Autism & Advocacy Stuff

I grew up in the ’90s, when ADHD medication basically meant Ritalin and everybody had an opinion about “those kids.”

So when my own five-year-old was diagnosed with ADHD?

Absolutely not. Full stop. We will be exploring literally every other option, thankyouverymuch.

Fast-forward eight years and I am now writing a blog post about why my autistic/ADHD kid takes a blood-pressure medication for his brain.

😂 Parenting is humbling like that.

This one is about 80′ babies turned 90’s Ritalin kids, one very determined mother, a pediatrician who used my own logic against me, guanfacine, nervous systems, sleep, and the fear I carried for years that medication might somehow dim Eli’s light.

Spoiler: I had it backward.

The medication wasn’t there to make him quieter for us.

It was helping make things quieter for him.

If you’ve ever had strong opinions about medicating kids—or wrestled with the decision yourself—I hope you’ll read this one.

I don’t need Eli to blend into the world. I need him to understand it well enough to be safe in it. For our family, ABA isn’t about making him less autistic. It’s about giving him the tools to better understand himself, the people around him, and the situations he encounters every day.

What looks like defiance is most often confusion.
What looks like not listening is often him feeling like he’s drinking information from a fire hose.
What looks like a breakdown might be frustration from not having the words to explain what’s going on in his head.
What looks like shutdown is most often his brain reaching its limit.