Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Raising Autistic Disciples podcast. My name is Lara Roberts and I am on a mission to learn how my autistic son Graham learns best for the sake of the gospel. And friends, i want to tell you about a particular Sunday morning. Happened a few years ago. I write about this in Letters to Lindsay and so if you haven't grabbed your copy of that, go read about it. But Um, because I'm pretty sure that this particular family was the biggest meltdown of my Graham's life as, you know, he just turned 10 this summer. And so it was the, if I go back in my memory, um, it was probably, wouldn't say the worst one. I would say it was memorable because, you know, what if we, well, we can't remember every meltdown. We remember the worst ones right? So he was probably five at the time.
Speaker: and and here's the thing we prepared okay this ah this was a year no this was probably even like six months from the actual piece of paper right because you know there's like two two years before that that you're like the whole uh something's not right stage um or or phase things like that so yeah so this is probably this is probably six months into the diagnosis. Again, real fresh, the cloud is still, you are heavy in the fog of what I talk about in the fog. Yeah. So he's probably five at the time. all right. And we prepared as much as we knew how to prepare, right? Visual schedule, all that kind of thing. We had talked through the schedule. Graham knew the schedule backwards and forwards. um we We were going to church, right? He was going to walk into his room. And at that point in his life, he knew that once he got there, he could play with toys for the entire hour. which is a different episode to talk about entirely. But anyway, um but but that schedule was simple and predictable, right?
Speaker: He knew what was happening on the other side. Okay. At least that was the plan. We had already gotten to church when I received a text message that changed something I needed to go handle.
Speaker: I needed to walk back out of the building, back to the car for a minute. And that sounds like nothing, right? Like, here's the thing that a lot of my neurotypical parenting friends don't understand. Like to neurotypical kid, that would have been nothing. Okay, let's just go back to the car, right? It's just a walk back.
Speaker: Except for an autistic kid, Graham knew the plan, We had gone up, mom, you know you told me, like right? So walking back to the car was not in the plan.
Speaker: nope nowhere There was no car icon on this visual schedule. So so we we get out of the car, we go into church, we go to There's no going back to the car. this was good You see where I'm going? okay So the second I headed toward the second I turned around, like, you know how you can feel the, when they're holding your hand, because you know, you have a death grip on that autistic kid's hand, right? um Because that i can't take a time out. That's my worst fear, by the way, is that he would elope, which he does. He's gotten bigger and he's got more weight on him. He doesn't really elope. But this is for all the mamas whose kids are a little bit younger and do elope. Um, that death grip on the hand, my worst fear is that he'll go running through the church lobby and just and annihilate, like just, you know, Red Rover style, an 80 year old sweet, precious lady, you know, can, can anybody share that, that fear? Just saying. So anyway, the death grip handhold is on him. And you know that tug when you're turning around and a kid is like, no, we're going to go this way. Okay. You know how feelings come back to you. So when I'm telling story, I feel that like that, that I had to turn around to go back to the car and the tug of like, he was still going in one direction toward the classroom, like the visual schedule said. Right. And so anyway,
Speaker: So we're we're we're heading toward the the car. Okay. Remember, let me let me let me make sure i I paint the picture for you. We're still in the church lobby. Okay.
Speaker: I get the text message. And in the second we start heading toward the doors because I had to go back to the car, he absolutely went into cyclone mode.
Speaker: Like... Like any any tornado movie you you have seen, like compare it to that. He dropped to the church lobby floor screaming uncontrollably. Okay.
Speaker: the more he tried and The more I tried to explain what was happening, the worse it got. Which, for those of you who just got a diagnosis, make note of that. The word the more I tried to explain, the worse it got. Buddy, I just got to go back to the car for just one minute.
Speaker: I promise you, we're coming back. You're going to your room. I promise you, we're go you're going to your room. I just got to go to the car. Nothing else is changing. I promise. we we just got to go back to the car. I could have listed everything he loves in the entire world.
