August 13, 2025

Yesterday, I received devastating news about a close co-worker. I’m still on vacation, so received the news in the middle of hanging out with my son in Epic Universe. It was heavy, but I couldn’t really process it then in the park.

This morning, my husband and oldest child have gone to the water park, and my youngest needs some chill time at the hotel. This means roblox and YouTube for him. I finally felt the release and began sobbing. It’s been tough for me to cry over the past year — I’ll feel the tears well up, but won’t be able to release them. I finally had one of those satisfying sobs, the type that begin with the trigger grief I am experiencing, but then compound into bigger wails, because I start spiraling and thinking of alllll of the things that have gone wrong lately. And naturally, I gotta think about my trauma from 30 years ago–I mean, why not?

The most amazing thing happened. My son stopped his Roblox game immediately, not waiting for a save spot or anything. Just cold-turkey quit the game and threw the iPad to the side. He sidled up next to me, resting his head against me, and stroking my arm and head. He asked why I was crying. Then he continued to stroke me, saying, “Don’t cry, Mom.”

During this, I am signaling to him that it is okay to cry, and letting him know the main reason I started to cry. I think it is important for him to understand that crying does not equate to weakness, and to not hide from him why I’m crying. I shared with him that my friend is dying.

My son told me, “Do what I do, Mom. Breathe in, breathe out. Let’s calm down together.” He was using breathing techniques on me! Naturally, I thought, “What in the Daniel Tiger is this shit?”

He stayed with me until the moment passed for me. I felt relief for not only the outlet to express my grief, but also to see that empathetic side of my son. There is a lot of misinformation about autistics lacking empathy. That is not true–just like neurotypicals, autistic individuals can lack empathy, have empathy, or experience hyperempathy. With my youngest son, I do not see it too often–he is usually too involved in his own needs and world. In this moment, my son was showing me that he is able to learn from what I’ve taught him. All of those times we tried breathing techniques to no avail, all of those times I’ve provided physical comfort to my child melting down (while being punched or kicked)…he was still taking it in. He was learning this is what we do to try to comfort others. It tells me that even if what I do to try to comfort him does not appear to be working…maybe it is. Maybe the meltdown would be even worse if I weren’t trying to soothe him. All of this energy spent on soothing him in difficult moments has not been a waste of my time. His humanity is in there…he has empathy…he is able to leave his comfort to soothe another.

So, I guess what I’ll try to glean from this is that even when we don’t think we are teaching or imparting any social learning upon our children…they are still absorbing it. They are paying attention to us. Just continue being that amazing person you are because they are still soaking it up.