“Fathers don’t eat their young!” cried Noah, the precocious 3rd grader with Asperger’s Syndrome. “Well, sometimes they do,” his young teacher explained softly. “But, but, but…Father’s don’t eat their YOUNG!” Noah exclaimed more emphatically, yet with the same monotone pitch and screaming the word “young!”

“But, FATHER’S don’t eat their YOUNG!” he exclaimed, again, this time while crashing a fist down on his desk making the other students go quiet, and focus on Noah. The young teacher wasn’t sure how to respond.

It was time to intervene. The students had just started studying mammals and, after a trip to an animal preserve where they classified mammals vs. reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians, as well as herbivores vs. carnivores or omnivores, they were now engaged in learning more about mammals (a group containing the species Homosapians, you’ll recall). This included viewing a brilliant BBC documentary on the challenges of raising mammal babies. The documentary contained the simple, yet brutal fact that male species will occasionally, out of necessity, eat their young. Having taught children on the autism spectrum for 30 years, I could almost see the little cogs in this brilliant boy’s head turning, clicking and… seizing up.

Children on the autism spectrum (which includes Asperger’s Syndrome) often learn by identifying a pattern and then applying that pattern over and over again; connecting the dots between their strong vocabulary and predictable, concrete knowledge base (in this case of Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species) and the gray areas such as the act of a male of a species eating it’s young to eliminate weak offspring who would take resources that could be allocated to their siblings and so secure the survival of the group. This needed to be explained to Noah in a way that he alone would grasp.

I watched little Noah’s face contort with discomfort, his big brown eyes pleading for an answer. It was apparent that the pattern forming in his head had him worried about his own future. “If Father’s (who are mammals) eat their young because their young are “different” from the siblings, and human beings are mammals, and I’m “different” from my siblings, then my father will…..”

I talked with little Noah and reassured him that human beings are indeed mammals but that we hold a special place at the top of the animal kingdom. That we are more intelligent and more nurturing and we are even commanded to look after each other and ALL other animals on earth. Yes, we are part of the pattern by classification, but we branch off and break the pattern in many, many ways. For example, we wear clothes and other animals don’t wear clothes. And, we don’t eat our young. This simple illustration of how Homosapians are similar yet different from other animals began a brief discussion which calmed Noah’s anxiety and allowed him to form a new pattern of expected human vs. animal behaviors. Noah now had a new pattern, which will undoubtedly be challenged over and over again in years to come.

It’s a typical story in the day to day life at our school. Just another “teachable moment”, if you will. Then it became something much more.

Through our school’s Facebook page, I received a message from a Dad of a former summer camper. It had been 4-5 years, but I remembered the sweet, early adolescent with the mop of curly blond hair. In the message, Dad asked for some help in planning for Jonathan’s future. Jonathan will turn 18 this fall. I remembered Jonathan well, but not his Dad. I wondered what had happened to Jonathan’s mom, she had been so involved in Jonathan’s life and we had spent a good bit of time together exploring the resources available in Atlanta that would be a good match for Jonathan’s interests and social skills.

So I linked to Jonathan’s Dad’s Facebook page and I saw that he is newly remarried, with new family photos of step children and an awkward Jonathan standing just off from the new family, but still in the frame. I felt for him. And wondered if his mom had passed away. I replied to the message.

Sometime later, my phone rang. It was Jonathan’s mom, with her always professional tone, sounding optimistically bright. I asked how I could help, relived that she is still very much a part of Jonathan’s life.

She proceeded to share a very familiar story.

The school I founded 10 years ago, The Aurora School has served over 1000 young people in the Atlanta area through summer camps, after school programs, distance learning and on campus courses and programs. About 40% of those have been students on the autism spectrum. They come to us because of the research-based tools and instruction we offer, our small ratio of students to teachers and our applied methodology of assessing strengths and weaknesses, and then regularly measuring the progress our students make. We continue raising the bar and expecting more gains in academics and social skills. Skills and confidence blossom.

Now, many of the younger children we served when we first opened are becoming young adults. Because they were the pioneers on this ever-expanding tsunami that is the autism epidemic (new CDC numbers state that 1 in 68 births will result in autism, and 1 in 42 male births will result in autism), their parents, warriors for their children’s survival, fought a diligent fight to seek out public and private services to help change the trajectory they were first given by physicians or psychiatrists.

They were told, “Your child has autism. This is a lifelong disability. They will never speak, learn, relate, etc, etc,. Prepare yourselves. Consider an institution”.

I’ve often met with both parents when they interviewed our school for their child. Mom and Dad, married, asking about insurance reimbursement, tax credits, special needs scholarships, etc. because often Mom had to step away from her career and fully devote herself to the needs of her special child.