Speaker: I could have said there is a million pizza rolls waiting for you in the car, I promise, or whatever toy he was wanting is there. It would not have mattered one bit. Actually, i think every additional explanation I tried to give him just made, it just made it even more worse, right? Because I was mentioning all the things that he loves while he was having said meltdown. So I picked up the pieces of the plan I can i could.
Speaker: and and I was like, okay, well, there's no going to the car now. He is in full meltdown mode. So I was just trying to pick up the pieces of everything and and move us through the children's mystery hallway, okay?
Speaker: And that right there, Like with every eye on me and the whole entire building. yeah If you, if you've ever had a goldfish, it's kind of like that, right? Like people staring at you.
Speaker: And Mama Goldfish, you know, like they're thinking Mama Goldfish could not get her baby Goldfish to behave. That, you know, that's what that's what you're thinking in that moment. So if you're a church leader happening, like, and and listen, I know many of you have asked about like, like what to do. I'm i'm sorry, I'm taking a a moment from the story. I know some of you are like, this is a cliffhanger, Laura, stop it. Okay, but if you are a church leader, many of you have asked me, what do you do to help a parent in the moment? Um,
Speaker: um of a meltdown because, you know, based on our personality and how we're wired, some of us, you know, want to go help. Some of us are like, I don't know what to do. um I don't have a particular answer for you. I would say like what we're going to discuss today is is the road toward the meltdown. That's what this title of this episode is. I would say, church leader, if you're asking how do you help a parent ah in that state, I would say it's the road before the meltdown gets there. It's the relationship with the family before the the melt But let's just spin reality and say it's a new family. You don't know them. Do you approach or do you not? And um and I would say many things to that.
Speaker: I would say ah get a buddy bag that you already have. Yes. Yes, you already have a buddy bag, right? Okay, great. um Because that's and as a good tool to have in your lobby for for autistic kids. Get a buddy bag. um And I'm going to borrow one of my dear friends and mentors, Kim Bottas line, a snack and a bottle of water.
Speaker: We'll go a long way. Hey, can I, can't you, would you like a snack? Listen, and, and just know this church leader, you're not making it worse, but probably hovering would make it worse. But once you've offered that snack and that water or things like that, or mom, uh, in a calm voice, right? Calm.
Speaker: you you've done your part okay and there's many other things that that you could possibly do but knowing the family if it is established family knowing them they can help you ah definitely definitely try to get people around them not to stare that would be helpful too okay back to story okay so i'm walking down the children's ministry hallway which every eyes on me i am dragging him he's screaming how all i can see is is the exit right um So um i'm I'm focused on Graham while simultaneously being painfully aware that everybody else is is watching.
Speaker: Right. It's just the weirdest and the the worst feeling, to be honest with you, is knowing that everybody's watching you. is just It just wasn't a great experience. That's why it's one of the most memorable ones for me. OK.
Speaker: I realized church was that day. It's just no longer happening that morning, right? It's just not in the cards for us. So I took Graham home, but I took him home, dragging him by his ankles out of the the children's ministry wing, right? Still eyes on me.
Speaker: um Now I got screaming kid, but now I'm actually pulling him from his ankles. Yeah. So we get home, um you know, we get home and we get inside and he was still an enormous, like when I say distress, I don't think that word is in our vocabulary a lot before the autism diagnosis. Like I know what distress is now, right?
Speaker: His whole body as a five-year-old, remember, he's not a linebacker size as he is now. He's little. Right? Right. In a little body like that, being in distress is it's overwhelming for him and for me looking upon my child like that. He's slamming doors. He's screaming.
Speaker: He's sad crying. That's the thing. Like, like, don't get me wrong. Again, this may be a whole another episode entirely. Like I have two other typical kids. I know what a tantrum versus a meltdown is. And I know what sad crying versus versus tantrum crying is.
Speaker: Graham is sad crying at this point. Like his face is red. His entire body looked like a literal tornado, like a literal cyclone. And I remember looking at him and having this strange realization. And I know it was the Holy Spirit because guess what? The Holy Spirit helps us in those moments, mom and dad, especially his parents. Like we're not alone in this. And I remember a a realization that just kind of came to my mind and my heart.
