in this mini episode, Dr. Tay discusses that even with the best preparation that some things may not go according to plan. emphasis is placed on how to manage emotions when plans change and the significance of giving space for feelings without guilt or blame. a focused discussion on how to support siblings of autistic children occurs.

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Welcome to a parenting space actually designed for you where you

can get answers about navigating a life that includes autism.

I'm Dr.

Tay, and today I have a mini episode just for you.

Hi y'all.

So in today's mini episode, we are going to talk about what happens when

things don't go according to plan.

So this episode actually was inspired by the 4th of July, which

was a little over a week ago.

When I'm recording this, depending when the episode gets posted, it would've

been a little bit ago, but this idea of taking your family to a 4th of July

event, maybe there's fireworks and your autistic child is really struggling

and maybe you can't stay as long as you wanted to, or you have to pack

up and leave, or there's a meltdown and that's really hard to navigate

Or you're having to tell your non-autistic children, no, all

different sorts of scenarios.

how do you navigate those situations as a family?

And so first off, I want to emphasize that even with the best preparation, things

may not go according to plan, And so I.

give you permission to let go of some of this burden that if things don't

go according to plan, that means you did something wrong, I want you to

keep in mind everything is a learning experience and it's gonna allow you

to fine tune processes for next time.

And yes, we know for many autistic children that the idea of

preparation can be really helpful.

This can look like things like visual schedules, like actually telling them

what order things are happening in and going over that over and over again.

It could also look like a social story in this.

Doesn't need to be elaborate.

You always can go on the internet, like 4th of July, for example, would

be a common one where I guarantee you can find a social story that's already

written or going to the doctor's office, But you also might have more.

Specific things to your family, and it doesn't need to be really elaborate.

One way to create a visual schedule or a social story in a really simplified way

is that if something is changing in your child's routine, you might just either

Google pictures of what is changing, or maybe you drive by something and take a

picture, take different screenshots, and then what I want you to do is put them

into an album on your phone and you can sit down with your child and be like,

okay, so this is what's gonna happen.

Talk them through it.

And so that's the idea of preparation.

But the more we can have these visual aids, often autistic children

are very strong visual processors, number one, but number two, then

they can keep going back through this and have those reminders as well.

Or if you're getting ready to leave or transition to something and giving them

a timer warning can be super helpful.

Like, Hey, five minutes.

And then having a visual with a timer can be awesome.

But there's gonna be times that it still goes rough.

Or you might even think through plans and preparations in terms of

thinking about their sensory needs.

What fidgets are you packing?

are headphones being packed?

maybe it's like a day at the beach, do you have an umbrella that they

can sit under to cool down in a fan?

Thinking through some of these things that Are sensitivities for your

child and being able to accommodate those again, you're gonna do that

and it's gonna fail sometimes.

And so that's what I want you first and foremost to hear in this

episode, is releasing the burden that if it fails, that means you

did something wrong A lot of times.

Parents that I have worked with find this intense guilt that they did something

wrong, that there was a misstep.

And a lot of times we can't predict, different things happening.

There are things that are absolutely out of control too, if you're going

to do an out outdoor activity, which I feel like outdoor activities are on

my mind because it's summer right now.

But if you're going to do an Outdoor activity and it rains.

That's completely out of your control.

And so say a situation happens like that,

And your child is very distressed, that ultimately things

didn't go according to plan.

So let's actually talk about now how do you recover from this?

But I wanted you to hear you're not gonna get everything perfect.

First and foremost, and it is a learning experience.

You can use that data for future events, but also just realize like there

are so many factors and you are not gonna be able to control everything.

And so what I really want you to focus on is what are those

things that you can control?

Focus on those and things going not according to plan is not something

that you have any control over.

And also, If something goes out of control, I want you to respond by

not going into instant blame mode.

That is not gonna help this situation.

So other ways that you can respond and recover from this first off is

validating your autistic child's feelings.

there is a way, like with this rain example of.

I, I understand.

I'm really upset too right now.

and then you can propose an alternate, activity potentially, or you just

might sit with those feelings like, yeah, it's okay to cry.

Let's sit here and cry together.

That is allowing your child to experience what they're experiencing.

You can't fix it, you're not gonna stop the rain and all of a sudden

have this activity start again.

So how can you be present with your autistic child in that moment?

And also the more you can model that emotions are normal as

part of this, that that is okay.

It is okay though, and necessary oftentimes to say it is

okay to be upset right now.

And we can't hit your sister, and then maybe you're giving them an

activity to keep their hands busy.

maybe there's something that's really regulating, Hey, you have

really big feelings right now.

I get really big feelings too.

Let's go swing on your sensory swing.

So giving that replacement behavior when it's something that's not within your

family rules of ways for them to expect.

Express their emotions, but expressing their emotions is

a thousand percent acceptable.

And that is exactly it is.

That is true of your whole family.

So with your non-autistic children, or maybe even other autistic children,

or neurodivergent children in the family whose plans are affected by the

autistic child, you wanna make sure that there's not this blame game coming up.

Oh, we gotta go home because of Bobby.

We gotta go home because Sally had a meltdown.

We gotta go home because Angelica, Can't handle this.

So what that means, the blame game first.

Making sure you are not modeling that, that it isn't the reason that you

have to leave a situation or anything.

that there isn't this like accusatory aspect on your autistic child.

