Parenting Like a Ninja: An Autism Mom's Guide to Professional Productivity

By Faith Clarke

Parenting Like a Ninja is an authentic discussion of the complexity faced by working autism moms, with clear steps to increase energy and productivity in all areas of work and life.

As a mommy of a child with autism, the daily reality of food wars, tantrums, a steady variety of body fluids, erratic non-sleep, and the revolving door of therapists is just exhausting. Autism moms keep it together, but sometimes, they just want the relentless pace of chaotic activity to stop so they can figure out the rest of their life, move ahead with their professional dreams, and just be more productive. In Parenting Like a Ninja, Faith Clarke walks moms through well-established principles of psychological well-being and thriving to create balance and energize their professional productivity, so they can build more of what they have been looking for professionally, all while being able to nurture their child’s well-being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642791396

Book preview

CHAPTER 1:

It’s Complicated!

Every parent has a deep appreciation of the mindless exhaustion and disorientation that occurs in the early years of parenting. There’s no way to prepare for the fact that you and your infant are incompatible. It sounds harsh, right? But think about it. Your child is awake when you want to be sleeping, cries when you want quiet, is playful when you want to chill, and is generally, a complete, and adorable, mystery. No matter how many books you read, it’s impossible to adequately prepare for your baby’s conflicting, perplexing rhythm.

Unlike most mammals, children take several years to develop and become reasonably independent. In the first three to five years of life, it’s normal for parents to be intimately engaged with keeping their child clean, fed, dressed, balanced, and … clean. Young humans need their adults to keep them alive and healthy and this can seem like a full-time job.

It Gets Complicated

Kids with developmental and medical challenges add another level of complexity to parenting. Yes, the body rhythms are still the opposite, but the light at the end of the tunnel for parents of typically developing children isn’t there for these other parents. While typically developing children may eventually feed, dress, and calm themselves without assistance, our medically and developmentally challenged kiddos may not. When Jaedon (I may sometimes call him J), my son with autism, was three years old, I spoke to a mom with a twelve-year-old on the autism spectrum, trying to get tips on how to navigate the weeks and months ahead. In passing, she mentioned that her son potty trained at seven years old. My heart sank. I didn’t remember anything else she said and I resolved to never speak to parents of kids older than J. I just didn’t want to know. I wasn’t ready to hear what could be in my future.

The challenges experienced by families of kids with autism seem to increase as they get older. As is the nature of developmental challenges, the goal post keeps moving, and the pace of this movement is much faster than the actual development of the child. The gap between Jaedon and his peers at three years old was much smaller than the gap when he was seven. There’s an overwhelming sense that it’s impossible to catch up that spreads into every area of life. School isn’t normal. Getting to school isn’t normal. Doctor’s appointments aren’t normal, and the list goes on. The death of dreams for a mother is ongoing, facing each typical rite of passage and finding that it’s not typical. Attending a family birthday party becomes a complicated operation, requiring pre-party surveillance of the space, discussions about the locations of seemingly innocent items, the ingredients in the food, how accessible it will be, and the location of quick exit points, just in case there’s an issue. There is an evolving new normal, and it’s stunningly different from the life most parents imagined. Maybe you have felt similarly.

Parenting + Work

As a working mom of a child with an autism diagnosis, you have the task of integrating this new normal into a typically rigid work/professional life. Strategizing to leave home on time for work, appropriately dressed, with no signs of the morning struggle on your clothes, having deposited your children on the school bus is a gargantuan task. As parents, we don’t always know what we’ll face at the start of the new day. A child may start the day on the wrong foot because of sleep disturbances the night before. Usually, if your child had a difficult night, you did, too. Your capacity to offer a supportive, solid morning routine that includes the appropriate sensory diet, low-stress guidance on getting dressed and eating, preemptive strategies to prevent pouring, smearing, wiping, and otherwise playing with food, and other … things, until she is fully ready the moment the bus pulls up outside, was significantly diminished by your lack of sleep. This is even worse if you woke up five minutes late! Let’s not talk about the high probability of morning routine disruptors, like your child disrobing or having a toileting accident while you are grabbing a cup of coffee. And if while you are dealing with this, the bus arrives and your child isn’t at the bus stop, the bus will leave. You will be left with the dilemma: take your child to school and be late for work, or keep her home and call in sick (working from home, even if that is possible – is an exercise in futility if your child is home).

So, we may often be frazzled and late for work, as most of our sick days are likely used for visits to the developmental pediatrician, child psychologist, physiatrist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, Medicaid appointments and other assessments for services, or for when our child is actually sick, overwhelmed, and/or just otherwise unable to attend school.

In contrast to this schedule that seems totally dependent on how your child is doing, most employers prefer a pretty predictable work schedule. They like to know that their staff will be available at specific times. This can affect your employer’s perception of you and put your job in jeopardy. This can be stressful, especially because autism is expensive. Although there are some support services available, depending on where you live, autism intervention isn’t a one size fits all situation, and approaches that may be very helpful for a particular child may not be offered in publicly funded programs or covered by insurance. Specialized childcare, special foods, therapies and the gadgets and devices needed to autism-proof the home, modifications to clothes, oversized equipment and tools for the older child, just to name a few, add up to a pretty significant expense. Jeopardizing your source of income is not an option. Yet it happens.

Many parents of kids with autism find themselves plateauing in their careers as they deal with the new reality of their parenting journey. Some change careers or decide to engage in less demanding strategies for financial provision. Often this means that expenses go up, and income drops.

Autism exhaustion definitely puts a limit on the amount of productive energy that can be applied to work tasks. Typically, moms are both household managers and household staff, and juggling the range of responsibilities is quite depleting. By the time we get into work, we’ve already experienced decision fatigue and we’re starting the day in a depleted state. Fatigue associated with stress and persistent decision-making affects the brain’s capacity for emotional regulation, decision-making, and creativity, all competencies that are crucial to a vibrant, developing professional life.

Psychological and Organizational Needs

Many women faced with these struggles have withdrawn from the workforce or have chosen less challenging career paths. For many, opting out of the workforce and channeling their energies into the massive and ever-increasing household support task can be a relief. Many other moms thrive in the work environment and relish the sense of accomplishment that comes from making things happen at work. We all have basic psychological needs – and feeling competent at what we do is one of them. Career growth is one of the ways that we can get that need met. If you are a working mom of a child with autism, being professionally productive is probably crucial to your family’s financial stability and to your personal