Speaker: And because he wasn't looking at me like Graham, wasn't looking at me like a child who was thinking, how can I make my mom miserable today?
Speaker: How can I make her miss church? How can I make her be embarrassed in front of all those people? He looked like a child whose entire system, entire body, was screaming something he didn't have words to say.
Speaker: He didn't have words available to say to me. And what I sensed in that moment through the Holy Spirit in my heart was more like he was saying, Mommy, I need your help.
Speaker: And he didn't say those words. He couldn't. He didn't have language. He was nonverbal at this point. But because I could see how much distress this was causing him, that moment has stayed with me and stay with me for a lot of it it helped me grow. We can't just change the, the, if we've communicated the schedule, we got to stick to the schedule kind of thing.
Speaker: Um, because I think when our, our autistic kids have these reactions and they're big reactions, right? They're big, especially public ones. It can be incredibly easy for us as mom and dad, especially us moms to interpret what we're seeing through the lens of the wrong question. Um,
Speaker: Why is he doing this to me? Why is she acting this way? Why won't he just listen? Why can't she calm down? What consequence needs to happen so when we get home for them to understand that that was wrong? How do we make sure that this never happens again?
Speaker: And sometimes there absolutely are behaviors that do need correction. Please hear me that. Okay, there are. Autistic kids still need discipline and discipleship. They still need boundaries. They still need to learn obedience and kindness and self-control, repentance and forgiveness.
Speaker: All the same things that we are teaching our other kids. Hear me clearly. But I have learned that if I begin with the assumption that every explosive behavior, every big behavior, every reaction and response is primarily a kid choosing to make my life difficult for and everyone around them, I may misunderstand what is really happening.
Speaker: Because the meltdown may be the moment I noticed. It may not be the moment the story began. Okay? And that's a big difference. So that's why we study the road.
Speaker: Okay, we study the road. This is what I've been thinking about lately. After a meltdown, we tend to analyze the point of collision, like where the moment happened, the collision that it all came to be, the the the storm or the the the the crash, the collision. Okay, why did he do that? what What should the consequence be? How do we stop that behavior? What should I've said differently? How do we prevent this from screaming and doing happiness? And listen, those aren't,
Speaker: Those questions aren't necessarily bad. Some of them are reflective and evaluate. And I get that. But some of the most valuable information may have happened 10 minutes earlier. That's what I mean by the road beforehand, before the collision.
Speaker: Or 20 minutes earlier or two two days before. That's what my neurotypical friends and church leaders sometimes, like sometimes these meltdowns are days in the making. They're not just hours or what minutes, Right.
Speaker: The collision, right? The moment of meltdown is obvious. The road to it may not always be clear. Maybe there was a transition he was not expecting. That was the case in this Sunday. The environment may have become louder for some kids or there was a communication breakdown or a demand for those of our PDA kids. A demand was added that they weren't ready for.
Speaker: Maybe something ah like a thought ah was certain suddenly became uncertain. His body had already been showing signs of stress long before anyone realized what's happened.
Speaker: maybe Maybe that was it. He stopped answering questions or he started pacing. the His voice may have changed. Movements became faster. He began repeating himself.
Speaker: He started covering his ears. Maybe he became extremely rigid about something that that normally wouldn't matter so much to the child. he he or she could start withdrawing maybe there was 10 tiny things that by themselves would have been manageable but together when they came together became way too much like a perfect storm type of scenario the road will look differently for every autistic kid but here's what's important you cannot foresee the future mom and dad church leader you you can't like we don't have that that's that's not that's only for the sovereignty of god it's only he he he can only see the future right I am not suggesting that if we were better parents, we would predict every meltdown and intercept it before it happened. We can we can't do that. It's just not.
Speaker: you got You got to come to that realization, right? Sometimes you will do everything you know to do and your child will still become overwhelmed. Sometimes the trigger will be completely outside of your control.
Speaker: Sometimes there will be there may not be even one obvious trigger that leads up to it to where you understand what's going to come. Learning the road is not about becoming omniscient.
