In this episode of Autism: A New Perspective, Kat Lee is joined once again by Dr. Tom Atkinson for a powerful conversation on the complex relationship between autism and stress, particularly as it affects both parents and their children.
As an RDI® consultant, psychologist, and father of an adult son on the spectrum, Dr. Atkinson brings professional and personal insight to a topic every parent can relate to: how to manage stress while supporting your child’s growth and development.
Together, Kat and Tom explore the nature and sources of stress, how it impacts family systems, and why tools like positive psychology, goal setting, and nurturing social connections are so important.
Grounded in research and lived experience, this conversation offers encouragement and practical strategies for navigating stress with hope, clarity, and resilience.
Whether you’re an autism parent, professional, or ally, you’ll find helpful insights for fostering emotional well-being for your child and for yourself.
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Want to learn more about the RDI® approach and how it supports meaningful relationships and long-term development? Click here to discover more about RDI® and connect with a certified consultant who can walk with you on your journey.
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 this week we welcome back Dr. Tom Atkinson as he visits with us about autism and stress. Let’s listen in.
We are so blessed to have Tom Atkinson back with us. Tom, you’ve been gracious enough to do a part two on our focus on well-being and parents, but particularly what we’re focusing on is stress. But just for those who don’t know you, I have had the pleasure, a true pleasure, of working with Tom for years.
We’re on an advisory board for RDI Connect, and we’ve been on that board together for over a decade. Isn’t that amazing, Tom?
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yes, time flies.
Kat Lee: It does. Tom is an RDI parent like myself. Both of our sons are adults now.
He became an RDI consultant in 2011, a current advisory board member just like me, a research psychologist, and a learning and development consultant. So Tom has done a lot for our community, including some presentations for conferences on various topics. One of the things you’ve talked about, Tom, for our lovely families is stress.
We are going to talk about that today.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: I’m looking forward to it.
Kat Lee: Let’s just start talking. These are our topics for today. What is stress?
What are the sources of stress? How do we cope with stress? And what are some tools that can actually help us?
So I want to start with the first one, which is, and this may seem self-evident, but you and I, having raised sons who had vulnerabilities, we understand stress. So I’m so happy that you’re here to talk to us in all your capacities. But this is the definition you gave us for stress to think about.
Stress is a normal reaction to everyday pressures, but can become unhealthy when it upsets your day-to-day functioning. You know, I think about our parents, Tom, and they must find themselves, don’t you think, in an unhealthy place at times with stress?
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Well, for sure. In reality, none of us really signed up for the kinds of stress that we’ve had to face over time, and it can be quite debilitating. I feel like this is one of my favorite topics and my favorite community to share with because I’m in the game as an RDI, as a parent of an RDI consultant, but I also bring a research background.
And long ago in grad school, I chose one to pick a topic that I thought would be relevant for some time, and I picked stress. And boy, has it ever been relevant. So I delivered a presentation five years ago to the RDI community about the stress of COVID that is layered on us in addition to everything else that we had.
So stress is endemic, but I’m an optimist by nature, and I like to think of stress as something that can energize us if we can tap it versus something that just kind of wears us down. And in studying people who have been through stressful life events, some people really are incapacitated by them, and others use it as a launching point to something else. So I’d like to get us in that second category.
Kat Lee: Well, one of the reasons I love to talk to you is because you are an optimist. Yes. And I think it’s important that we have positivity, and not as Dr. Shealy talks about pie-in-the-sky positivity because she says that’s not necessarily healthy, but real positivity, things that can really help us. So this was pretty powerful to me because every one of these things in this triangle are so critical to our lives. When I got to love and belonging, I just felt sad. How does stress affect, and I know we’re just talking, and as parents, we don’t know all the answers, but I think we can both relate to every one of these things in this pyramid.
And the thought that people don’t feel loved or like they belong, I mean, how do we get to that place as parents?
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Sure. And this is a model that applies to any kind of stress. My first application was in the context of unemployment, people who lost their job, which affects, if that’s ever happened to you, it’s affection on multiple levels.
It’s financial, it’s keeping a roof over your head, and it’s also your connections with other people, your sense of self-worth and esteem, and kind of the higher level needs. So this applies to that event of unemployment, but it also applies to RDI because oftentimes it’s challenging on multiple levels, beginning from the bottom, just making sure your child is physically safe and healthy and eating and not hurting anybody or himself or herself. That gets into safety and preventing bad things from happening.
