A therapist came to my home with a plan.

Matthew was four years old, waking before 4:30 every morning, and the days were exhausting. The therapist, trying to help us structure our long mornings, set up toys on low shelves, photographed each one, and assembled a small photo book. The sequence she directed: look at the picture, retrieve the toy, play with it, return it to the shelf, turn the page, repeat.

It looked organized. Intentional. Professional.

And as I guided my son through it, I felt nauseous.

Her intention was to be supportive. But what she'd built had nothing to do with play, nothing to do with joy, nothing to do with Matthew. And yet, because a credentialed professional had offered a solution, I followed it.

I abandoned the approach not long after. But the memory stayed. Not of the failed strategy, but of the moment I felt something clearly in my body, knew it was wrong, and stayed silent anyway.

That feeling, I came to understand, was information.

There Are Different Kinds of Discomfort and They're Not the Same

One kind of discomfort is part of the territory. Raising an autistic child means living with uncertainty, sitting with questions that don't have answers yet, and trusting processes whose results take time to show. I’m not convinced that discomfort ever fully goes away. Learning to carry it is part of the journey.

But there's another kind, the kind that isn't asking for patience. It's asking for attention.

The difference matters. When a therapist began reaching into Matthew's mouth during mealtimes to retrieve food he was actively eating, I felt it immediately. It wasn't uncertainty. It was clarity. But I waited too long to act on it. Matthew didn't, he bit her. And my response to the outraged therapist was simple: “I would have bitten you too.”

He was right. So was I. Our instincts were intact the whole time.

Expertise About a Population Is Not the Same as Knowledge of Your Child

This is the distinction I needed to recognize.

Professionals bring real and important value. They see patterns across many children, understand research, and offer frameworks that genuinely help. That is so incredibly valuable. But general expertise about autism is categorically different from years of close, continuous observation of one specific child.

When Matthew's school announced a uniform policy — khaki pants, polo shirt. I called to ask why. My son had an intense reaction to buttons. We were working diligently to prevent him from lunging at people wearing them. The uniform was full of them.

The administrator explained that they instituted the uniform policy because the children would need to dress professionally for work one day.

Matthew was four.

I ended the conversation without drama, without winning the argument, without needing anyone to agree. I simply said my son wouldn't be participating. And I meant it.

Slowing Down Before You Comply

If you're currently sitting in rooms, IEP meetings, therapy sessions, school conversations, nodding along while something quiet in you says this isn't right, the most useful thing you can do is slow down.

Not necessarily stop. Just slow down enough to ask yourself: is this discomfort asking me to be patient, or asking me to pay attention?

You have been watching your child, carefully and continuously, longer than anyone else in any of those rooms. As a former attorney, I spent years learning to build arguments and push back when something didn't hold up. It still took time to trust that same instinct in the spaces where my son's life was being shaped. That knowledge, the kind that lives in your body after years of close observation, doesn't require a credential. It requires you to trust it.

For the full conversation, including more of Matthew's story and how to start telling these two kinds of discomfort apart, watch the complete video on YouTube.