Speaker: It is about becoming observant because only God is omniscient. But he has given us an assignment to raise autistic disciple. Therefore, we do become observant and learn our kid. Okay.
Speaker: The meltdown. is there. It may be coming. It may be a destination point based on triggers that have happened days and hours. So it may be what's going to happen, the collision part, right? The destination.
Speaker: ah But okay, let me put it like this. Imagine that there's a wreck on the road. Like we've all passed once, right? Everybody gathers around that and and is hovering and like, what happened? You know, that's why bottlenecks happen. What happened? What caused it? How bad is the damage? How how we make sure this doesn't happen again, right? Is there something in the road or a curve or something that?
Speaker: And those are those are, again, reasonable questions. But an investigator comes on the scene and is going to walk backwards. He or she's going to ask this. What happened before the impact?
Speaker: Were there warning signs? Was visibility poor, like the weather or something? Was something blocking in the road? Were there skid marks on the road to kind of help me see what may have happened here? Did something suddenly change? Like, were they reaching for their phone? I sure hope not. But were they, you know?
Speaker: um what information was available before the collision happened. That's what they're going to ask. Because the crash site tells you something, but so does the road getting there.
Speaker: And that's what I've learned. I've had to do, you know, that's that's what I've had to learn with Graham. I've had to become a student of the road, right? Not because I can always stop what's coming or that I can stop the collision. Many times I can't. I have to learn what happens before. That's what I'm trying to say. I have to learn what happens before on the road.
Speaker: I can't just learn about, can learn about the dysregulation or the point of collision, the very meltdown. I need to learn about it, but the road before me will help me determine how to see that, right? Before what happens.
Speaker: Okay, it's it sounds like this. What does he look like when when he's beginning to be overwhelmed? What happens when plans suddenly change? what Like, how does he navigate that? What kind of environments require significant more effort for him to be able to navigate before we get there? What does his body do before words like disappear or or communication? What however re commute what what happens? what does like um what What does it look like when it's things are beginning to increase, right?
Speaker: What happens when I continue giving explanations after his brain is no longer able to process explanations? Okay, that Sunday morning taught me something I didn't understand yet.
Speaker: I thought I was helping him by giving him more information. We're just going to the car. We're coming right back. You're still going to your class. You're going to get to play with toys. But once he crossed a certain threshold, like into meltdown land, more language wasn't calming him.
Speaker: More language was input to his system that was already overwhelmed. I was trying to give a reason to a kid whose nervous system was already telling me he did not have capacity to reason with me at that point.
Speaker: I didn't need a better better argument for him. I needed to read my kid. I need to read and know the road of my autistic kid had just went down and then had a meltdown. Okay. Now, let me, let me, y'all know I love a good preface. Let me, let me get into preface point for second. I'm not like, okay, time out on the podcast episode. Let's let me do a little bit teaching here. Okay.
Speaker: I'm not excusing sin. This is where this conversation, it makes Christians uncomfortable, Christian parents, okay? Because we rightly believe our children are sinners who need Jesus. Even our our autistic kids are not exempt from that, okay? We believe our kids need instruction and correction. We rightly believe scripture speaks about obedience. And somewhere in all that, I think maybe we have become afraid that trying to understand behavior means excusing behavior. It does not. Okay.
Speaker: Understanding what happened before the behavior for all autistic kids is not the same thing as declaring every behavior is acceptable. Those are two completely different questions. One question asks what's happening. The other question asks what response is appropriate.
Speaker: Biblical wisdom requires us to answer the first question before we can confidently answer the second. And I keep coming back to 1 Thessalonians 5, 14. Paul says, admonish the idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
Speaker: Paul's giving this to the church, its members, ah a guide for how to care for one another. And that's a guide for us raising autistic disciples. Look at the category Paul's given us. Admonish, where it needs to be admonished.
Speaker: The idol talking about get up and go work. Comfort those who need comfort, that are that are struggling. Help those who are needing help. And then just be patient with one another. But here's the thing we got to notice. there those are those are four Those are not the same responses.