And then kind of love and belonging. What’s good about this pyramid is that this is RDI’s territory, helping people build positive relationships. But love and belonging often gets challenged with among the RDI parent community.
Frankly, the divorce rate is higher than average. And what sometimes happens is typically the mother leans in to take care of the child and blocks out the rest of the family, which is a mixed bag. The child can benefit to some extent, but it can also cause harm.
And so that’s a risk factor, but it’s part of the game that we’re in. It’s better than abandoning ship, right? But love and belonging is something that we have to make sure we continue to nurture, as well as esteem and having our child grow into adulthood, feeling like we have a good sense of self-worth and that we do as parents and that we didn’t cause this problem and we’ve done our best to make the most of it.
And of course, self-actualization is sort of the top of the game. These days we use words like well-being. Are we living our best life?
Are we living in consistently with our values and our purpose? Do we have nurturing relationships and can we be resilient? So it’s a small-purpose framework.
You can just use this in your own situation to think about sort of how am I doing? We’re in a situation that we have to find our way through. We didn’t cause this, but there are things we can do to help.
Kat Lee: And I’m thinking so much about the parallel process of our children being in this situation too. Yes. Our parents in stress, but we want to talk today about that parallel process with our children.
How are they doing? Are they feeling like they are being loved and belonging? What about their esteem?
I think they can suffer so much there, Tom.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: That’s true. They can feel left out or like they’re not living up to expectations. As they get older, esteem issues don’t go away.
If anything, they become worse. You know, I’ve interviewed some adult people on the spectrum and one person who was memorable to me said, I said, how’s it going? He says, oh, fine.
I’ve got a job. I’m well-respected. I do what’s expected.
And I said, but you don’t sound enthusiastic. He said, frankly, I don’t know why I get out of bed in the morning. I think I’m on the wrong planet.
You know, I don’t feel connected to other people in a way that nourishes myself. So that’s what we want to avoid. We want to tap that natural ability that that person has and help them actualize it.
Kat Lee: Well, I know we as parents, we’d never want our children to feel that way, you know? And it’s what I love about what we’ve done in RDI, because as you said, it’s so focused on every one of these areas.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yes, in particular, just relationships are the core of it. It’s not just about executing behaviors in a prescribed manner or getting rewarded for things. It’s building healthy, dynamic relationships, which everybody needs on the planet.
It’s not just people on the spectrum.
Kat Lee: Everybody. So we’re going to look at sources of stress. You know, here we go.
We can make our lists, but we’ll go with this list.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: You can put your child’s names on the side if you want.
Kat Lee: Yeah, exactly. Wow, this is a lot. Well, and I think, interestingly, having been on the roads we’ve been on, I mean, we’ve experienced all of these.
I mean, it’s like, you know, it’s not like I can point to one and go, oh, that’s the one. You know, it’s all occurred at one point or another, honestly. So knowing that, that’s a lot for anyone.
And I think it goes back to for any one parent or also their child to be experiencing these triggers, right? Sure.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yeah. And you can use this framework, whether you’re a provider or a parent or helping your child to think about the sort of triggers in a more, in a useful way.
Kat Lee: You know, I think just knowing that you have triggers can help you be mindful about that. Rather, because what can happen is you can be having these experiences and not really knowing that one of these things is causing the stress. Isn’t that true?
Like you don’t realize it.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yeah, that’s true. And particularly with my son who’s impaired, things that happen unexpectedly can be a trigger for him. And we’ve been trying to turn that into a learning opportunity where, you know, we don’t, the day’s not going to go according to our expectations exactly, but it can also open up new opportunities.
So if, you know, the movie theater is closed when we’re going to see a movie, hey, that frees up time to do something else. And what might we do, you know, differently to take a different lens to look at the events versus having each one kind of set you off.
Kat Lee: Well, and that points me to your positivity and how valuable that can be. So speaking of that, that kind of leads us to coping because that’s what we have to do. We have to cope.
So this was really interesting. Just thinking about psychological traits and how they relate to stress tolerance. So I guess these, you can explain this to us, but these are just different ways of handling it.
