When my son, Michael, was two years old, he came up to the video camera while I was taping poolside. Sam’s swim lesson disappeared as Michael’s little face filled the view. Then, in his tiny voice, he said, “I fix it, I fix it.” He brought up the dangling lens cap and snapped out the light.

After that, “I fix it, I fix it” became the family catch-phrase. Michael texted the other day to share another fix-it story. His own 2-year-old son had joined to help make his bed, saying “I fix it!” Michael’s heart soared, as did mine.

The story called up lessons learned as Sam worked with speech therapists: language and meaning are deeply intertwined. Language grows and changes at the cultural level, within communities, and in individual families. Family words can grow deep roots and connections, even when idiosyncratic and fun.

In addition, we find joy and purpose in lending our time, talent, and treasure to make things a little—or a lot—better for someone. We care for each other by fixing things. However, even we see something out of whack, we should take moment to make sure we understand what needs fixing.

Joy in autism parenting

In a few weeks, I’m speaking at a conference of behavior therapists. I am part of a group of parents invited to participate. I’ve spoken at parent conferences, but this is the first time I am speaking to professionals—a group of people trained for fixing it.

Some autistics have been pushing back on “fixing” autism. The controversy tells us we have a lot of work to do, particularly with our social expectations and autism acceptance. Still, young autism parents (and us old-timers on occasion) can get caught in the middle. We want to respond to our child with joy—the way I did when Michael “fixed” my camera and he did when his own son “fixed” the bedding.

In my talk with professionals, I hope to communicate this fundamental importance of responding to our children with joy. Parents may need help meeting their responsibility to raise a child with autism, but let’s arrange things, or change things, so that a parent can tap that joy. That’s fixing it.

You can find more information about the event here, which includes both in-person and online registration.