Speaker: There are four different responses. Because different spiritual conditions, the state of where a person is at, require different forms of care. But all require long-suffering love.
Speaker: Which means when we're raising autistic disciples, faithful care requires discernment. Sometimes it does require correction though, because sin is sin. Okay. Sometimes though it requires comfort where they're needing help.
Speaker: Okay. If I misdiagnose for lack of a better word. Okay. Misdiagnose or, or let me say it like If I misidentify or misinterpret what is happening in front of me, a meltdown. Okay. If I misinterpret what's happening, I can give the wrong response.
Speaker: I could end up admonishing or correcting him when he just needs help. I could interpret weakness or or needing you know comfort or whatever as rebellion. I can interpret overwhelm as defiance if I'm not careful.
Speaker: I love how this one commentator put it. They said, some believers are not rebellious. They're just weary. Like that's what like in that commentary of of the passage, like sometimes we have to be careful and ask the Holy Spirit for help not to not to misinterpret that, you know, they're not trying to be horrible or rebellious. They're just tired.
Speaker: And that's where we need to apply right care, meaning right care for our autistic kid that maybe this meltdown is not defiant. Maybe they just need help communicating something that they they can't communicate, right? Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, on the flip side, though, I can't excuse genuine sinful behavior that actually does need loving correction. Because as a parent, ah my my husband and i are the shepherd of our homes, shepherds of our homes, our primary disciple makers, we do want our autistic kid to grow toward Christ likeness. And so like, we need to be able to lovingly correct them when when it is sinful behavior, but the Holy Spirit will help us know which know the difference between that. Okay, and that's why again, I'm going to be a broken record when I say you have got to be a disciple first before you can raise an autistic disciple. Because if you are not growing, you're naturally drifting. And so if you're not in in the Bible daily understanding ah who God is and how the Holy Spirit helps, then then you're not going to be able to recognize.
Speaker: the difference. You're not. This is complex, people. Knowing the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum or or where your child needs to help and care is an act of the Holy Spirit. And you've got to you've got to grow in Christlikeness to be able understand the difference. Okay. So the goal is to know the person or to know the kid well enough to discern what response is based on the road that led them there and then delivering the proper care.
Speaker: And again, the Holy Spirit will help with that. So, listen, that this is where James 1 comes in. We've got to be quick to listen. Okay? He gives us another posture that that is very helpful here in James 1.19. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.
Speaker: And man, is this passage convicting as a parent. Okay, because a meltdown does create urgency. Everybody's looking, right? Everybody's looking at you and it doesn't feel good for you in the moment either.
Speaker: And everybody wants me to quickly respond to deescalate the situation. fix it stop it explain it correct it that's what get is yelled i mean not maybe verbally at me but it feels like it right move everybody along so nobody's comfort is messed up right especially people are watching in a church hallway and you can feel all the eyes right but scripture god's word repeatedly associates wisdom with slowing down isn't that convicting scripture repeatedly associates wisdom with what we need in the moment during the moment of that meltdown was slowing down enough to understand
Speaker: Proverbs 8.13 says, The one who gives an answer before he listens is foolish and disgrace for him. And foolishness and disgrace for him.
Speaker: Proverbs 25 says, Counsel in a person's heart is deep water, but a person of understanding draws it out. That requires something more difficult than controlling behavior, friend.
Speaker: It requires curiosity. Wisdom requires curiosity. It requires us to slow down in the moment and discover and study the road that led there. What am I seeing? What happened before this? What changed?
Speaker: What might my child be communicating that I cannot currently articulate? What does his body appear to be telling me? And again, I'm not trying to read Graham's mind. I'm not to be able to do that, right? But I can read the room and I can read the road.
Speaker: I can read the circumstance. I can read the patterns. I can learn the patterns. I can notice his body language. I can remember what happened 30 minutes ago or 30 days ago that helped me better know the situation. I can ask better questions after has regulated if he can answer me in any way.
Speaker: I can learn my kid.
Speaker: And here's something that I want us to be mindful of as Christian parents raising autistic disciples. Shepherding requires knowing the sheep.
