Parents of autistic children often feel pressure to do it all.
After a diagnosis, the calendar can quickly fill with evaluations, therapies, and activities. The intention is loving and urgent. The result can be a family stretched thin and a child who is constantly on the move with little time to rest, connect, or simply be.
In this episode of Autism: A New Perspective, host Kat Lee speaks with Dr. Rachelle Sheely about the quiet power of slowing down. Dr. Sheely explains why overscheduling can keep families in a state of crisis and why children need thoughtful presence more than a packed schedule. She invites parents to reclaim a time to guide so the guiding relationship can take root, and progress can emerge through everyday moments.
Together they explore how to sort through competing voices, make mindful choices, and protect time for shared joy. Laughter at the park, a simple routine at home, and unhurried conversation can support development in ways that constant appointments cannot. If you are wondering how to do enough without doing too much, this conversation offers clarity, compassion, and practical next steps. Presence builds connection. Connection supports growth.
Autism: A New Perspective is available on iTunes!
Full Transcript
Kat Lee: Welcome back to Autism, A New Perspective, the podcast show where we help you understand what is going on in the mind of your child. And we always encourage you that growth for your child is possible. I’m Kat Lee, and in this week’s podcast, I visited with Dr. Rachelle Sheely. Dr. Sheely talks to us about the need to not overschedule our children. Let’s listen in. Dr. Sheely, you know, this topic of not overscheduling children could be good for any parent. So I want to put that out there, that it’s something that as parents, we have to think about, period. But when we have a child who’s vulnerable, can you tell us about why it’s so important that we don’t overschedule them? And particularly right now thinking about the child, why is that important for the child that we don’t overschedule them?
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: I think the subject is an interesting one, because I’m fond of talking about times when, for all the right reasons, we do the wrong thing. And parents who receive that diagnosis of autism, they’re like, I have to do everything, leave no stone unturned. And once they begin doing that, their job becomes a job of a chauffeur.
And they’re driving their child from place to place. The other people in the family are being neglected. And the child on the spectrum who’s very vulnerable, the diagnosis tells us one thing, not a lot about the child, but that the child is vulnerable, and that we have to be careful.
We have to think about his resources, both mental and physical and emotional. This very vulnerable child is now the child who is being run all over the city, and many demands being put on him, in addition to homework at school. Typically, what will happen is the school, I mean, they’re wonderful teachers, I don’t mean this the way it’s going to come across, but the teachers are doing the best they can.
But they’re sending what should have been covered in the classroom home for the child to do with his parent in the evening. So now the mother is trying to manage the family. She’s taking this child from therapist to therapist, and from activity to activity.
And some of those activities are things that are really fun, like swimming with the dolphins. But the child is overscheduled. Now the mother is really overscheduled, because when she gets home, she has to do all the homework, and she has to fix dinner.
So I’m being a little bit gender conscious, as I should be. But she’s got all of these things to do. She’s now exhausted.
She doesn’t have time for herself. She doesn’t have time for the other children. And she is she’s in a situation that she doesn’t know how to get out of, because for all the right reasons, she’s doing the wrong thing.
And I’m talking about moms, because typically, the moms who are running the children around doing that. So I know there are dads who do this too.
Kat Lee: How much do you think, and this is a hard topic, I know. How much do you think it’s a sign of still being in crisis for a child to be overscheduled? And again, I know that is a tough topic.
But it feels like that when we talk about it. Is it a result of crisis? What do you think?
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: I think it’s related to crisis. And I think the crisis is related to anxiety and deep-set fear about what’s going to happen. I have to do everything I can.
And sometimes I feel like as parents, we also think, maybe if I just continue to sacrifice, it’s going to be okay. So as I said, for all the right reasons, we go in the wrong direction, we do the wrong thing. And of course, when parents first get the diagnosis, all of those things they’re doing are supported and encouraged by the person who wrote the report.
And typically, I feel like I’m speaking in such generality. But typically, the person who writes the report has a list of things that they think are important for any child on the spectrum to do. And of course, that’s not true, because our children are unique, our families are unique.
And so the checklist, do this, do this, seven things. And the parents do all seven things. And now we’ve got a whole family system that’s teetering on the brink of exhaustion.
But I think you are right. I think it does have to do with still being in crisis. And when we’re working with the family, and we’re getting them out of crisis, one of the things that we help them do is make a choice.