Tell us a little bit about this.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Well, the psychological traits are, there’s a whole field of positive psychology that we’ll get to in a minute, but it’s been developed over the years as a way of focusing on the positive side of human nature and not just using psychology as a way of kind of treating mental illnesses. And so that’s what we’re trying to do now. And what research has shown that there’s certain psychological traits that relate to doing better than other people under stress.
And those are things like maintaining calmness versus like going into panic mode, say if something goes wrong, being conscientious, kind of following a plan of action, being sort of rational. Extroversion, reaching out to other people is something that predicts well-being and openness to change. That’s what I just said about my son.
I’m trying to teach him to be open to new possibilities when things don’t work out as expected. So those are certain traits. And we can nurture those traits in our self, but to a large extent, they’re baked in, whether it’s genetic or early development or what.
So I have a friend who’s an attorney, nothing against attorneys, she happens to be one. And she said, you call yourself an optimist. I said, oh, yeah, that’s true.
She said, you know what an optimist is, Tom? I said, no, what’s an optimist? She said, no, no, you know what a pessimist is.
And I said, well, tell me. She said, pessimist is an optimist who is better informed about things. But you know, I joke about that.
It’s a funny joke and observation. Some people tend to be possibility and open-minded, and other people tend to worry about what might happen and think about sort of the negative side. But both things can be useful.
I mean, you know, people who are concerned about what might go wrong, you know, a lot of mothers are like that and fathers too. And that can be helpful, but in balance where you don’t cause unnecessary alarm, but you might have a plan in case things do go wrong.
Kat Lee: Well, what I like about this list of traits here is that you don’t have to be all of them. So I don’t want somebody to go, oh, my gosh. No, these are different traits that people have.
I have a friend who’s very calm, but she’s more of an introvert, but her calmness and her conscientiousness really support her. So it’s not like every one of the, you have to be the perfect person here for this tolerance. Any one of these can support you, correct?
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: I think that’s true. And I think people tend to have all those elements. It’s just a question of what you nurture.
So you might remind yourself that now’s the time to be calm as things start looking like they’re getting out of hand and to take a conscientious and planful approach versus, you know, kind of reacting. So you can borrow these elements of these traits and apply them.
Kat Lee: Okay. You said we’re going to talk about applying positive psychology and you’re the expert.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Sure. And I will, can you show the slide before this one, Kat? Yeah.
Yeah. I pulled these concepts from a book called The How of Happiness, which I recommend you reading. And it’s based on, what I like about it is it’s research-based and it’s aimed at helping people become happier.
And as it turns out that 50% of happiness tends to be genetic. Some people are naturally happier than others. They’re just born that way and good for them.
You know, we go through life with different, you know, bags of tricks. 10%, but only 10% is due to what happens to you. And that’s another research-based one.
There’s already a study that followed people who won a lottery, a financial lottery, they won a lot of cash, and they compared them with people who were in horrible car accidents and were physically injured. And six months after the event, their happiness was just about the same. So they became very happy if they won a lot of money and very unhappy if they were terribly hurt.
But people tended to, you know, come back to a set point. But the other 40%, this is the important part, we can control. And the way we control it is by framing, which means—let’s think about putting a frame around something.
Framing means like thinking, is this something that we can handle? And then, you know, doing something about it. I once interviewed an emergency room physician who led a team of people in a hospital emergency room.
And I said, what do you do when, you know, a tough case is coming in and the ambulance is backing up to the door of the building? He said, Tom, I sneak into the corner. I take a few deep breaths.
I take my pulse because I’m a doctor. And then I tell myself, you can do this. And then I say, we can do this.
And then that’s it. The whole thing might take a minute. But I jump into action for six hours after that, and we have positive outcomes.
So, but that’s the frame. So, he doesn’t say, oh, my goodness, an emergency, whatever we’re going to do. He said, bring it on.
You know, we’re ready. So, that’s the framing. And you can think about applying a frame to whatever’s going on in your life, particularly things that are kind of stressful.
And then the next thing is doing. Like, what can you do about it? Because we often have—we may often forget that we have—we don’t want to feel like a victim when there’s nothing we can do.
And so, it’s helpful to think about what those actions are. And I can get into more detail there.
Kat Lee: Well, and I think about how you know this, I’m sure, as a parent, but you can get really weighed down and not really get a frame around anything that’s going on. And what I hear you saying is it’s really important to take that time to—like the doctor you talked about, he went and he took the time to frame before he did instead of just doing. And I hear you saying it’s important for us to take that time.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: It really is a starting place. And that’s what I like about RDI is that it’s a planful approach, and it’s based on observation and real data and thinking about where the leverage points are. So, it helps with that kind of framing.
