Avoiding the Autism Trap

By Portia C. Thomas, M.A., BCBA

“Avoiding the Autism Trap” is an honest and practical guide to recovering your family from some of the most prominent impacts of raising a child with special needs. Every parent, every teacher, and every therapist should have this straight forward and informative guide in the palms of their hands. New parents and seasoned parents alike will find the contents of this book both delightfully refreshing, simple, and well put. This book serves two main purposes: To empower families of children with special needs to live their best life, and to educate the world around those families. Avoid the “Autism Trap,” and take back control over your social life, your finances, and your marriage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jul 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483414867

Book preview

BCBA

Copyright © 2014 Portia C. Thomas, M.A., BCBA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1487-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1486-7 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 07/16/2014

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Resist Isolation

Build a Support System

Host a Family Meeting

Join a Local Support Group

Expose Your Child to the World around Them

Chapter 2 Guard Your Heart

Take a Team Approach to Parenting

Honor Your Sanctuary

You Don’t Get to Bail

Chapter 3 Manage Your Money

Know Your Options

Do Your Research

Change Your Lifestyle

Chapter 4 Count Your Blessings—All of Them

Establish Household Rules

Keep Realistic Expectations

The Helper: Pros and Cons

Learn to Divide Your Time

Reward Positive Interactions

Chapter 5 To Thine Own Self Be True

Avoid the Trap

Make the Time

Find Your Balance

Own Yourself

References

About the author

To every child who has loathed and loved me;

And for every parent who has tolerated and trusted me.

Preface

There is a fire that rises up inside of me every time I get ready to walk into a new home to meet a new family who is experiencing, for the most part, the same struggle as the last family that I visited. It is the need to fix things. The need to offer a level of service that goes beyond what is expected of me clinically, and to take my professional compass to another level—one in which the child is not my only client. One in which my mission is to deliver each and every family from some of the most painful effects of raising a child with special needs.

Of course, removing the day-to-day burden is not at all a possible feat. And it goes without saying that even so much as insinuating that a family can be completely healed from such trauma and tragedy of having a child diagnosed with an incurable disability would be reckless and unfair.

But what I will say is that in my experience, there is a quiet place those parents go at the end of the day. A place where, when the world stops spinning so quickly around them, they go to unfold—a place where they go to cry.

Sadly, this is not a place of relief; instead, it is a place where the weight of the world rests on their shoulders while they sleep, and reality storms in like a thief and robs them of their one-and-only moment of silence and sanity. They are at constant odds with their significant other; they have become isolated from their friends and family; their other