because
it's...
what's proven to work so you'regoing yeah I need to do that but
you also have to It's not thechildhood you expected or hoped
for, but it's the childhood thatyou have.
And so just to enjoy littlemoments of that.
(09:02):
I wish I had done probably alittle bit more of that and not
felt so, oh, we've got to hitthis hard.
We've got to lose thisdiagnosis.
Push, push, push.
SPEAKER_01 (09:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:12):
I wish someone had just said, hey, you're not going
to lose the diagnosis.
And, you know, we did eventuallyhave consultants that helped.
that told us you that bluntlylike oh he'll live with you
forever or he'll always needyour help or whatever so but i
don't want to frustrate anyonewe're in such a good place now
and so there's there's greatthings that that can be done
(09:33):
there's a lot of hope awesome ialso wanted to say i i have
friends along the way that had ahard time listening to
professionals and actually doingwhat they said, I think it's
incredibly hard to 100% of thetime do that.
(09:55):
I just think you have to runyour family the way you run your
family and you have to makedecisions based on how much time
you have to devote or whatever.
SPEAKER_01 (10:03):
For sure,
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
yeah.
So you just kind of have to makethat judgment and then apply
what you're learning from theprofessionals.
If it makes sense to you, if itfeels your gut check is good...
Your inspiration is there,whatever it is that's driving
you to make the decisions.
And then my thing always comesback to the mom versus the
(10:31):
teacher.
With applied behavior analysis,it's kind of a way of life.
It's a way of thinking aboutevery interaction you have with
your child.
Yeah, it's not
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
just...
nine to five clock in clock outyeah
SPEAKER_00 (10:49):
no and so that can get blurry as far as like the
lines on that and so i wouldjust say be aware of it and
decide how you're going to tomake that work right because you
still have to stay sane at theend of the night you know that's
preferred it's preferred notalways achievable yeah at every
(11:13):
moment but it is preferred yesanyway
SPEAKER_01 (11:18):
well we know a typical kid is called an adult
which is crazy at the age of 18.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Adult in quotes, right?
Yeah.
It still is laughable.
But what did you experience asAlec transitioned into
adulthood?
Well, I was in denial big time.
And I realized looking back onit, I go, oh my goodness, why
was I in such denial?
But I think it's, I envisionedhim just being a child.
(11:50):
Like I always have envisionedhim way younger than he is.
I think that's natural with hisdevelopmental delays to
SPEAKER_01 (11:59):
kind of see him a little bit younger, needing a
little bit more support in areasthat his
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
peers may not need would lend to, know wanting to
keep him little and you'reprotecting him and yeah he's
just your baby too he was youryoungest and i thought he would
always want to live with mom anddad and just be happy there just
with the warm cozy life we hadgiven him he had his own room he
(12:28):
had his barney on the tv i justthought how cozy is that but
guess what he wanted to be anadult
SPEAKER_01 (12:36):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (12:36):
and because he could express himself on his letter
board he could express this oh iwant to do things that my
siblings are doing who have gonebefore him because he's the
youngest of four and he's seeingthem going away to college then
them get married you know yeahlife moves on from mom and dad's
(12:57):
home Yes, they moved on from momand dad's home.
So he's, he kind of craved that.
And I wasn't ready for that.
I was just like, wait.
So anyway, that that was rough.
The other thing was rough, likejust the years of having
caretakers in and out.
in and out, coming in and out.
(13:19):
And I think especially as he'sbecome an adult and we have
people who come in overnightwith him, it just feels like
it's a revolving door of peoplecoming in and like us getting to
know them, getting to love them,and them graduating from college
(13:39):
and moving away.
You know, it's like I wish Icould have...
brace myself better for that buti guess you handle what you
handle right as it's given toyou and uh so i would also uh
give myself more grace which ithink everybody probably needs
(14:00):
to do at one time or another inyour child's development and
your autism treatment and that'sjust saying you know you're
doing okay you're on the righttrack you're giving him a full
life It's enriched.
And if he has to spend a littlebit of downtime sitting in his
(14:21):
chair, taking an app, that'sokay.
SPEAKER_01 (14:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:24):
And just kind of chill out and let adulthood be a
little bit more chill approachthan his direct trial, you know,
table trials, et cetera, that wewere doing.
That just...
(14:44):
we're go go go push push pushlots of programs lots of data
lots of all the things when he'syounger to meet all these
expectations and milestones yeahand I think you pull me back
sometime right now because Itend to be hard driving as far
as like wanting him toaccomplish more because I just
know he's got a lot of oh yeahyeah and I think I would
(15:09):
celebrate the wins more andworry less about his
deficiencies because he stillhas a huge deficiency when it
comes to receptivediscrimination.
If I say, go get your toy, hecan't do that.
And that bugs me because we'vetried every program that we can
(15:29):
possibly think of, and we havenot been able to teach that.
It's truly a deficit that...
I don't think can be overcome atthis point.
If you say he's 27 years old.
So just accepting that somethings will be, he'll keep
learning and he'll keep growing,et cetera.
(15:50):
But we can celebrate that he canski down a mountain
independently with.
Yes.
Like, did you ever dream when hewas a little tyke that he was
going to be zooming down themountain with the coolest ski
instructor next to him?
Never.
Never.
With the amount of independencethat he has done.
It's incredible.
(16:11):
No, and that's what I'm sayinghere.
It's like, just enjoy thosethings.
Yeah.
That's kind of a big thing, buthe does a lot of little things
that are like, you know, oh mygoodness, just getting his shoes
on before we're going to gosomewhere.
Of course, that's in context,right?
(16:32):
rd but he's doing it yeahreceptive discrimination yeah
and so just celebrating thoseand and and so if i were to
travel back in time those arethe things that i would really
want to tweak a little bit orenjoy a little bit more or be a
(16:55):
little bit more chill about no ilove it word words to the wise
right you've been there you'vedone it Um, be kind to yourself
and reach out, get the support,have the doctors and those
working with your child beexperts in their fields and
(17:16):
really be able to know with yourmom intuition, whatever you want
to call it, that you're makingthe best decisions for your
child.
So not
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
only that, but still balancing.
and having the energy to also
SPEAKER_00 (17:32):
enjoy your other children and to run your home
and to support your spouse andwork and other demands that you
have.
And take care of yourself.
Yes.
The balance of it is reallycrucial.
You know, maybe I should saythat would be a regret too.
I feel like that.
Yeah.
You always get, leave yourselfto last and it is so hard when
(17:58):
you're in that caretaking role.
But for sure.
SPEAKER_01 (18:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
Well, we are so glad that you joined us today.
That's a wrap for today'sepisode of piece by piece.
If you're loving theseconversations as much as we are
hit the follow button, share theshow and help us spread the word
because every piece of the storymatters.
If you've got a story questionor idea slide into our DMS to
shoot us a message.
We'd love to hear from you.
(18:25):
You can find us on Instagram
SPEAKER_01 (18:27):
and Facebook at Peace by Peace Autism Podcast.
That's P-I-E-C-E, Peace by PeaceAutism Podcast.
Until next time, see you later.
SPEAKER_00 (18:38):
Bye-bye.
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