10 Habits of Highly Successful Families

The Ten Habits of Highly Successful Families

1) Slow down the pace of your life (Autism treatment is not a race, doesn’t have a finish line, and should not approached with a “do or die” attitude).

2) Less is more (Don’t load up on activities every afternoon -- therapeutic and/or recreational. Leave time for hanging out, playing in the back yard, baking, digging a hole and getting dirty, etc.)

3) Talk less (Yep, just don’t talk so much. It’s really OK to allow periods of silence, periods of listening to music or the birds or the wind. Talking less will improve the quality of your communication).

4) Prompt less (Try to remember that if prompting was a successful strategy then you wouldn’t need to continue to prompt all of the time. Prompting leads to more prompting and shuts down your child/teens problem solving/thinking).

5) Get out of the house (Develop routines that take you out of the house for recreation, errands, exercise, family visits, etc.).

6) Set your priorities (Consider what is important to the quality of your life and then make time to improve the quality of your life).

7) Be proactive (Problem solve in a proactive manner. Don’t wait for a crisis and then react to the crisis. Think prevention at all times).

8) Say what you mean and mean what you say (Don’t waste time giving directions you can’t or won’t enforce. Be selective in what you say and then enforce limits quickly and with authority).

9) Build community (Find ways to surround yourself with community – religious, cultural, recreational, political).

10) Have fun (Enjoy your life!! Autism is not a death sentence. The best therapy more often than not is no therapy at all – get out of the house and have a good time).

< Back to view all blogs