Kat Lee: Well, I want to go over some tools for coping before we go. But I’m reminded, as we start talking about this, Dr. Gutstein and Dr. Scheele, who’ve both done beautiful podcasts on crisis and experiencing crisis, and a particular podcast with Dr. Scheele on re-crisis, that as parents, we may go through crisis in the beginning and then something happens and we’re kind of in a re-crisis time. And we may experience that over time many times.
It’s life as well that occurs. And so, we have to kind of return to thinking about how crisis affects us, which of course, right up there at the top is stress, the crisis creating the stress. So, I think this area of thinking about how to cope when those things happen.
And I know, and I know you do too, my own experience, but also the parents that I’ve worked with, that this can happen very suddenly. So, I did a series with Dr. Sarah Whalen, who serves with us on the advisory board, about the emotional rollercoaster ride and how you can have just a fantastic time where your child is really growing, but something can happen and like it plunges you into a crisis. So, I think these tools are really important for when that happens for our parents.
So, this is your area. So, I’ll just let you talk about positive thinking.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Sure. It’s my area, my passion, but I didn’t invent these concepts. They’re all based on real life experience of people and lots of data.
So, you can read up on it and do it more. But what I also like about them is that they’re very intuitive. You just put the words on the page and say, I got it, Tom.
So, but gratitude and positive thinking really drive a lot of people of stress management and they affect your whole orientation for the day. So, you can practice gratitude in a way that makes the most sense to you. What makes sense to me is to do it on a daily basis and to do it in the beginning of the day and just kind of reflect on what you feel good about, grateful for.
And it’s almost like having a launching pad. I feel like I’m in a good place. I have support.
I have an opportunity. I have a way to be successful. You can keep a journal.
I’m not much of a journaler. Well, actually, sometimes I am. It depends.
But some people like to keep a journal because it reminds you of where you’ve been and where you’re going and keeping disciplined about it. Remember, we said earlier about people who are conscientious tend to do better under stress. So, conscientious people keep journals.
And the silver linings exercise has to do basically about positive thinking, like what’s going well when you’re in your life? What do you feel good about? Because oftentimes those things get lost in the shuffle.
But just a quick story. I was helping my older son. He’s learning to shave, right?
And he had trouble taking the hair off his face. And I foolishly picked up a pair of manicured scissors to cut it. And I poked him.
And it scared him more than anything else. And he said, oh, my God, you stabbed me in the face with a knife. But then he paused and he said, at least you tried.
So, I love that.
Kat Lee: That is a definite silver lining.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Very awesome.
Kat Lee: Very awesome.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: He’s learning to cope with unexpected events.
Kat Lee: Yeah. And I like what you said about journaling. One way or another, it’s so important as parents that we know what progress we’ve made.
And when something happens that’s distressing, it can feel like, did that really happen? Have we really made progress? So, finding a way, if it’s not journaling, and I agree with you, I’ve journaled on and off.
I would never say consistent. But finding a way to keep track of that is really important, because it can feed you in those darker times that you really have moved forward. And this is maybe a setback, but that doesn’t mean we won’t keep moving forward.
And I thought this on social connections is so important. But we talked about before that, unfortunately, social connections are something a lot of our parents lose for one reason or another. And I’m just so glad that we’re going to talk about that for a moment.
And we could probably spend an hour talking about why social connections are lost. But I think the points you put on here, practice acts of kindness, seek opportunities to connect, and nurturing the relationships that you have, I think it’s so important.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Sure, it is. And I think this all demonstrates that we’re social animals. We’re meant to connect with each other.
I first delivered this presentation during the height of COVID, when we’re supposed to think of every other person on the planet as an enemy, and to stay away from them at all costs, and maybe have a webcast like this, but don’t get any closer. One young gal once, COVID’s affecting her social life, she says, oh, everything’s fine. I just don’t date anyone within six feet.
Let me know how that goes. But that was five years ago. Now, we’re in a different place.
But I think it’s also been shown that on a retail level, kindness can really pay off. And there have been people who’ve done these exercises where you get on the subway, or bus, or grocery store, and make a point of talking to a stranger. And they find that that’s really, it brings out the kindness in the other person, and it can be very gratifying.
