Love and Cupcakes: An ABA Update

When you have a child with special needs, you have lots of decisions to make that you never planned on making. We've struggled with knowing which therapy interventions to choose and which to pass over. Especially ABA, one of the most common treatments for people with autism.

In our family, we have strong values about what it means to be a whole, authentic person and how we should treat one another. We have Brene Brown's parenting manifesto hanging on the wall of Baby Bee's room. We strive to be gentle, child-led parents, who practice emotion coaching and regularly engage in our floor time therapies. We try to say "yes" more than we say "no", and save our "no's" for when it really matters or when it doesn't matter at all, but we have a really strong personal preference. We let Baby Bee eat re-fried beans off of two plastic horses rather than spoons, because, well, what do I care if that's what he needs to do every. single. time. he eats re-fried beans? At least he eats them.

So when it comes to choosing a therapy that is different than our family's usual approach, we've had to do a lot of reflecting. 


I imagine this situation happens to most of us--special needs or neuro-typical, parents or otherwise--at some point or another. You pour everything you have into the situation--your prayers, your intellect, your medical model, your healing crystals and your psychotherapy--in hopes that something might work. And maybe, for some of the lucky few, it does. Congratulations.

The truth for the rest of us, and for our family, is that the status quo isn't working. All the love and homemade (organic, gluten-free/dairy-free/refined-sugar-free) cupcakes aren't enough to change a differently structured brain.

(I wish they were.)

At first I thought this meant we had failed. That somehow we had chosen the wrong values,  the wrong parenting approach, or that we just hadn't tried hard enough on our own.

For the record, that's not the case.

Sometimes your kid needs therapy. Therapy you never intended to pursue. (Reminder: you never intended to have a child on the Spectrum either.) Sometimes living out your family values means being flexible and sensitive to the needs of the individual, and considering things you normally wouldn't consider because, well, this isn't about YOU. Sometimes it's your greatest chance to practice your own deep breathing and say, "Of course I'll do it, if it helps."

In some circles, ABA has a bad reputation. We'd heard rumors of ABA turning kids into reward driven machines craving approval at every turn. We'd listened to stories of therapists that are so focused on outcome that they'd demand it regardless of cost to the child. We called tons of providers who have essentially the same programs for each kid, and couldn't see the diversity of needs on the spectrum. We interviewed practices who forgot to ask what our goals as a family were and focused only on the diagnostic report. We tried one provider who continually "moved the carrot" so Baby Bee was always working but she was never following through on her end of the bargain. Another therapist regularly asked Baby Bee questions about his preferences then corrected him and followed through with her own agenda regardless of his response.  (He still says "yes", even when he means "no"--after only 8 hours of therapy with her.) These are all valid concerns. We just couldn't believe that these were the components that made ABA successful.

So we kept searching. Eventually, we found an ABA practice that we liked and we did it. We started that terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad ABA thing a few months ago.

And you know, what?

It's pretty great.

Our home therapist spent more than a month just playing with Baby Bee in our living room so he and the overseeing psychologist could develop appropriate programs to fit his needs. Moreover, so he and Baby Bee could establish a good relationship. 

Because that is what therapy is about.

(Yes, even ABA).

It's founded on a solid relationship with someone who has tools that might help you grow. Someone you can trust when they say, "Today we are going to try something new" or "I know this is hard. Keep trying!" It's possible that your child (who *only* plays with blue balls) will actually look at, and touch, the orange ball when the therapist says "Did you notice that the blue ball and the orange ball are identical except for the color? Look they are both squishy, small and round," even though you swear you've tried that same trick a thousand times before.

More than anything else, we want to raise is a child who knows what fully accepting love is. Who has experienced it, who can practice it, who can appreciate it wherever he spots it.  Nothing about throwing a ball (that's not blue), or practicing calming down after having been asked to put one more block on the tower, undermines who we are as a family or the type of person we hope Baby Bee will become.

In fact, I think ABA will help us get there.