Are you preparing your child to eventually live as independently  as possible  right now?  Regardless of the extent of a child's disability or his age, there is much we can do to help our children live up to their fullest potential.  There are three areas that need focus for this to happen:  practical living skills, problem solving skills, and self-awareness.  Ignore any of these areas and the result is more dependence.

Of the three areas mentioned above, acquiring some practical living skills is probably the least difficult for our children. All children eventually need to learn something about cooking, doing laundry, handling money,  and managing transportation, for starters.  The best way to teach these skills to a child with special needs is to break any given skill down into small steps and progressively add to them. For example, with laundry, you can start by having your child put his dirty clothes into the hamper, then progress to sorting into colors, then on to loading the washer, transferring to the dryer, folding, etc.  Cooking can start with pouring ingredients for very young children, then on to stirring, measuring, reading recipes, etc.  Make a list of things you'd like your child to be able to do by the time she is 20, and then break down each skill into its component steps and start involving your child NOW at the level he is competent at.  I've even assigned  a "stick together like glue" weekend day, where the parent finds some way, however small, for their child to participate in everything  they do that day.  

A crucial area to focus on is your child's problem-solving abilities.  You have to know what to do (or at least who to call) when you lose your keys, when you run out of something you need,  when you forget an item you need for class or work, when you forgot to do laundry and the shirt you wanted to wear is stinky, when you need to tackle a big mess in your kitchen!  You can work on turning your child into a resourceful problem-solver at a very young age.  Rather than rushing to fix a problem, let your child have a try.  Intentionally create situations that require resourcefulness  so that your child gets practice.   Even very young children can figure out how to reach something with a stick or a chair, how to find a shirt if mommy "accidentally" gives her a doll's shirt, how to choose another crayon if the one you want is lost, etc.  Model your own problem solving process out loud for your child- when the power goes out, talk about how whether you will find a flashlight or light candles or open windows , and  whether you think you should call a neighbor or the power company. 

Finally, consider self-awareness.  Success in school and in work depends on knowing when you are overwhelmed or confused, and being able to communicate your need for help or for a break.   My son gets very upset by fire alarms at school; he copes by letting the teachers know he'd like a warning, and by carrying some foam earplugs in his backpack.  Knowing what she needs to function at her best will help your child communicate with others and make it easier to avoid or cope with stressful situations.

Please don't "fall asleep" and wait until your child is 18 to start thinking about independence! Intentionally give your child practice NOW at life skills, problem solving, and encourage his self-awareness on a daily basis.

So much has been written about  positive thinking that I am wondering if you will bother to read further as I add my voice to the din.  My bookshelves are filled with greatest accumulated wisdom of all of humankind, and any missing tidbits are available in a second with a good internet connection and a laptop or smartphone.  And yet, here I am at 58, a little wise at times, and stubbornly thick at other times, and clueless too often.  Why is this?  Why allow negativity to enter our minds, when, according to my overloaded bookshelves, it's completely optional? 

So here's the big ol' elephant in the roomful of books: our minds are incredibly powerful. It doesn't matter if you are smart or slow, well educated or illiterate, young or old.  Your mind is the power to direct your life. And here's the other thing - no power in Heaven or on Earth will stop you if you decide to use your mind to make yourself miserable.  I think we should acknowledge that - tip our hats to our powerful minds and take seriously what effects we create with our thoughts.

Which brings me to a subset of powerful minds - parents of challenged children.  We struggle with fear, despair, and frustration a LOT.  We especially need to honor the power of our minds.  It is critically important for us to hold a high vision of possibility for our children.  When they are young,  they don't know the power of their own minds.  But they feel our fears, our low expectations, our judgments.  Our kids work so hard to get through their days - wouldn't it be incredible to have a parent who is happy, who believes in us, who tells us we are good and powerful even when we have trouble with our academics or don't have any friends at school?  And if that is true for them, it holds that it is true for us as well.

We need to respect the power of our minds and respect the effort we put into parenting our children.  We owe it to ourselves and to them to steadfastly refuse to sink, to push away the destructive uses of our power, and to insist on using it for the highest good. 
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” 
― Henry Ford

I’ve been thinking about trust a lot lately, especially as I leave my cozy government job and step out into a new life as a business owner.  This is a really big step - I have to trust in myself, in the good intentions of others, in the watchful care of a Higher Power.  But when I think about trust, especially self-trust,  I know it isn't something I was born feeling.  It has its foundations in years of experiences, most often born out of connection with others who were further along than I was or whose miraculous trust in ME gave me courage to stretch even further.

The willingness to try something new that’s a bit scary, with the support of a person who has your trust – this is the form of trust that we love, that fires us up,  and hopefully all have some experience with. Trusting others, however, can be elusive for people on the autism spectrum.  The world is so dynamic, confusing, full of demands not understood, full of things that overwhelm the senses and overload the thinking capacity.  Often a person on the spectrum has not received guidance so much as directions, or a set of rules on which to base their thoughts and actions, that aren't always reliable in the fluid, messy, ever-shifting landscape of real life.  If you are used to being told what to do most of the time, how will you ever learn to trust your own abilities in a new situation?  And yet, somehow we do learn to trust ourselves, by first trusting in the safety of the watchful eyes and arms of our parents as we make our moves out into the world.

 A calm and alert state is essential for learning.  In any new situation, our readiness for learning depends on our memories of our own competence, often built by experiences shared with a trusted companion, parent or guide. When I trust you, I can relax and learn something new under your guidance because I know that you won’t get me in over my head.  That experience of trust is so important – that’s why so often when we do RDI ©, we start with just “hanging out” with our children.  We set limits, requiring them to stay with us, but we don’t ask questions, we don’t make demands, we don’t ask them for specific responses.  That lays the groundwork of trust that we use later to introduce new challenges. That kind of trust - the sense that it is safe to experience something new with a certain person - can open up the world for a child on the autism spectrum.  Building that basic trust is the secret, must-have ingredient to creating a guiding relationship.  Trust is a felt experience, birthed and grown through connection with others, allowing us to grow into a lifetime of learning.
* Featured in the September 23, 2015 RDIconnect newsletter