Children with autism and their parents
A child’s autism diagnosis affects every member of the family in different ways. Parents/caregivers must now place their primary focus on helping their child with ASD, which may put stress on their marriage, other children, work, finances, and personal relationships and responsibilities. Parents now have to shift much of their resources of time and money towards providing treatment and interventions for their child, to the exclusion of other priorities. The needs of a child with ASD complicates familial relationships, especially with siblings. However, parents can help their family by informing their other children about autism and the complications it introduces, understanding the challenges siblings face and helping them cope, and involving members of the extended family to create a network of help and understanding.
Stress – something parents in general are all too familiar with. There is the physical stress from carpools, preparing meals, bathing, homework, shopping, and so on. This is compounded by such psychological stressors as parent-child conflicts, not having enough time to complete responsibilities and concern regarding a child’s well-being. When a family has a child on the autism spectrum, unique stressors are added.
Raising a child with autism places some extraordinary demands on parents as individuals and on the family as a whole. Prime among these demands is the lack of enough hours in the day to do all one wishes. Specifically, the time involved in meeting the needs of a family member with autism may leave parents with little time for their other children.
Many parents feel that even as they do all they can for their child with autism, they are always struggling with how best to respond to the needs of the family as a whole. They say that although their own life as an individual may be put “on hold” and a couple may share an understanding of the need to make sacrifices on behalf of their child with autism, few parents are willing to make that same demand of other children in the family. As a result, there is a continual tension between the needs of the child with autism and those of the other children.
Research indicates that the majority of brothers and sisters of children with autism cope well with their experiences. That does not mean, however, that they do not encounter special challenges in learning how to deal with a sibling who has autism or a related disorder.
There are some more problems for parents which are connected to social environment. People pity children with autism, and so, traumatize their parents. It is a problem of awareness about the specific nature of the disease. For example, parents do not need to see the awkwardness on people’s faces when they’re around the child, they want everyone to know that not all autism is the same, they need empathy and not judgement.
ANCAAR is a centre which does a lot of good and necessary work for children with autism and their parents. During this period which I’ve spent in the centre, I’ve seen so much love and care for children. They work very hard and are dedicated to the therapy of the children. I wish that there would be more of these kind of centers, because they can make parents’ lives easier. It is necessary that there be more education on these subjects and for more volunteers to help out in these kind of centres.