Speaker: And that word, and again, I'm praying up something and I'm asking the Lord help me that a whole podcast series is happening in next year, January of next year, um because the word learn has helped me tremendously. I am learning how my autistic kid learns best for the sake of the gospel.
Speaker: And learning how he learns means learning far more than his academic learning style. It's learning how he communicates, learning what overwhelms him, the processing time he needs, learning how what happens when expectations suddenly change.
Speaker: I need to learn what his body looks like when he's approaching his limit. I need to learn what he can how how and when he can receive instruction and when he needs help recover recovering from whatever situation.
Speaker: Because my goal is not merely to produce acceptable behavior and not to make a a robot. My assignment is to disciple my autistic kid. And discipleship requires relationship. It's that sheep and sheep and shepherd thing. Discipleship requires relationship. It requires knowing the person standing in front of me.
Speaker: Jesus described himself as the good shepherd in John 10. And one of the things he says is so deeply personal. He says, I know my own and my own know me.
Speaker: The biblical picture picture of shepherding is never detached management. A shepherd knows the sheep, knows his sheep. That's important too, knows his sheep. Not in a generical way, like not in a a group setting, a general way, although he knows the group dynamics, but he knows specifically each each sheep and their dynamics, right?
Speaker: The shepherd doesn't say, oh, I think Lara reacts this way because the whole group does. No, she says, I know Lara, that the shepherd says, I know Lara reacts this way because her sin nature, when she gets home with the fast food order and it's wrong, she's going to explode. Right? Or I know how Lara hates emoji responses on text messages when she's poured out her heart and her friends just heart the message and they don't respond to it.
Speaker: Okay, that's a other episode, but If you're listening to this and you send me text messages or I send you text messages, don't just heart it without a response. Okay. Anyway, he knows, he knows the intricate, intricate, intricate, Oh, Lara, intricate, intricate intricacies.
Speaker: He knows every fiber of who I am. He, he knows my sin nature and he knows my personality because he's the one who made me right. He knows each sheep. Each person specifically. And while I'm obviously, as Larry Roberts, as mom to to Graham, Addie and Levi, wife to Colin, I am not the good shepherd. I am not the Lord, right?
Speaker: Christian parentrot parenting should reflect his posture, though, as the good shepherd. It should reflect a shepherding posture. And I want my kids, I want to know the child God has entrusted me. I want to know my kids.
Speaker: Not merely the kid I expected to have. That's big. Not the version of him who behaves well in public. Not the version of him who can sit still during a Bible story. I want to know Graham.
Speaker: The person. The kid. That means learning the road that got us to the certain behavior.
Speaker: Learning how he navigates it. The gospel goes deeper than behavior, friends.
Speaker: And I think this is ah an important opportunity for us Christian special needs parents. The gospel has never merely been about behavior modification. Though when we do, sanctification is growth. There needs to be growth there. But Jesus did not come simply just to make bad behave people behave better.
Speaker: He came to save us from our sins and reconcile us back to God. God sees deeper than outward behavior. He knows the heart completely. He knows our weakness, our rebellion, our differences.
Speaker: And he deals with each of us specifically accordingly. not a not This is not a group project, right? Like he is saving all of us a family, but he deals specifically with us because he knows us specifically. He corrects, comforts, and helps based on what he knows about each image bearer. He disciplines those he loves. He shows mercy and he is patient, which means gospel-shaped parenting cannot simply ask, how do I make this behavior stop?
Speaker: As Christian special needs parents, we have to ask, how do I faithfully shepherd the kid God has placed in front of me with what I know to be true about how the Holy Spirit has helped me know this kid?
Speaker: Sometimes up that that'll mean correction, but sometimes that'll mean reducing language with me not hovering over him going, we're going back to the car, you know, trying to, sometimes it'll mean leaving the building like we did. It wasn't in the, it wasn't, church wasn't in the cards for us that day. Leaving, knowing well enough that, that I kind of had dragged him. No, we're probably not recovering from this. Sometimes it'll mean helping a child regulate and then having the conversation later.
