We knew early on that my son would never gain independence. The diagnosis wasn’t the shock—the finality was. The question staring us in the face wasn’t whether his condition would improve, but what we were going to do about it for the rest of our lives. Neither my wife nor I wanted to put him…

Managing Your Child’s Behavior When you’re raising a child with special needs, learning to manage their behavior effectively becomes one of your most critical skills. Some days it feels like you’re navigating a maze in the dark, while other days you might feel like you’ve finally cracked the code. I’ve been there too, stumbling through…

The social challenges of raising a child with special needs run deep, far deeper than most people realize until they’re living it themselves. They ripple through every aspect of your life in ways both expected and surprising. My wife and I are both introverts by nature. We’ve never had a large circle of friends or…

How Charlatains Steal from Parents of Special Needs Children When I first set out to find possible treatments for my son, I felt like I’d stumbled into a carnival midway. There were so many options—ranging from the somewhat helpful to the plausibly effective, and then spiraling all the way down to the completely looney. I…

Effort without Results After the roller coaster of emotions—the anger, the jealousy, the sadness—I found myself standing at a crossroads. I wasn’t ready to simply accept that my son would always be autistic. Not yet. Instead, I tightened my grip and started searching for a way out. A cure. A solution. Something that would make…

The Perils of Jealousy The playground was crowded that afternoon. Children raced around, climbing, swinging, and shouting with joy. Parents chatted in small groups, occasionally calling out to their little ones. I sat on a bench, watching my son rock back and forth in the sand, completely absorbed in his own world. A boy about…

Sadness Is the Great Liberator The day I finally sat down and wept for my son—for the life I thought he would have, for the dreams I had carried—was the day my healing truly began. It wasn’t pretty. There were no inspirational music swells in the background, no moment of transcendent understanding. Just me, alone,…

Denial Is Willful Ignorance I want to talk to you about something difficult but necessary: denial. I’ve been there myself, and I know how tempting it can be to hide from painful truths. Denial isn’t just simple ignorance—it’s a chosen ignorance, a deliberate turning away from what’s right in front of us because the reality…

The Perils of Anger The morning I fully realized my son wasn’t going to catch up with his peers, I slammed my coffee mug down so hard that it cracked. My wife flinched. I didn’t apologize. I was too busy being furious at the world, at our circumstances, at her, at myself—though I wasn’t ready…