And I know you don't mean that intentionally, but we think

about from a modeling standpoint, if your children hear you.

Quote unquote saying that their autistic sibling is the

reason that you need to leave.

They're gonna model that behavior.

And so instead you can say something like, George is really overstimulated

right now, and when any of us get overstimulated, we come together as a

family, and that means sometimes we have to do things that make us sad or upset.

Do you see that there's a nuance there?

You can explain the situation, but we don't want to link.

The reason of having to leave be related to your autistic child.

I actually had a very real life example come up with this, and it wasn't

necessarily about leaving, but I have an autistic toddler that I see in

their classroom, and the teachers were.

Finding that this child was overstimulated by the loud noise.

And I loved the receptivity to that.

But what was happening is they were saying, I'm gonna make

up a fake name for this child.

so we'll call this child Charlie, and they were saying, everyone you need to quiet

down Because it's too loud for Charlie.

And so it was interesting.

I was in the classroom.

I went and had a conversation with the mom about it.

Very open dialogue of here's what's happening, how do you feel about that?

And the mom made some amazing points.

She was like, I don't want my child to be the reason that they have to quiet down.

They need to learn how to quiet down themselves.

And it was like, yeah, they gotta learn for many different reasons

that that's part of classroom rules.

And so while I really appreciated the teacher's awareness to support this child,

ultimately there was this blame game.

We have to be quiet because of Charlie, and that isn't fair to Charlie.

Instead, it's, Hey, it's too loud in the classroom.

Let's quiet down.

That's all that it ultimately takes, So overall, being careful of how you

explain the reason, can we simplify it?

Can we remove that?

The reason this, this quote unquote bad thing happened is because of your

autistic child And also then, Validating your other children's emotions.

I know you were really sad to leave.

I, I understand And you can even say things if they're reasonable

and age appropriate and true things like, yeah, I was sad to leave too.

in my opinion, it's okay to say things like, sometimes for, for your sister, she

gets overwhelmed and we wanna make sure that everyone is happy in that situation.

That, again, has a very different, perspective than we had to

leave because of your sister.

And you might even help build some of your other children's awareness of

like, Yeah, when you're uncomfortable, we would leave for you too.

And sometimes for your sister, we do have to leave more often.

And as a parent, I'm trying to figure out ways to really support

your sister through all of this.

Do you have any ideas which also invites them into the

conversation and that collaboration.

And the other thing that I wanna keep, And mine is, you are going to

have emotions in all of this too.

Like I said at the start of the episode is releasing some of the blame and

guilt that you're gonna naturally put on yourself, but also being mindful

of you're gonna feel really split.

You're gonna feel like.

It was the right thing to do because you needed to support your

autistic child in that moment.

you also might be really embarrassed, for example, if your child has a tantrum or

a meltdown in public, and that's normal.

That would be to be expected.

Again, I said this so many times on the podcast, but you are human and humans

have emotions, and so shaming ourselves for the emotions isn't gonna make them go

away and isn't gonna make you feel better.

It is ultimately realizing that you can practice acceptance of

your emotions and still love your autistic child unconditionally.

So be aware of your own emotions in this.

So this split of you feel like you supported your autistic child, but

maybe you disappointed your, your non-autistic children or the autistic

child's siblings, it's okay to feel both.

It's the power of, and both of those things can co-occur.

And also we don't have to react to disappointment by

trying to fix the situation.

Sometimes what kids need the most is a space to feel their feelings.

And what we actually find is kids are really, really resilient.

Often if you can validate their emotions, they're pretty quickly onto the next

thing, but they know that their emotions are allowed in in your home, in your

space, and that feels good for them.

And lastly, I want you to keep in mind though that these

emotions might not be outward.

Just like you have learned to suppress your emotions, your

other children may have learned to suppress their emotions too.

And this is all your children.

In one way, this might not be outward for your autistic child, is they might

not show emotions in these neurotypical ways, with facial expressions, with

expressing it, That's important to keep in mind, but also sometimes,

And I experienced this as a kid.

No one told me I needed to do this, but I knew my brother needed help and I felt

like he needed more help than I did.

And so I learned to push down my disappointment.

I don't remember if we talked about this on the episode with my mom But

here's the thing I don't remember this.

My mom was actually telling me a story she remembered of, I was on

the rowing team in high school, in college, and I had this big race and

My mom wasn't able to come to this race and she had called me and shared

she wasn't able to, and apparently I told her, oh, it's totally fine.

It's not a big deal.

But then another parent saw me crying next to a car because

it was a big deal in my world.

And listen, I understood that my brother needed her more in that

moment, but that doesn't also mean that I didn't have feelings in this.

So keep that in mind.

For the siblings of your autistic child is that they might not tell you

they need the space to process their feelings, but provide that for them.

Invite them to, to be able to share that.

And sometimes they might be like, no, I'm fine.

Okay.

Just know that if you start to feel any emotions, we can talk about those.

And that feels supportive in and of itself.

All right y'all, that is a wrap for today's episode, and I

hope you got value out of this.

I think the biggest piece is knowing that plans aren't gonna always go according to

plan, no matter how much you prep and plan for it, that things are going to happen.

They can be learning experiences, but making sure that you are

not blaming yourself when things don't go according to plan.

And then the biggest piece is allowing everyone to experience

their emotions and reaction to this.

All right.

I'll be back for another episode soon.

Bye y'all.

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