Kat Lee: One of the things that I love in RDI is we talk about slowing down right from the beginning, and we talk about needing a time to guide. When I think about a time to guide, I also just think about a time to be together with your child, which one of the things that concerns me about overscheduling is that parents miss that time to be with their child. I mean, for young children, they’re only, as we know, whose children are grown, you only have that time to be with them.
And it’s literally getting taken away by that overscheduling. I think there’s such a value in that time that parents can have with their children, don’t you?
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: I do. And I believe one of the things that everybody forgets, I’m going to stop talking in generalities. One of the things that we tend to forget is that laughter and fun are important.
And certainly there’s no laughter and fun if we’re in the car all the time, going from appointment to appointment. So we ask ourselves the question, when you were expecting this adorable child, what did you envision doing with him? And I believe one of the things that we have to recapture is that early vision.
When I was having a child, all I could think of was I’m going to play baseball with him. We’re going to go to the park, and I’m just going to watch him play on his wings and play with jungle gym. I’m going to watch him take his first steps.
All of those developmental things that we see with children, parents look forward to, and they know they’re going to happen. But once they’re in crisis, and once they’re told to do all of these things with the child, that excitement they felt about how they were going to be with the child, the amount of time they would be having with the child, it’s not there anymore, to the detriment of both the parent and the child.
Kat Lee: That’s so true. And as you were talking, I was thinking about the voices. You and I have talked over the years about all the voices that are talking to parents, and those voices are loud.
Have you done this therapy? Have you done that? Have you tried the other?
And I think that’s hard to silence those voices of, no, I haven’t tried that. Maybe we need to try to schedule an appointment. No, maybe I need to see this person or that person.
There’s a lot out there, as we know, coming through our email, go to this workshop, go to that workshop, start this therapy, do that. How do we silence those voices to think? You need time to think for your child.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: You need time to think for yourself too. And I think at some point, certainly when I’m working with a parent, I’ll say, you know, let’s really talk about this and think, does it have to happen? Does it have to happen now?
Is it something we can think about later? And I really like to start with a clean slate if I can. I like to do the RDA.
I like to see where that guiding relationship is, what we need to do to activate it or reactivate it. And if we go on and start doing all these other things, we never really get it reactivated because we’ve got so much stuff going on. And so it’s really important that we help the parents, we help get the parents back in the driver’s seat.
And we give them the reasons, we give them ways to think about what they’re doing, and that we help them understand, you have a really vulnerable child. And you’re not going to make the progress you want to make. You’re not going to see those early dreams come to fruition if you are driving the car all the time.
Kat Lee: I love what you said in the beginning, that all the intentions are good, on both sides, professional side, making recommendations, of course, on the parent’s side, thinking about what I need to do for my child, but taking that time to slow down and think about the time to have with your child and making sure you have that time. I don’t think there can be anything more important than that. And it’s something that, again, without judgment, because you and I both know it’s all trying to help their babies.
But just advising, slow down and look at your schedule. And that is something you train us as consultants to do with parents, right from the beginning when we’re in training. This is one of those questions I love to ask you as we wind up.
Why did you know to do that? You just knew we needed to help and the parents needed help.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: I was lucky. I was very lucky when my children were young to be a stay-at-home mom. I really loved being a stay-at-home mom.
And some of the things that I remember are not really what we did so much, but the look they would give me sometimes. And sometimes we’d be sitting there, not doing that much, but there would be that visual, emotional connection that transpired between us. And I could feel it.
I could feel it in my heart. I could feel it in my soul. And children on the spectrum, parents who have children on the spectrum are no different.
They want that same feeling. But when you work to get that feeling, and you’re not really experiencing spontaneously, you’re going down the wrong path. So, I knew that for parents to experience parenting and guiding the way it was intended to be, they needed to stop working so hard, doing so much.
Now, parenting is hard work. I’m going to say that. They are.
And my children were close together. And so, I remember being tired a lot. But I also remember that I had the time that I could fill with what we were doing together and the being together.
So, I wanted to somehow help parents see that that being together was really more important than getting the child to do something. And if they were together in the being together, that some of these things would begin to fall into place.
Kat Lee: And thanks for joining us for Autism, A New Perspective, the podcast show where we help you understand what is going on in the mind of your child. And we encourage you that growth for your child is possible. I’m Kat Lee.
See you next time.
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