{"id":5388,"date":"2015-07-06T10:17:55","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T14:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=5388"},"modified":"2015-07-06T11:19:11","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T15:19:11","slug":"permission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/07\/permission\/","title":{"rendered":"Permission"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Spring<\/a><\/p>\n

I admit, when it comes to Justin\u2019s childhood, I tend to go overboard.<\/p>\n

The truth is I never want him to miss out on anything, seeing as I\u2019m not overwhelmed by the landscape of choices he\u2019ll likely have as an autistic adult. I like to push him a bit to at least try something new, always hoping something will click.<\/p>\n

And so, the invitation to a birthday pool party came to pass.<\/p>\n

My gut told me we\u2019d drive an hour out to that army base, he\u2019d dunk his head in once, and immediately want to leave.<\/p>\n

My instincts told me I\u2019d stress out about finding the pool on that vast army base (and I did.) I knew inherently that just as I have to work to keep him at our own pool, he\u2019d probably show the same level of disinterest at this one. But in this race between my heart and my gut, my heart won, because Justin\u2019s classmates come from all over New Jersey, and there are no birthday party invitations.<\/p>\n

So we went. And he dunked once. And then he wanted to leave. The hostess couldn\u2019t have been more solicitous, but when my boy wants to go, he wants to go.<\/p>\n

And finally, in the future, I am giving myself permission to listen to my gut, not always my heart.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been doing this autism gig for twelve years now, me and my boy. Despite the fact that he only has a few words I understand his needs, can anticipate what DVD he\u2019s requesting as if by reading his mind. I know what he\u2019s asking for even when he can\u2019t articulate the words well. I get my boy.<\/p>\n

And from now on, when I know in my soul he just won\u2019t want to do something, I\u2019m giving myself permission to just say no.<\/p>\n

For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com\/
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I admit, when it comes to Justin\u2019s childhood, I tend to go overboard. The truth is I never want him to miss out on anything, seeing as I\u2019m not overwhelmed by the landscape of choices he\u2019ll likely have as an autistic adult. I like to push him a bit to at least try something new, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":5389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,295,294],"class_list":["post-5388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance","tag-autism-awareness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Spring-2015-167.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1oU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}