Now What?

There we sat, Debby and I, thinking aloud and privately to ourselves, “Now what?”  Now that Zach had a diagnosis what were we suppose to do and how were we suppose to get there from here?  As I mentioned before in my first blog post, there is no definitive or singular script on how to be a parent, but we tend to draw from what we learned from our own parents.  Good or bad, it is only human nature that we incorporate some of the things shown to us by our parents when we are children, and we ignore the things we did not like about our parents parenting and try a new approach when we grab the parenting gavel ourselves. When your child is diagnosed with autism or some other developmental or physical disability you have no childhood experience to draw on as a baseline for what you should be doing as a parent unless you had a sibling with such a diagnosis.  The only knowledge I had to draw on about autism was what I learned from taking an abnormal psychology class while obtaining my undergraduate degree and watching the movie, Rain Man.  Obviously, neither one provided any type of hands-on experience to prepare Debby and I for what we were facing, and how it would impact our family.

We all would like to think we have some control over the things that happen in our lives, and can have some control and influence of the lives we bring into this world.  When your child is born you have control over how that child will be raised, inserting discipline, and having some influence over what kind of person that child will become.  As each year passes in your child’s development parents tend to give them more control over their own life to prepare them for the responsibilities of the real world.  It is kind of like being a surgeon.  People temporarily place control of their life and well being in the hands of surgeon to help correct something and then once the surgery is over control of your body is given back to you. There are, however, two definitive things we have absolutely no control over; when we are born, and when and how we will leave this world.

When your child is diagnosed with autism you have involuntary given control of your child’s life over to a disability for which there is no cure. I wish there was an incision or zipper on my son’s head so I could open it up, re-wire his brain, and cure him of the autism that has taken over control of his body.  Parents, by nature, will protect their children from harm or do whatever they can to prevent any harm from being committed.  When a child does sustain harm parents are the first to try and find immediate relief to reduce the injury and stop any further suffering.  As a parent of a child with autism the damage was complete and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it.  At this point what we can control about our son’s diagnosis is getting him the therapy he needs with the hope that it will have a positive impact on his development with the best chance of a normal life.  We still do not have any control over the outcome of the therapy he receives and neither do the therapist that provide the services, but we need to at least give our son a chance and an opportunity to get better. 

Stay Tuned for "Now What?" part 2