For those who struggle with the doubt and guilt that can come with having a child with autism:
That is the landscape of parenting an autistic child, a child who is misunderstood, mislabeled and mistreated. When society doesn’t understand the reasons behind behavior, it’s the child’s fault. And it’s the parent’s fault. We get used to people not believing our experience, finding little help and feeling like we have failed our child.
That landscape needs to change.
It is not parents who are failing. We didn’t create the model of autism that says they are Not Normal and must learn to be Normal. We didn’t create a developmental timeline that doesn’t allow for variations for those children that just need more time. We didn’t look at the outside behavior and ignore the inside neurology.