The loneliness of that realization, that my daughter might have to shoulder the consequences of these stigmas, made me heartsick. I'd made myself believe she would only be challenged by her race and gender, not the basic ability to speak her mind.

It wasn't about control of me over him, or him over me. It was something that we both had to get used to; Tal's mom is a person who does things that do not always relate to Tal.

When children are very young, they have a hard time seeing a different point of view than their own. Most young children seem like that for the first years of their lives. It takes a long time for them to realize their view of the world is different than others.'

What I would really like to tell you about is not my son's progress, but of the lessons I've learned from his experience.

As the parent of a child with autism, I discovered a peculiar thing: Many things that cause stress, or at least some annoyance, to other parents are causes for joy or at least satisfaction for me.

I cannot think of a better gift for the coming Jewish year than knowing that your child is a caring, helpful friend.

Rather than the loudest-is-best approach, we need to understand why our message is unclear and use better methods to go about helping our children understand.