My co-presenters at the ABAI 2026 conference are co-authors of the “joy curriculum,” anchoring autism intervention with the fundamental understanding that parents want to respond to their children with joy. Learn more here.

My written remarks that kicked off our session follow. 

Good evening, and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you as a parent, and answer a few important questions from a parent’s perspective. My son is a middle-aged adult with autism. He was diagnosed as a preschooler in the early 1990s. I am journalist and writer, so you may know me through my books.

Or not, and that’s ok.

Tonight, I hope to answer two questions that are part of this panel’s focus. First, answering how our family found acceptance and joy. And second, offering a few of our family’s strategies for navigating autism, fostering independence, and managing emotional challenges

Finding joy, and acceptance

One of the best books I read in college was from the career center, Richard Bolles’ classic job-hunting guide, What Color is Your Parachute? He recommended listening carefully to a hiring manager’s question—because there likely was a fear behind it. Since then, I’ve often listened for the fear behind a question.

Today’s first question asks an autism parent how they found acceptance. For me, the answer is straightforward: I love all my children fiercely. With our oldest, that meant recognizing the responsibility to raise him as best we could, and learning how to meet that responsibility in a loving way. But I remember feeling some of the fears in that question, such as:

• I’m struggling to accept my child’s disability and worry that means I am unloving and unlovable
• If accept my child as autistic, I might limit their options for the future
• My acceptance doesn’t matter when the world around my child doesn’t care

When a question signals a fear, the answer is going to be different. Fears are flags, signaling poor conditions around us. It can be hard to stop and take breath when we are afraid, but with that pause, we can better see what the fear might be signaling. Do we need more information? Do we need to connect to different people? Are we missing a resource? Probing our fear with these kinds of questions can help us find better answers. And, those better answers usually quell the fear or shame and let our love and humanity and acceptance shine through.

We are human, and it’s in our nature to look for the easier answers. We want to conserve our resources and move ahead in a sustainable way. But reaching for a quick solution can also be risky business, especially in parenting.

A swarm of information followed my son’s diagnosis and treatment, and we heard the hidden messages, including the big idea that autism is a disease or pathology. So, it’s no wonder that families get sidetracked.

Responding with joy

We wanted to respond to our son with love and joy, just as we did with our other children. Thankfully, science is making its own progress, so some of those earlier, more damaging messages about autism are starting to lose their grip.

The research describing neuro-divergence and autism in four broad categories is particularly helpful. To our family, this new framework feels far more robust, and better reflects our lived experience. My son’s growth and development was broadly affected by his autism, but this new framework feels easier for us, and for the world around him, to respond with joy.

We were busy when my son was young, and we made mistakes, but we also found a lot of good information considering the times. We surrounded ourselves with good people, and, for the most part, made good decisions. As an example, a preschool teacher once urged us to “extinguish” one of his “perseverative” behaviors. We considered it. But as we translated those science-y words to plain language, they lost their power and persuasiveness.

Trusting joy’s inner drive to navigate autism

Our son was growing and changing every day. We wanted to trust his inner drive. Some things he did appeared to have a purpose, even if we didn’t understand it. We wanted to focus on where he was and responding to him with joy, while still making sure we were going in the right direction.

Recently, I stumbled on some science that explores this big idea about trusting that inner drive. It’s called the many-wrongs principle. In the mid-1960s, biologists noticed that birds maintained a stunning level of integrity on their migration routes, especially when considering a bird’s individual capabilities for navigation. More recent research is finding that that our individual inner drives plus working together is key—and this isn’t just true for birds. Did you know that triathletes use the many-wrongs principle to guide their open-water swims? It’s really beautiful to see it at work.

Joy sparks independence

How each of us views dependence and independence can differ within a family, community, and culture. In addition, most children have a little spark in them that fosters their independence, strength, and resilience. Sometimes, when we are parenting and we need a little more cooperation from the kids, we might call that little spark “obstinate.” That emotion is signaling that we may need to tread carefully.

My son had to comply with a lot of requests from adults to learn new things. We, and his teachers and therapists worked intensively, deliberately, purposefully, and fast. He made great progress, but all that work also made him vulnerable to learned helplessness. We kept an eye out for it and addressed it when it showed up. But more importantly, we discovered that those times and places where he seemed the least flexibile were often the best places to build his strength and resilience. By the middle of high school, he was participating in his IEP meetings and we started stepping back to become his ally instead.

Pivoting to joy in tough times

To the final question, when we are caught in an emotional moment, then what?

Detaching from the situation can improve our ability to observe what might be happening. We can take stock and find another way through. Detaching might be easier for you all, in a professional role. But even as a parent, when we can detach, we can see our child with increasing clarity, and perhaps select a different response. Here’s one last big idea: attachment and detachment aren’t opposing forces. In fact, I think professionals and parents working together can create more powerful spaces where we are both attached and detached. These spaces create more chances to respond with joy and reinforce our loving connections to one another.

Our son has tapped this wisdom, too. Sam has watched people – family members, friends, strangers – do things when they were afraid of him. He recognized that people weren’t always going to approach him with an open mind or kindness. Sam generally moves through the world in a calm, gentle way that seems to help others keep their fears in check. Sometimes that makes me really sad, but the truth is, we can only control our own feelings.

To me, acceptance feels like a magical mix of resistance and going along, like riding the rapids or flying a kite. The task in front of us may be a little daunting at first, but once you’ve got the hang of it, hot dang, it’s fun.