And just practicing simple acts of kindness. Some people occasionally will surprise, like somebody buys your coffee when you’re in line at the coffee place. That’s one act that somebody did to me once, I was surprised by it, but I really appreciated it.
But just even little things like, I find that driving, believe it or not, even in Boston, where I live, can be an opportunity for demonstrating kindness. Letting people get into the road, giving them their space, waving them on. Driving happens best when people accommodate each other versus everybody being out for themselves.
Kat Lee: Well, as a person who spends a lot of time on the road in Dallas, Fort Worth, those acts of kindness would really impact people because it’s very competitive out there.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yeah, be careful with that one. I’m not going to promise it works in all driving situations. But the thing about it is also noticing, because people often will try to be kind to you as well.
Just little things, letting you in.
Kat Lee: Yeah, I love that. And I think people be surprised how much that mindful act actually benefits both. It has a lot of power, something that seems so small.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yeah, and they’re seeking opportunities to connect, even if it’s at the grocery store or saying, what a nice day it is. The people really can respond to that. I think it has a nurturing effect.
Kat Lee: This area here, again, we could talk for, just this one slide, we could talk for an hour on taking care of your body and your soul. It’s so important. And a couple of podcasts back, Dr. Shealy and I talked a bit about taking care of the body in a basic way, doctor’s appointments, dentist, diet, and how those things kind of get in the back seat. Or if you have a van, the back of the van. Parents, when their children are struggling, how can we help them know? Because it’s so important that you take care of yourself.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yes, it’s like the old airline message, in the event of an emergency, put on your gas mask first, and then assist your child. So saying it’s not being selfish, it’s making yourself more effective by taking care of your own health. And you’re also modeling good health behavior to your child, so they’re learning.
I think we tend to be obsessed with our child’s health, but that can’t be the only thing we focus on.
Kat Lee: Yeah. And for some reason, it’s one of those things that can feel like, well, it can wait. You know what I’m saying?
Like, well, my body can wait. And we know that’s a way for that body to break down.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: That’s true. It makes you more vulnerable.
Kat Lee: So that leads us to a really challenging one, which is living in the present. And I think as an optimistic person, that’s one of the things you do, is you live in the present. Tell us about this.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Well, this is another area where I think RDI nurtures this kind of behavior. But a lot of my flow activities with my son were doing joint projects and baking together and putting up birdhouses. It still is.
And there’s a certain amount of flow in that, and kind of going back and forth in terms of relationship building. And let’s try this, and let’s try that. And didn’t that work well?
And what can we do differently? And just celebrating that we built a birdhouse. And I think those are all kind of sort of flow activities.
They’re not aimed just at accomplishing a specific task or a specific behavior. They’re just two people engaging as humans in a way that strengthens their relationship. It’s also, in terms of living in the present, we’re not focused.
We can celebrate what’s happened. We probably don’t want to dwell on the past in terms of things that have gone wrong or worry about the future and what might go wrong. But living in the present allows you to just focus on where we are now in this moment of time and celebrating it and acknowledging it and getting ready for the next great phase.
Kat Lee: You know, it’s interesting to think about what living in the present is, but what it’s not. And I think families, parents can sometimes live in the past. Did I make a poor decision?
Did that impact my child’s life? I think that can be so hurtful and unhealthy for them. And the other area, which I think is really, for me, I struggle, is living in the future.
I’ve got a plan for the future. I’m big into plans. So I think you can miss the beauty that’s happening in the present.
And I mean that seriously. It reminds me of hiking in the Grand Canyon. Allow me a moment.
So we just went and hiked. And I was saying to my family, we’ve done this before, and I think I didn’t even get a chance to enjoy it, to see how amazing it is. I mean, it’s hard.
You can’t even really take a picture that represents it. Because the hike is so hard. And believe me, the hike up, because when you go down, you have to come back up.
And let’s just make sure we pause and stop and look. Because if that, there’s nothing for the most athletic person there, I can tell you, because I’ve seen so many different people on that hike up. But it’s very challenging.
But if you don’t stop and enjoy the amazing part of it, you’re missing out on the great things happening in the present.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: That’s what mountain climbing is supposed to be all about, right? Get to the top and look out at the view. Although you may not always make it to the top, still there’s a view.
