I suck at being a mother to two autistic children. As a self diagnosed autistic person myself, I struggle to come out of myself and focus on my children. There are things kids are ‘supposed’ to do, that my children just don’t, and I don’t know what to do about that. My 8 year old can’t swim. He can’t tie his shoes. They think they want to go to amusement parks, but then get super overwhelmed with the noise and the people and the rides, and we end up fighting or leaving after spending stupid amounts of money. They don’t want to go to parks and play and climb. They don’t like animals or zoos. They tried to go to cub scout camp and made it a day before getting so anxious they vomited. They don’t like most cartoons or movies. All the things kids are supposed to love, they don’t. As a boy mom I was prepared for sports games/practices, band concerts, instrument lessons, playing catch, going to parks. But we have gradually quit all of that.

At home we do projects. Mostly led by them, ideas they just randomly come up with, like,”let’s write a children’s book about trees, and publish it ourselves” or “let’s learn how to code our own video game that actually works, and then burn it onto a disc” or “let’s take apart this old computer.” or “let’s make a movie, and learn how to do stop motion, and green screen, and edit.” Most things cost at least some money for supplies, downloading programs and require parental supervision, participation, and/or active involvement. I get anxious and scared every day, worried about what project he’s going to come up with now, is it going to be too complicated or costly and I will have to convince him that we can’t do it, in a way that makes sense to him and doesn’t cause an explosion? I literally cannot keep him occupied all day, bc it would require a full lesson plan of 30 minute activities, all day long, and I already have a full time job without that added in. And like I said above, it’s not projects like play with play-doh or make slime. It’s ‘let’s build a computer’ or ‘let’s 3-d design and print our own chess set.’ Every project is insanely complicated, and usually far above a 3rd grader level. So then he gets frustrated and angry, and throws and breaks things.

I’m not doing a good job describing this, and I don’t know how to explain it better. The summary is, I dread being alone with my kid because A) I don’t know what to do with them, and B) I’m terrified i’m going to traumatize him or he is going to physically hurt me. And I don’t know how to make this better. He sees two counselors and he’s on meds that no 8 year old should be on. I want my happy smiley kind energetic four year old back. I don’t know how to help him be happy. I’ve failed.