The Harder You Pull, The Deeper The Thorns
You're in the middle of another meltdown. Your child is screaming, maybe hitting, maybe throwing things. Every instinct in your body says fix this. Pull them out of it. Make it stop. So you try—you redirect, you reason, you raise your voice, you physically intervene. And somehow, impossibly, it gets worse. The crying intensifies. The thrashing escalates. And you're left wondering what kind of parent makes their own child's pain worse by trying to help.
You're not failing. And you're definitely not alone.
Understanding What's Really Happening
Here's what nobody tells you when your child is first diagnosed—or when you're still in that exhausting limbo of something's different but we don't know what: the parenting instincts that work for neurotypical children often backfire spectacularly with autistic kids.
Think about what we're taught good parenting looks like. Be firm. Set boundaries. Don't let them "get away with it." Redirect behavior quickly. Fix problems efficiently. These approaches assume a nervous system that can process correction in the moment, that can shift gears on command, that experiences the world the way we do.
Your child's nervous system doesn't work that way. When they're in meltdown, their brain is in survival mode—flooded with stress hormones, unable to process language or logic, experiencing genuine neurological overwhelm. Every attempt to pull them out of it faster registers as another threat. Another demand. Another thorn digging deeper.
This is why the "strong, calm father" approach—the stoic, fix-it mentality many of us inherited—can feel like it's failing. It's not that you're weak. It's that you're using tools designed for a different kind of lock.
What Actually Helps
Stop pulling. Start breathing.
Before you can help your child regulate, you have to regulate yourself. This isn't weakness—it's neuroscience. Children co-regulate with their caregivers. If your nervous system is screaming emergency, theirs will too. Take three slow breaths. Drop your shoulders. Soften your voice. You're not ignoring the crisis; you're changing the environment.
Work thorn by thorn, not all at once.
Progress with autistic children rarely looks like the dramatic breakthroughs we see in movies. It looks like one small accommodation at a time. One trigger identified. One communication attempt understood. One meltdown that lasted 20 minutes instead of 40. When you stop expecting to yank them free in one heroic pull, you can start celebrating the thorns you did release today.
Question the destination, not just the method.
Sometimes we're so focused on getting our child to a "normal" place that we don't ask whether that place is right for them. The goal isn't to make your child indistinguishable from neurotypical peers. It's to help them build a life where they can thrive as themselves. That might look different than you imagined—and that's not failure.
Let go of the father (or mother) you thought you'd be.
Many of us carry an image of the parent we planned to become—patient, unshakeable, raising kids who fit neatly into the world. Autism asks you to become a different kind of parent. More flexible. More creative. More willing to look foolish in public if it means your child feels safe. This isn't a downgrade. It's an evolution.
The Bigger Picture
There's a moment—and it doesn't come on a schedule, and you can't force it—when something shifts. You stop seeing your child as trapped in something you need to rescue them from. You start seeing them as someone navigating a world that wasn't built for their brain, and your job isn't to pull them free. It's to get in there with them. Thorn by thorn. Together.
This doesn't mean the hard days disappear. It doesn't mean meltdowns stop or that you never feel frustrated or exhausted or completely lost. But it changes something fundamental in the relationship. Your child feels you working with them instead of on them. And slowly, carefully, you both find your way to clearer ground.
The thorns leave marks. On both of you. But so does the journey out.
If you're navigating this right now, you don't have to figure it out alone. AriaStar is here 24/7 - no judgment, just support from someone who gets it.
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