Whole Self

05/04/2026

I just showed this to my daughter…and we both laughed HARD 🤣🤣🤣

03/04/2026

03/04/2026

Excellent list! Thank you, Joy of Autism! ❤️

02/04/2026

Today is World Autism Awareness Day

A day to recognise, respect, and celebrate neurodiversity, while also acknowledging the very real challenges many individuals and families face every day.

Autism is not one-size-fits-all. For some, it brings incredible strengths. For others, it can be overwhelming, exhausting, and isolating. Both can be true at the same time.

Today isn’t just about awareness, it’s about understanding, acceptance, and meaningful support.

Let’s keep showing up, listening, learning, and creating a world where every person feels safe, valued, and supported just as they are.

31/03/2026

Despite having two perfectly comfy mats, these HUGE dogs still insist on squeezing onto the one mat… and of course it’s the smaller one. Honestly 🤦‍♀️🐾

29/03/2026

You are not alone!!!

👉 No one talks about what this does to the parent…

Heavy Armour

This journey wears parents down. Not all at once, just… slowly.

Forms, emails, waiting, chasing. Fighting for children while losing parts of ourselves along the way.

Months pass. Sometimes years. And still — families are waiting, still chasing, still stuck.

The system doesn’t really see the parent. They become a role — the advocate, the organiser, the one holding everything together. And somewhere in all of that, who they were before starts to fade.

Careers shift or disappear. Identities change. Life narrows into managing needs, appointments, paperwork, and survival.

And there is no pause button.

Reports are read. Forms are completed. Systems are learned. Everything that’s asked is done — and still, help isn’t guaranteed.

Parents carry their child’s needs, their own struggles, and a constant underlying exhaustion. The parts people don’t see. The parts the system doesn’t measure.

And all the while… the system saves money.

But at what cost?

Because behind every delay, there’s a child waiting. And a parent doing everything they can not to fall apart.

Still, they keep going. Even when they’re exhausted. Even when they feel invisible.

Because they have to believe there will be a day when the weight lifts. When children are seen for who they are — not just what they need.

Until then, parents keep showing up. They keep fighting.

💬 If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.

29/03/2026

Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) is a pattern of behavior in which kids go to extremes to ignore or avoid anything they perceive as a demand. It is seen most often in people diagnosed with autism.

Because of that, parents sometimes call it “PDA autism.” Identifying PDA can be a helpful way to understand some kinds of difficult behavior, but it is not a subtype of autism or a separatediagnosis.

People with PDA tend to have an adverse reaction to being told how to behave or what to do, even when it’s something that’s an ordinary part of their daily life — and even when it would benefit them. It’s called pathological when the avoidance is extreme and interferes with functioning at home or at school.

Some autism advocates feel that calling a child’s avoidance of demands on them “pathological” could violate their autonomy. But, Dr. Martin notes, a big focus in working with kids with PDA behaviors is on building what are called “adaptive skills” — skills that will improve their quality of life and ability to live independently.

“We’ve known for decades that individuals with autism have a big discrepancy between their IQ and adaptive skills,” explains Dr. Martin. “These kids aren’t performing ordinary daily tasks, even though they have shown that they know how to do them. This leads to being dependent on parents and other caretakers despite their capacity to do things themselves.” Often parents perform tasks for kids on the spectrum long after other kids are doing things independently, she adds, thinking they’ll grow out of their dependence. But they may not, if they have been successful avoiding demands for a long time.

Establishing clear consequences when kids don’t comply with demands is important. But, she notes that changing what leads up to the avoidance — harnessing motivation for the child to comply and encouraging flexibility — is more effective as a tool to increase compliance in kids who fit the PDA profile. “We also may need to taper our expectations for what ‘compliance’ will look like because a neurodiverse child with autism may do things differently, so we cannot confuse those differences as being non-compliant.” (Child Mind Institute ❤️)

Image .com.au ❤️

27/03/2026

So proud to have watched this grow from the very beginning. Nat, you’ve created such an incredible, safe space, one that’s truly making a difference in building strong, resilient kids ❤️
Congratulations 🙌

26/03/2026

Every day I feel proud… but today is next level.
Today, Team Walter officially earned their community access jacket🐾
This didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of consistent effort, daily training, showing up, and putting in the work, again and again.
To watch this team grow, build their skills, and reach this milestone… honestly, I’m bursting with pride.
So well deserved 💚
Liz from A Dog's Choice Training Services, thank you so much for your commitment and support to all our teens and their furry friends over the years ❤️

25/03/2026

THIS 👇👇👇👇👇👇

20/03/2026

I came across this on another site and thought, what an important conversation for us to have to help families just starting this journey.

Let’s talk about the part of parenting a child with autism that no one really prepares you for…