Autism Awareness

April is Autism Awareness Month and April 2nd is National Autism Awareness Day.  I read an article yesterday by a woman who was upset that April is set aside for Autism.  Her reasoning is that she was upset that anyone would want to celebrate Autism.  As an Autism mom, she didn't understand why anyone would want to celebrate the struggles and chaos that typically surrounds the diagnosis.   I closed out the article feeling torn.

As a fellow Autism mom I could totally relate to what she was saying- the struggles, the endless days of meltdowns and torn up house, head banging, crying, screaming, the constant rigidness, sensory issues, sleeplessness, etc.  But I also disagreed with her.  April isn't Autism Celebration Month, it's Autism AWARENESS Month and I think that's exactly what our society needs more of.  And that's exactly what we strive for in writing this blog.  We want people to understand Autism more and what our family goes through on a daily basis.  We want people to know why we chose a Service Dog for our son and how Sunny helps Charlie constantly, every day (even if sometimes it looks like she's just sitting there).  We want people to know that Autism might look different on every child/adult who has Autism.  We want people to know how they can help, how they can interact with our kiddos and include them in social situations- even if it might be a bit challenging.

We want people to know we see the stares when we're in public and if you're going to make any comments, helpful/caring comments are best rather than judgmental comments.  We want people to know our kiddos are amazing- they are smart, funny, creative, beautiful kids and want to be loved and included just like everyone else.  We want people to know we want to help people understand more about Autism so that it doesn't seem so foreign or scary.  We know some of the things we do with our kiddos are unconventional or may seem odd- but for them it's exactly what they need.  We personally incorporate sensory activities into our daily schedule for Charlie because we know he feels better and can stay more regulated when we do.

Hard to tell, but we incorporated sensory activities in our Easter Egg hunt on Sunday- the boys needed to use our climbing wall to get some of their eggs!  Charlie's left hand is about to grab an egg in this picture. 

Charlie was excited to dye Easter eggs for about 3 seconds until he realized he had to get messy.  You can see here he only dyed one side of his egg so he didn't need to touch the dyed Cool Whip!

So don't be surprised if you see a lot of posts from us in the coming days/weeks.  Because we're going to be present during Autism AWARENESS Month to help educate people for better understanding and acceptance.  And we invite you to ask questions!  We don't take offense to any questions asked because with questions we know what people need to know more of!!  We're pretty open about our Autism journey.  Join us!!  You can comment here on the blog, email: kayla.king17@gmail.com, or I'm also on Facebook and Instagram: EssentialKings.