today show is the real moms of autism we wanted to give you an inside peek into what it's like raising children with autism many of you may be parents with children and say you're going to see that there are people out there that are very much like you we have a lot of the same issues and challenges and struggles as well as a lot of the same celebrations so we hope that you're going to find community from the show and those of you who don't have children with autism our hope is that you're going to learn a little bit again you're going to kind of see behind the scenes we're going to talk about our challenges you're going to see some pictures and learn about what we go through every day and the reason we're sharing this with you is because we want you to understand us a little bit more we want to bridge that gap right now i'm going to guess that when you go out in the community you probably don't see many children with autism in fact my experience is i take my son out at least every day but it took me many years to do that he's now actually he's seventeen he just turned seventeen it took me about five or six years of living with autism before i felt comfortable doing that for a lot of different reasons it's challenging thinking of everything i needed to bring with us or where we were going where was the bathroom what was the activity going to be let alone how was that going to affect us because what were people going to think what was the sound the stimulation going to be like it was so much that i couldn't get myself out there and again one of the biggest things that i was afraid of was you what were you going to think what were your judgments and i just couldn't handle it but now that i'm out there with my son guess what i don't see any other kids with autism i don't live in a big city but i live in a pretty big town where are they i know where they are because i was the same way they're at home or not wanting or feeling to challenge to go out so we want to change that to help you get comfortable with what it's like what we're like so that when we get that comfort to go out instead of looking and staring or wondering you feel comfortable taking that step towards us to say hello to open the door or to say good job when our children do something and that actually does more than you realize those small gestures can boost our confidence give us that support and make us want to go out even more so today show is really meant to give some supports other parents who are dealing with the same things we are but also to educate and raise awareness so that those of you who want to get to know us more this is your opportunity so that we can partner and support each other i'm really excited to introduce you to two phenomenal women and mothers who have great stories and things are going to share with you today but are willing to take that step forward and share this publicly with you my first guest is coming to us all the way from all stray aaliyah i found her on social media and i love her vita way her handle is autism friendly travel and she talks about autism to my family but it's not going to hold us back from doing what we want to do and i love that so please join me in welcoming ainslie robinson polow ainsley i think we are great thank you so much so it's what time is it there in australia it's about nine thirty am in the morning nine thirty am so here we are five thirty pm princeton new jersey i love it we can do this so thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day it's a week day and know your sons  know but you're also your mom who works too so i appreciate you taking this time with us and i thank you ainsley your you have a lot of great things are to share with us but the first thing i wanted to ask you is something i haven't yet told our viewers is that you have asperger's yourself and not i would love if you wouldn't mind sharing with us what it's like to have asperger's ok that's just  say i'm sorry you were breaking up just a little bit i think i heard most of what you said so that's how interesting that you didn't realize it until you were learning more through your sign and then recognizing things that you've done in the path and  know from speaking with you you talk about some sensitivities that you have what are some of those things that challenge to you every day that's it may sleeping sperry difficult unless i have a lot of white wheat even in the middle of that's true because it gives you such different infight than i would have i mean i've seventeen years i've learned a lot but yeah you can almost feel the same things here son is feeling which pretty much we have slightly different p at the end of that and i've got a very chatty daughter as well she spoke nonstop all day and by the end of the like oh honey i just five minutes of quiet please understand what she needs if it's not something that's really what you would normally do say you're game ound so flexible which is a trait that any regular person has a hard time doing it t they all this leads me up to this really important question and i just cannot believe you did this but i would love to hear how you and your family ahead don't be a tourist everything all day and having that home base they are not always packing and unpacking and moving in and and all that now you went to disney right y of distract him and keep him happy that really works for anybody that was really smart know what you did and piggybacks he loves us so are you the one doing that if you're sensory defensive i mean i've just  absolutely and i'm so glad you're doing this because like i said it my hope is that more more people will venture out and through our experiences we can teach the community around us how to support us and how to handle it and i love that you don't worry about what people are thinking i know you're not rude to them but if we did go ahead and do our thing we can support our children and we can teach others how to support us at the same time so thank you for doing what you do thank you for having there are a lot of activities that you have done with your children and i was excited to talk to you and learn more about your passion and things that you're doing for your family but first please tell us and everyone a little bit about you and your son and your your family today well i have two sons i have an older son who's twenty two who is a typical or whatever you want to call him and he is just a recent graduate of college in december i have a second son who has autism he's sixteen and and he's a both of them are a pleasure i you know this is the three of us we just roll with the punches every day and how are so yeah you do now i know that you tell me you're a realtor and that you actually decided to be a realtor because you wanted to have that flexibility to support your son right because you know if anything happens at school he he was diagnosed around three and he went to a local school in him plainsboro capello so if something ever happened really can't leave an office when you are nine to five you need that flexibility to just pick up your bag and go when you get that call there's nothing holding you back right so i kind of enjoyed that and actually when i started the real estate fourteen years back i should take him to showing houses were there for needed so that was the best part and it kind of also gave him exposure me exposure also my clients exposure and i let them know in advance that you know we come as a package i love that so already