{"id":23,"date":"2026-06-15T21:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T20:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/?p=23"},"modified":"2026-07-06T17:44:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:44:51","slug":"push-and-pull-how-my-increased-involvement-may-be-slowing-my-sons-recovery-from-autistic-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/?p=23","title":{"rendered":"Push and pull: How leaving my job to care for my son might have slowed his recovery from autistic burnout"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since I left work to be with my sons while they recover from autistic burnout, the effects on my 11-year-old son haven\u2019t entirely been what I\u2019d expected. I\u2019d really hoped that the impact of my increased availability would be entirely positive. However, what I\u2019ve actually noticed is that he\u2019s getting increasingly stressed by my bids to spend time with him and involve him in activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being more accessible for him was one of the major reasons that I took a step back in the first place, and I was seriously worried that he spends much of his time alone at his computer (mercifully, in the living room \u2013 where he is at least in proximity to me much of the time). In recent months he\u2019s been vocalising that he\u2019s lonely, and I\u2019ve wanted to increase the opportunities he has for connection with family and peers. Moreover, as the months tick by \u2013 my parental anxiety has been creeping up about the opportunities that he\u2019s been missing. His peers are at a pivotal time in their lives where they\u2019re reaching the end of primary school and they have new beginnings on the horizon, and this experience has been passing him by. I\u2019ve been concerned that my work has been a blocker to improving his quality of life and supporting him fully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of this concern, and since I\u2019ve had the time available, I\u2019ve been very frequently giving him the opportunity to come on short outings, join me in the garden, do something together at home \u2013 and more. I wanted him to know that even though he often may not want to join in, he is always welcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the impression I\u2019m getting is that this is not the message he is perceiving. The likelihood of him saying yes is becoming less. It may be that he is now associating time with me with pressure and my encouragement is pushing him backward and inward. This is not at all what I\u2019d hoped! But I\u2019m a fallible human with worries and sometimes these get the better of me, and shine through in my rush to bring him back into what resembles a more rounded life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of examples from the last week<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I had taken my younger child to a home education trampolining session the week prior, and my eldest had opted not to come. This week, though, he showed a little more interest after learning of how quiet it was likely to be. Once the time rolled around, however, he had firmly changed his mind and decided not to go. Thoughts crossed my mind such as, \u2018If he comes, he may really enjoy it and even meet others his own age!\u2019. He\u2019d been lonely and it felt important. I pushed. Several times. The wording may have been gentle, e.g. \u2018Are you sure you don\u2019t want to come?\u2019 but my son became distressed, and asked me to stop forcing him to do things. His wording was quite telling about how my actions are being perceived. I made a short video I\u2019d taken to show him the quietness of the venue after I got home, but that too made him upset likely because of the prior pressure I\u2019d put on him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, he had the opportunity to play some games with his cousin online. This is something he\u2019s done often, but this time he resisted. I appealed to him a number of times (not wanting him to miss an opportunity), and he ended up distressed \u2013 stating he just doesn\u2019t want any interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An observation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The feeling (desperation?!) behind the words seems to matter more than whether I use tools like declarative language, and try to phrase things in a non-pushy way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where I think I\u2019ve been going wrong<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that there\u2019s inherently wrong with inviting your child to join in with things, but  with autistic burnout in the mix, it\u2019s easy to forget how pressurising it can feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. What seems to be a particular problem is offering the same activity repeatedly when it\u2019s something I\u2019d really like him to join in with. Slightly lesser, but also a problem, is isolated offers for activities but at frequent intervals.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. I\u2019ve been overlooking recent achievements he\u2019s made\u00a0without\u00a0<\/strong>me pushing so hard, through a time where my invitations really were meant without expectation. He\u2019s gone from hardly ever being able to leave the house to making semi-regular trips. At its peak, he has even managed two days out at a soft play centre which would have been absolutely unimaginable a few months prior to that.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. I\u2019ve been overlooking the bigger picture of his capacity. The day before he said no to playing online with his cousin, he had spent a long afternoon at a friend\u2019s house (which again is an amazing achievement compared to what would have been managed a few months ago), and had just been told about a tutor that was coming to the home the following day (which he was really distressed about). <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    What I\u2019m going to try going forwards<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019ve told my son I can see that my invitations are causing him stress. So I\u2019ve made it clear that he is\u00a0always<\/strong> welcome whenever I do anything, but I\u2019m not going to keep verbally asking him to come. I\u2019ve told him he can tell me he\u2019d like to join in at any point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I will stop repeating the same invitation, and try to offer things genuinely without obligation, then (try and!) be patient and see if his distress reduces over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My career break isn\u2019t going to cause an immediate increase in his capacity, recovery can take a long, long time, and I need to take expectations at his own pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Not forgetting the good stuff<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    To buck the trend, there was a day last week where he did want to spend more time with me (which I discussed in my post \u2018Balancing Two Boys\u2019). This turns out to have been an anomaly rather than the norm \u2013 but is nonetheless nice to have experienced. As also mentioned previously, he\u2019s managed a a trip to a friend\u2019s house, and in the past month \u2013 two trips to soft play which amazed me at the time. I will hang onto this on the tricky days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since I left work to be with my sons while they recover from autistic burnout, the effects on my 11-year-old son haven\u2019t entirely been what I\u2019d expected. I\u2019d really hoped that the impact of my increased availability would be entirely positive. However, what I\u2019ve actually noticed is that he\u2019s getting increasingly stressed by my bids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autistic-burnout"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reassemblinglife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}