Babies & Toddler Information

It is most unfortunate that many wonderful parents feel that they lack competence in dealing with their autistic child. It can be strange and depressing to feel like your normal maternal or fatherly instincts can be wrong when it comes with interacting with your own child.

But parents usually go too far in the opposite direction and stop having any natural parent child interaction worrying that if they resort to normal parental behavior and maybe just fool around and talk nonsensically with their child, they will lose precious moments of intervention time.

Because children with autism don't recieve pleasure from simple games such as hiding go seek, peek a boo, or follow the leader and since they probably won't come running to you when you call out to them, parents need a whole new set of parenting skills which if they are not careful, can add more stress to their already emotional lives.

Your child may have areas that need intervention but every child also has special areas of strength. Believe it or not, focusing on his or her areas of strength can be used to improve areas of weakness. For example let's say your child like books but does not engage in any kind of play. Rather than force him to play with a toy he doesn't like, start using books for imaginary play. Pretend to do what the characters in the book are doing. Use the books to work on social conversation and academic skills.

Remember to celebrate improvements, no matter how small they may be. And be sure to share the joy of your child's progress with the people who love him.

Finally don't forget every child wants and needs to feel loved by his parents. Any activity that you and your child enjoy together is precious whether its watching TV together or sharing and ice cream cone. Yes it's necessary to alter some of the ways of interacting with your child to facilitate his learning, it's equally necessary to maintain the basic loving relationship of parent and child and if you only think yourself as his therapist, then you need to find your way back to being a loving parent again.