for a long time you've been out really modeling for everyone how to how to be out in the community with your family right which is but everyone is a normal thing for people to do but we don't see that with autism as much and now you also work with special education i do for my township i was lucky enough i've always welcome teared but an opportunity came where i could work for special ed and so of course i took it because you can't get that twenty four seven every day experience that i have and then i can take my experience and apply it to my work also so it gives me a little bit a different view of how a parent's feeling or her of the child is feeling that gives you different types of them but the and somebody who's coming through who that exactly and you're showing so much of your passion for understanding and living with autism and not only helping your son the helping others and  for for not only i always advocate not only for my i saw him but all his friends anytime i advocate i always say it's were a group effort because we're been together these kids have been together since maybe kindergarten or first grade so they're kind of family with each other also they're so lucky to have you because not everyone who will spend their time advocating and helping others in the same way because let's face it you have a lot on your plate right this is like know that you're helping others so that's wonderful and you're welcome and you talk about advocating and i remember when i first spoke with you you mentioned there are two things that you always advocate for your son which is constant communication and preparing as you mind telling me a little bit more about why that's important what you've seen share do i find communication is key to the success of any child and i find that specially for mine too because in the beginning the comprehension wasn't there the language was in there that are still coming through where he needs time to process and so on but how his day was if the teacher can communicate or any caregiver can communicate that then it's easier for me to understand what he's trying to say than for me to take two days or just figure out one sentence what he's trying to say the same time he's struggling and he's having maybe a behavior and he's frustrated it's really not his fault because you know he doesn't have the skill to do that right so it's my job and the other person's job to help me communicate help them communicate what happened and the other thing with pairing is i've always believed that once you pair with a child then you get to aren't there trust and i think namely mention like how her son she would keep him busy with popcorn so my son's number one reinforcer we call it is he to read o's cool ranch what used to be just called blue chips so any time when you're going somewhere he loves to earn so if we need a project on our we need to wait or something i let him know or the other that we have pretty just situation and now we have come to our using the calendar and which is a visual we can do it at school we do it here so if you want something on let's just say you know he's earning a d v d for something so he will put it down on what day it's coming three days from now or whatever so you something looking forward to and that's visually he's ready to see what's going on so transition was always a problem but as time progresses getting less and less pressure with the scheduling it's helping a lot if you try other things before the scheduling or how did you land on that well we used to let him know like in the beginning they would put a schedule for him but you know as he's getting older it's getting more independent you know we're not going to be able to do that his whole life for myself i won't be here but so this way he can plan his day so it's easier for him because you know before it was no no i missed you know missed writing and then it's like a half an hour of meltdowns but right now we don't have that you know women oh ok we're going to go do this and that will come back to it if not they'll say maybe a different day we next time good so you soaring some flexibility in the whole process right wonderful so you're funny things that he connects with and works with well and is motivated for right and you see success with that right and he gets he gets the reward but also learns that flexibility that's wonderful were food based you know a lot of people like you their i pad about other things but you know we were bearers that's what my mama bear so my little cubs enjoy their little mom's here and there so we do that well i i know it's hard because we go back and forth with food and so sometimes you just need that strong reinforcer the thing that's going to get them through and especially at times that you know there may be in the down and if we're going to be out in the community so we plan for how can we make it the most comfortable writing and meaningful and successful for everybody so sometimes that doesn't  what would you say if you could share with all of our parents watching what is the biggest insight or tips in the state maybe that you would from all your experience realize a sixteen so what's the biggest tip you would say different tell all the parents want to definitely have a sense of humor the other is every child is different so take what you can from learning from here going to workshops and other things sharing ideas with parents but then applying it and giving it your own twist to your own child because you know your own child best nobody knows anybody except you and and learned how to let them express themselves and i also feel like every behavior there's a reason for every behavior i do too and i've always sought out of riyaaz and i've been lucky enough to have a few teachers who have really supported me through these times i love that i was going to ask you what would you say to people who don't have kids with autism as a perfect one right there is we don't always understand if specially if you don't know autism why our children are doing something and i may not know why but i know there is a reason i know that there's something deep down inside this is bothering him or there's a stimulus there's something that's causing it something triggered it there's a trigger exactly and our immediate response is let's make sure everything's  safe right and get things in control and then we'll handle it and try and remove the stimulus or the trigger if possible but that would have been the thing i would have shared is that there's always a reason why something happened they will tell you they will tell you in their own time somehow i think every child can communicate if you give them the time to let them express themselves exactly there's so much i want to talk to you about as well as a little at a time that's what happened but i do want to continue talking with with other moms real moms of autism so you will start to see a series of bills that we can start to share more and more about our challenges our insights and we can again bridge that gap so thank you for mana thanks for joining an angel a thank you for joining it was wonderful and i'd like to share that we have a really fun guest on our next show is a local dentist who is charismatic and he does amazing job an amazing job of getting his to either sit still or at least get proper dental hygiene i can't wait to introduce you to him next time thank you for watching today i look forward to seeing you next time on navigate autism with