How can I help my two sons as a single autistic mom?

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I need him to be working on independence. He can live with me and go to school or move out. One is 21, and the other is 17.

I had a few other health issues for the past few years.  My ex is remarried and spends very little time with him. I have succeeded at raising my kids without violence and humiliation, which was my goal as a divorced mom. I will get triggered if you start with the autistic moms are bad moms thing. I am fully aware of my failings and successes as a parent, and I do not want to process that with you.

Right now, I asked him to pay me rent as an incentive to get him to go to school. But it’s not working, he’s smart but non-materialistic.

I want him to plan for what he wants to do for a career. He wants more money than a sandwich maker but is not motivated by money. He is extremely internally motivated. The brothers aren’t close. I need to figure out a plan for the younger son too.

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Our one-year-old baby has zero symptoms of autism

My husband and I both identify as autistic. My issue is that no one will think my daughter is autistic because she’s ahead in every regard, and I’ve never been formally diagnosed.

My husband is the primary caregiver because he’s better at it. I married him because his pets were much happier and better behaved than any other pets, which foreshadowed his parenting skills, and I wasn’t wrong.

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How can I communicate with my daughter and not cause her to shut down?

My daughter needs me to respond to her differently now. I don’t know how to help her. She shuts down when we talk. Even when she reaches out. I think she needs more compassion and empathy. My default is to go into fix it mode.

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How can I homeschool after a divorce?

I want to homeschool both kids but I’m a single mom and I need to allow myself more flexibility to make $50K/year and still be there more for them since their father is gone.

One daughter is very creative and artistic, so I want to guide her to being a small business artist while the other one is more gifted in math and people stress her out. They are both still under 10. Does this sound like a plan that will work?

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Did I make a mistake getting my kids the autism diagnosis?

My kids are 11 and 4 who both got diagnosed with autism during COVID. Periodically I think I made a mistake getting them diagnosed.

We are seeing therapists and moving to school districts with better school support for them. They are doing better now than before getting the diagnosis. But my husband and I are exhausted with the financial pressure and endless decision making of which therapy to pursue.

How is the future going to look better? What does a diagnosis really do?! What help do we really get?!

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Does my anxious son need to know geometry?

My ten-year-old son is in fourth grade and came home completely stressed out about math yesterday, literally four days into the school year.

It turns out they’re learning geometry, right angles, obtuse angles, etc. It’s not the entire curriculum of high school tenth grade geometry I had when I was in school but it seems above what is considered developmentally appropriate for fourth grade when we were in school.

It’s actually not entirely horrible but my kid is completely stressed out. Maybe it’s the culmination of all he’s exposed to in school, plus having to wear a mask all day and be socially distant, that’s put him at somewhat of a breaking point. Just wondering if this rings true to you.

 

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How do you deal with autism and high-conflict co-parenting?

I have a four-year-old son with an ASD diagnosis. My son’s mother is in the process of getting a formal assessment for autism now as well. She has identified her own childhood was full of conflicts with her own mother and now her ability to maintain client relationships, thus negatively impacting her ability to sustain her business.

We are separated and co-parenting has been difficult. My perception is that autism influences the extent to which we don’t really understand each other’s motivation or accept each other’s points of view. It has led to police investigations and ugly disputes at family court over what I did or did not do according to her perception. i.e., the way I greet her on the street.

I see all of it connected to autism and a lack of understanding of what other people consider reasonable.

I don’t know to what extent my son has inherited these tendencies from both of our sides. If anything, he seems much happier than either of us, which reflects how hard we are both working to give him a good start.

I remember reading on your blog that both you and your ex-husband have autism and that you now seem to be getting on much better than before. I’d love to hear more about this.

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What’s the point of getting an autism diagnosis?

I homeschool my two kids — they’re 6 and 9 — and I am coming to terms with the fact that something is off-kilter with my youngest. I think about you getting a diagnosis as you sought help for your son.

I’ve always found labels uncomfortable, mostly because I haven’t found them to be helpful and I hate having to explain them to other people. Plus, I’m not sure about what specifically can be done to help my daughter, especially since she’s not in school.

So my questions are:

Do you think having an autism diagnosis has helped you and your son? Also, do you think that the specific diagnosis/label is more helpful to understanding each other and to your parenting than knowing your individual Myers-Briggs personality types?

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Stay home with kids: When is it most important?

I’m planning with my husband the next couple of years with kids.

I wanted to know, after everything you learned, if we had to choose, is there a “most important phase” to stay home with kids? The baby phase, the primary school phase, the teenage years..? I’m asking so we can organize ourselves financially.

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How to single parent 24/7 without going insane

The hardest thing for me is that I take care of the kids 24/7. No matter how flexible I am with family / extended family (even my ex’s family) or how hard I work at forging a community, I can’t find reliable people who can help watch my kids and I can’t pay for childcare on my income. How do you do it? How do you spend all day every day with kids and not go completely insane?

Whenever I think maybe I’ve found a balance and gotten some normalcy established, everything gets upended again and I’m back to square one with little to no childcare and staying up hours past their bedtime just so my introvert self can recharge. Idk if I’m just venting or if I actually think you might have an answer I haven’t thought of yet.

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