In this episode of The Autism Mom Coach, Lisa Candera explores the common question autism parents ask: Am I expecting too much or not enough from my child? Learn how to stop parenting from fear and start leading with confidence and curiosity.
Are you constantly wondering if youre expecting too much or not enough from your autistic child?
In this episode, Lisa Candera, certified life coach and solo mom to a teen with autism, shares a relatable client story that illustrates this all-too-common parenting dilemma. She dives into the emotional rollercoaster of parenting an autistic child and explains how progress can trigger self-doubt, fear, and pressure to do morefast.
Listen in, as Lisa walks through why these reactions often stem from fear, not factand how shifting your mindset to one of confidence and curiosity can help you support your child in more grounded, effective ways.
In this episode, Lisa covers:
- The real reason this question shows up for so many autism parents
- Why fear-based parenting leads to burnout and inconsistency
- How to evaluate your childs readiness without panic or pressure
- The difference between curiosity-led parenting and comparison traps
- Why not every success needs to become a next step
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Transcript:
You are listening to episode 166 of the Autism Mom, coach.
Am I expecting too much or not enough from my child with autism?
Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. I am so glad you are here, and I hope you are doing well.
Before we get to today’s topic, which is a juicy one, I wanna remind you that I have spots open in my one-on-one coaching program. So if you’ve been thinking about working with me, now is the perfect time. In just 90 days, I will work with you one-on-one. And I will invite you into the group coaching program that I have that is only for my current and alumni clients, and you will transform your autism parenting experience quickly and with the support of me and an amazing community.
To get started, all you need to do is schedule your consultation call, by going to the link in the show notes or. My website, the autism mom coach.com. Alright, on to today’s topic.
I feel like as an autism parent, we are always in this push pull of whether to give our child that loving push forward out of the comfort zone, or whether to pull back or stay stationary.
Let me set this topic up with a scenario from one of my clients that really perfectly demonstrates that push pull that we. All sometimes feel .
She had just had a really positive experience taking her son out to a restaurant when something unexpected happened. So the scenario is, is that she has been taking her son to a Panera bread for some time. They go every week or so.
What she had not realized is that a pattern had developed within this outing, and she did not spot the pattern until it was about to be broken. So she and her son order their food. She’s filling up her drinks, all is going well. She looks over at her son
And he is standing patiently. in front of a corner table occupied by a group of women. And that’s when it dawned on my client . Every time we come here, this is where we sit.
She’s putting this together quickly in her mind, and the alarm bells start to go off like, oh no, we can’t sit there.
And her son was clearly wanting to sit where he sits. So she took a deep breath. She paused, she calmed herself down, and she calmly went over to her son
and said to him. We are sharing the restaurant with other people today, which by the way, I think is such a great line.. We are sharing the restaurant with other people, and right now we need to find another table. And her son accepted this answer. Probably didn’t love it, but he accepted it. They went to another table, ate their food, and every once in a while she would see him peer up from his food and look over at the table to see if it was vacated, yet it wasn’t. , but he kept it moving and he did a really great job.
When she was relaying this story to me, we were really focusing on how well he did adjusting to that sudden change because she had had some concerns about previous public meltdowns and the anxiety that creates in her. So, I was really wanting to drill down into this positive experience to figure out what went well for her, how she was able to calm herself down and recognizing the extraordinary job her kid did, in that pivot.
She was so proud of him. This was a win.
He was successful, and her thought went to, well, maybe I should make him do this more.
Maybe the next time we go to Panera, even if his spot. Sheldon Cooper is open. I should encourage him to sit somewhere else., and so this is where I had her pause because right there, this is what we all do.
We have a success. . We see our child handle something and handle it well, and our brain goes to, maybe I should push them more.
However, that push is not based on an evaluation of whether your child is ready for more or whether more in this circumstance is even appropriate. Underneath that instant question of whether I should be doing more is not curiosity so much as it is fear.
Fear that you’re holding your child back, fear that you’re getting in their way of progress. Fear that if you don’t push now, that you’ll miss the window. Fear that you haven’t been pushing them enough and you’ve been babying them or enabling them, . So what happens is we see these successes and we try to get ahead of it.
Because we want to prove to ourselves that we are not slacking and that we are on top of things, and that we are doing enough to help our child succeed. , but again, this is not coming from curiosity. This is not coming from confidence. It’s coming from panic.
It is coming from your panic about your child, about their future, about yourself, all of that. It almost has nothing to do with them at this point, . , because if it did, you wouldn’t go from,, he did really well at this thing. Let me add things on. It would go to getting curious and evaluating why did this work? Why do I think he was able to make this pivot in this time? Where else do I think I can encourage this?
You would get more detailed. You, would get more into the weeds of the evaluation versus that getting on Google and trying to figure out what else you can do.
, this is a very disempowering place to make decisions from. ,
even more than that, . It just sucks the joy out of the accomplishment, you can just let a win, be a win and enjoy it.
You do not need to use every win as a stepping stone to the next thing . . You get to just let your child live their life and love what they’re doing in the moment. And so, as I was coaching my client,
my question was, what would be the point of encouraging him to sit somewhere? He doesn’t want to sit in this situation after all, if going to Panera is supposed to be a treat and it’s something that he’s looking forward to. Why not let it just be that not every moment needs to be a teachable moment.
So back to the question, am I expecting too much or not enough
instead of wasting your time on this dead end question, ask yourself this question. Why am I asking myself this right now? What is happening that is resulting in me questioning this. Did I see something on Instagram where another child, my kid’s age is doing something, and then I’m wondering whether or not I’m pushing my child enough and then I start asking, am I doing enough?
Right there. Your question’s not necessarily being fueled by an evaluation of your child as they are right now in, in their circumstance. It’s based on something that you’re seeing on the internet.
Before you even go into an evaluation of whether you’re going to push your child out their comfort zone and a hundred percent, there are times that we want to do this, absolutely, but to do that, you really want to like your reasons why and you want them to be coming from what’s best for your child and not what’s going to make you feel like a better parent because now you can feel like you’ve done all the things.
Now of course I’m saying that as someone who’s done all of those things, I had, I put my son in a lot of therapies and a lot of situations pushed him further in times where he really didn’t need to be pushed because I was feeling that pressure that if I didn’t do enough, fast enough that he wasn’t going to quote unquote catch up.
And when I was coming from that energy, I burned out pretty quickly on whatever it was and didn’t stay consistent. , but when I was fueled by confidence and curiosity, I was able to stick to things better with my son and follow through and have a better experience for the both of us.
So before we even get to the nitty gritty of when to push and when to pull. Think about first why you’re asking yourself that question and where it’s coming from. Is it coming from confidence and curiosity or is it coming from, , I’m not doing enough.
Alright everyone, that is it for this week’s episode of the podcast. I hope you found this helpful and I will talk to you next week.