Speaker: And sometimes it'll mean recognizing that what looked like a sudden explosion or a collision or a meltdown was actually the final mile of the road we are beginning to understand. Okay?
Speaker: And no, we will not catch everything. I still miss signs all the time. I still miss underground all the time. And I still look backwards sometimes and go, oh, that was what was happening.
Speaker: That's growth on my part. That's how the Holy Spirit is growing me as a mom, a raising autistic kid. Right? Right? Okay. But every time I learn one more thing about how he experiences the world, I become better equipped to help him navigate Yes.
Speaker: The reason why that memory at the beginning, that told the reason why this whole episode of that one day at church is the probably the worst one and because it's stuck in my memory, but it's helped me be better at navigating this kind of thing. I don't change the schedule. Or if I do, I give him plenty of time to understand it. Okay?
Speaker: And let me just, let me make sure if there's a grandparent or a, I don't know, a church leader or a ah people, people that are looking inside our world. Let me just say that anybody who is not living with an autistic kid on a daily basis or navigating work, like everything I've said in this episode, please understand it this is not coddling.
Speaker: This is parenting a specific child that, that has a specific wiring that, And that's part of the assignment God has given me. So don't ah don't misinterpret what we're saying as giving him a pass or coddling.
Speaker: This is this strategic. Raising an autistic kid is strategic when it comes to these different issues. Again, I think I've said it all episode. I'm not dismissing correction. I'm not dismissing sin. What I'm saying is I'm learning how my autistic kid learns to help be a shepherd and guide him along the road as we go and as we grow, both of us, into Christlikeness.
Speaker: ah Because someday autistic kid, will have to navigate more and more of this world without me standing immediately beside him.
Speaker: So right now, I want to help him learn what his own road looks like. Okay, what does it feel like when you're over realm overwhelmed, overwhelmed buddy in this building? what What does your body need right now?
Speaker: how how How can I help you communicate what you need in this space? how can i How can I teach you how to ask for help? What strategies actually will help him recover? What environments are especially difficult so that we can maneuver or stay away from them altogether? Those are skills he'll carry into adulthood. And those are skills that matter for discipleship too. Because I want Graham to know how God made him.
Speaker: Okay? I want him to know the God that is sovereign over his body today, what helps him. Okay? I want him to understand his limitations. If it's too loud, then and we may not can ask those people to turn it down, that may not be an environment where they will turn the music down, then then we need to understand how to navigate that or stay away from it.
Speaker: I want to help him with those. I want to help him participate meaningfully in the body of Christ. I want to help him be able to receive truth, even when it comes to sin in his life, engage with scripture, worship, serve, repent, pray, forgive others, and grow into the disciple God has called him to be. which means something so Which means sometimes the most spiritual significant thing I can do as his mom is not stand at the site of the collision, at the site of the meltdown, and ask, how do we stop this behavior right now?
Speaker: Sometimes I need to walk backward down the road. I need to be the the investigator that starts miles down, right? I need to learn. That's what an investigator does. They're learning what happened to get there.
Speaker: Christian special needs parent or Christian, specifically autism parent, the meltdown gives us information. but so does the road behind it. And if we only study where the collision or the meltdown happened, we may miss the things that our autistic kids have been trying to tell us long before the meltdown happened that they may not be able to communicate to us.
Speaker: we We may be missing that. So I'm learning with you, friend, And as we learn how our autistic kid learns best for the sake of the gospel, we need to know that even the road ahead as we learn before the meltdown ever happened, it's a part it's a part of of how God gets glory and and a part of how he grows us to be more Christlike as we then act as a servant and a guide for our autistic kids.
Speaker: So the stewardship that we are doing by learning the road that leads to the meltdown is actually a way we're serving them.
Speaker: And when we enter into a posture of a servant heart, of being mom and dad, church leader, grandparent, friend, aunt, uncle, whatever it is, when it comes to our autistic kids, leading them by the hand and understanding how they navigate the world, we're we're serving them.
Speaker: And when you do that, it's all for God's glory and you're good. Thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next episode.
