This page is dedicated to the mothers and fathers of children with autism.

   I do not know you or your situation. Maybe you already know everything I have to say. Maybe not. Read and take the bits you can use for yourself. Remember, I can only talk about what I have experienced and seen others go through.

   Take a deep breath and relax. Rome wasn't built on one day. You do the best you can, nobody can expect more. Nobody can either do better than his best.

   Nothing you did do or not do or forgot to do made your child autistic. It just is. I had a great problem with that.

   Be aware that your child has autism. There will always be something that you can not teach him. Try, for all means, but don´t get dissappointed if it doesn't work. Learn to live with autism, not against it. Experience the special charm your special child has. There are many ways to live in this world.

   Allow yourself to be sad when you are. Tears will not help but they relax you. Find somebody to talk to. That doesn't help either but feels good. First you will be sad quite often. When you see other children doing things your child is not able to do. When you read about autism. When.. what ever. Believe me, it will get so much less. Maybe it will never pass completely but some day it stops being an issue.

   I suppose you know the steps you go through when you hear that your child is different from other children. I got to know them all.

   First you will deny it.

   Then you will get angry. At the doctors, at your spouse, at yourself, maybe at the child himself.

   The next step is sorrow. The mourning of the child without autism you believed you would get. And the sadness.

   Then most people start fighting: you will read everything that you can get your fingers on about autism. You will go to doctors, to specialists and and try every silly idea you hear about (that step is where others earn money).

   Someday, without you really realizing, you will accept. You will learn until one day you become a specialist on your own child and maybe others, too.

   Take time to have a look at where you are now. It is ok to deny, to be angry, to be sad. For some time. But life goes on and your child gets older. Embrace each step and walk on. Realize that your spouse will have another pace than you.

   Get help. Don't wait for somebody to come and offer you help, work actively at it. You don't need to show anybody that you are able to cope by yourself. You, the parents, are the most important people in your child's life, you must stay healthy and sane. You only can give when you have something left to offer. Go, of course, to your family. Go to the community, church, whatever center you got and ask for help. Take time off for yourselves. Get away for a weekend. Try to have also place for a life without autism. I went to university again.

   Don't be afraid to let the child out of your eyes. Other people will never be able to offer him what you offer, but maybe they have other things up their sleeve. I could tell in the first minutes of an interview if I could leave my boy with this person. Just stay in the background and look at how your helper acts around your child. And be sure, your child will show you clearly if he does not want to be with some person, even if he is not able to talk.

   Meeting other parents helped us tremendously. They knew what we talked about when we told them about sleepless nights because our angel was awake, about brown stuff we had to wash off the walls, about splintered glasses, dishes and bowels beneath our windows. We could laugh together when I told about the white, lacy underwear floating down from the forth storey. They knew my feeling when the boy got lost, how it was to stand with a yelling child trashing the ground in the middle of a busy street. So, go and meet other parents.

   Most children I hear about have difficulties going to sleep or wake up in the night. Ours stayed in bed though when he got older and I could often hear him singing in his bed. I often wondered how he could get along with as little sleep as he did.

   Here in Iceland we got this weekendhomes for handicapped children to give the parents a rest. It was so tough to leave our son there for the first time. He cried there and I cried at home. So we gave up at that time, but one year later it worked fine.

   I had a lot of help coming through our house, some from the social help, some we paid ourselves. It was fine for me, but later his siblings said that is was terrible for them, never knowing whom they were going to meet coming home from school. So that would have been something to talk about and find a solution.