'Trust your instincts': Our journey parenting a child with autism

As parents who raised a child with autism, BlazeTV host Ron Simmons and his wife, Lisa Simmons, understand the realities of raising a child on the spectrum — and they know what to look for and what advice to take.

Lisa explains that kids on the spectrum “tend to be more what we call ‘floppy,’” due to a lack of muscle tone, and usually hit developmental milestones a little later.

“Their fine motor skills are just delayed,” she says.

However, Lisa points out that none of these characteristics mean an autism diagnosis is in the child’s future.

“You could just have, you know, a learning difference, and that’s not autism. So autism has been sort of broadly defined these days,” she explains.

This is why she believes the best piece of advice to give parents is to “trust your instincts.”

“If you think something’s wrong, there probably is something wrong,” she says.

“And just because your doctor says it’s not doesn’t mean that that’s true. And it’s nothing against doctors,” Ron chimes in.

“When you leave the doctor’s office, when you leave the therapist's office, they’re not thinking about your child. As wonderful as they might be, you’re the one that’s thinking about your child, and you’re the one that has to be the greatest advocate,” he continues.

And the same goes for when a doctor might diagnose the child and claim the child will never be able to participate in certain activities.

“Yes, they’ve had maybe more education than you’ve had. They’ve had maybe more experience working with these kids than you have, but you know your child, and you know your ability to work with your own child,” Lisa explains, noting that a doctor told her that her son would never be able to ride a bike.

“We got that bicycle, put the training wheels on it, propped the training wheels up on bricks. So it was like a stationary bike, and I held his feet on the pedals, and we did that until he got muscle memory in his legs,” she says.

Soon her son was riding a two-wheeler without training wheels and even joined a rollerblading hockey team.

“So, you know,” Lisa says, “don’t just take the first answer.”

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