Kat Lee: Yeah. So I think it’s a good example of making sure that we take a moment to look around the present, you know? But it can be hard.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: It can be hard, because we often have a lot of challenging situations to deal with in the present. But we need to frame it in a way that is manageable and that we can nurture ourselves.
Kat Lee: Okay. I’m really big into goals.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yeah, sure.
Kat Lee: I think that, you know, if we don’t have goals, we don’t know where we’re going.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yeah.
Kat Lee: And I like that, as we’re getting close to the end here, we’re going to talk about that that’s important. I know if you have too many goals, it can be overwhelming. So I’m thinking making sure that goals aren’t overwhelming is really important.
What do you think?
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yeah, I agree. This is that conscientious part, the trait, again, coming up. And this stuff, again, is all research-based.
So people who make plans are more likely to achieve them than people who kind of wing it. And so one point is really taking time to make a plan. And the second thing is committing publicly to it.
So it’s not just a secret plan. It’s like there’s some stakes in the action. You tell your husband, your wife, or others around you, here’s what I aim to do.
And just by doing that, people tend to be more likely to take action to make it happen. It’s just a natural instinct. And the third thing is celebrating success.
So when you actually achieve your goal, helping a child ride a bike, and they’re riding the bike, take a time for you all to celebrate. And that kind of wires in the experience and helps you with other goals.
Kat Lee: Well, and when you say that, it goes back to here, live in the present and celebrate your goal. Yes. You know, try not to think of the next thing that you don’t have yet.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: These things are all interwoven. Yeah. I always also say they’re not, there’s like, we’ve probably listed a dozen things.
It doesn’t need to get complicated. And a lot of it’s what your grandmother would have told you, you know, in terms of, you know. That’s true.
Sensible about things and down to earth and committing to goals and so forth. But it’s also the scientists in you would find that these things actually do predict success.
Kat Lee: Yeah. And, you know, I know Tom and I, and this is so important, knowing when to seek help, you know, as, as parents, we’ve certainly understand that if you need to get help, we want to, we want you to do that. And we want you to kind of goes back to taking care of your body.
You have to take care of your mind.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Yes.
Kat Lee: It’s so important. Do you find that people sometimes don’t realize they need help?
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Or that they’re blocking it out of their mind, because they’re hoping things don’t get as bad as they could. And so they get to the point where they just have to call 911, which nobody really wants to do. But what’s a more positive approach is to think about, you know, the worst that, not in a negative, fear mongering way, but just think about realistically, what could my child do?
You know, might he run into traffic? You know, might he hurt himself or hurt somebody? And if that’s within the realm of possibility, what can we do about that?
First of all, how can we prevent that? What would be some actions that we might take? And, you know, if things got, let’s say if my, if your child became very uncontrollably aggressive and, you know, parents might not like to think about that, what would you do?
When might you need outside help? Somebody to help your child be in a place where they’re not going to hurt people until they get over that phase. I lived through that one, so I know that well.
But, and I know that it’s better to think about in advance and have some thoughts in mind and a plan than to make it all up on the fly when you’re in a crisis state.
Kat Lee: I have a family member who’s a therapist, and in the field she’s in, the therapists are told to have therapists because they see so much in life and help people so much with some really challenging things. So I think it’s important that everybody knows it’s okay to get help. And it’s not just okay, you may need to, or you may need to get, as you said, need to get help for your child that’s specialized.
And if that’s okay too, it’s no poor reflection on anyone to do that.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Sure. And it also helps a bit if the helpers are introduced to you in advance of an emergency situation so they know, you know, what to expect and, you know, how they might be most helpful.
Kat Lee: Well, one of the things that struck me today is how you said, everything we’ve talked about just goes, flows into each other. And I’m going to go back to here and your silver linings, and just keeping in mind that there’s going to be these up and downs, but there are those things that when you can take a step back, you can see, really see that there are these silver linings, Tom.
Tom Atkinson Ph.D.: Sure. That’s true. This comes from my research on not autism, but unemployment.
I interviewed families where one or the other spouse had been unemployed, and sometimes people suffered greatly and felt disoriented and didn’t know how they were going to get through the process. But other times, I would talk to the person and they’d say, you know, this unemployment thing, you know, has its negative side, but boy, it really helped me take a pause and think about my career and how I’m applying myself and strengthen my relationships with my family. And I think it’s going to be a launching pad to something much better.
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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