But, of the children we served 10, 7… even 5 years ago? Children like Jonathan? More often than not, their parents are divorced now. And so continues Jonathan’s story.

He has been attending a “Community Skills Program” at his local high school. He will graduate with an “Attendance” diploma or a “Special Education Diploma”. Mom tells me that, fortunately, Jonathan can stay in that program until he is 22. Then, she loses her usually professional and bright tone. In a trembling voice she says, “But, what will he do after that? He will need to get a job!”

What is unspoken is what I’ve witnessed from 6 other moms so far this year. Regardless of their other children or of the jobs these women once had; regardless of their beauty, intellect, interests, hobbies, etc, etc. – their lives will forevermore be dictated and defined by their adult child’s special needs.

Each of these moms has been through a divorce since we first met. They’ve aged beyond their years. Their entire social life revolves around support group meetings, church, family or the Internet. These are moms who do not go out on Friday or Saturday nights because their grown children can never be left alone. These moms have lost, or will lose child support funds because the judge held to the hard and fast rule that child support ends when a child turns 18. These moms are now connected at the hip to their still dependent adult, special needs child for the rest of their lives.

The child may spend a few hours a week in a part-time job, but getting a full time job would considerably lower their disability benefits. They will likely spend most of their time on the sofa or on the computer; friendless, penniless and likely gaining weight. Some 18 or 22 year old adult children on the autism spectrum do go on to college, technical school or university. But these pioneers and their Moms are in uncharted territory; advocating to build new programs, defending their rights, intervening and fighting and never resting. They are rightly exhausted. But now, Mom is fighting the fight primarily by herself.

The divorce rate for parents of adolescents and adults on the autism spectrum is considerably higher than that for parents of adolescents and adults without a disability. It’s almost double according to an NIH study, “The Relative Risk and Timing of Divorce in Families of Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder” published in August, 2011 in the Journal of Family Psychology. It’s an interesting read and if you work with families of children on the autism spectrum, I highly suggest you read it and intentionally apply the lessons to your practice. It contains a good section on Family Characteristic Predictors for Divorce. They aren’t what you might expect.

If you think that I’m here to bash Father’s as symbolically eating their autistic young by divorcing the Moms and thereby leaving the caretaking responsibilities to them for the rest of their lives, I’m not. Not exactly.

I know divorce is far more complicated than that. But, like Noah, I’ve observed a frightening pattern: as children on the autism spectrum approach young adulthood, their parents divorce. There is no custody battle because the children are over 18, even though they need a custodian 24-7. They live with Mom and Mom will be the parent who gains guardianship for managing their affairs. For the young adults I’ve grown so fond of over these 10 years, it is intensely confusing – a break in the pattern of the social behavior of adults that is so difficult to grasp. They don’t understand why they have moved out of the house they knew so well, why they don’t see their father much if at all, why their mother, always their champion, is so angry all the time, and where do I fit in Dad’s new family?

Because they attune so easily to emotional undertones, they pick up on the tension and stress and then “regress” to previous “autistic characteristics” no one has seen in years. The divorce places so much stress on them that they become more autistic and less likely to get a job, be a successful college student, make friends, get off the sofa or computer. It’s a vicious cycle, and a predictable pattern. For a society with a growing prevalence of individuals with autism, we need stable families in order for the young adults to successfully navigate this world. Otherwise, WE, as a society, are effectively eating our young.

As a professional who has devoted my life to helping individuals with disabilities lead more successful lives, I have always prayed for my clients and for their success. Actually, I pray for a miracle in their lives. Although we are not a religious school, many of our teachers lead faith-based lives. At our school, the teachers collectively pray for our students.

But, praying only for the students isn’t enough. We need to pray for their families, too. We’ve established specific expectations of parental participation, dietary adherence, student attendance and behavior. But offering morning coffee and a speaker isn’t enough. We need to schedule events in the evenings and on weekends. We need to arm both parents with the information they need and want so that they can guard their hearts and protect their marriages.

We need to offer a regular “Parents Date Night Out,” on Fridays and Saturdays so that our parents have a safe and familiar place to bring their children, so they can spend time focusing on their relationship. We need to do this, and we can do more. These children will have difficulty surviving in single parent households. Moms of children on the autism spectrum will not make it without support.

The autism epidemic is one of the greatest challenges of our time. As individuals, families, and a society, our collective future requires that we meet this challenge with a warrior spirit. It is a battle we cannot afford to lose.

Noah is in 3rd grade. My goal is to do all we can to provide support to Noah AND his family so that the future he has when he is a young adult is as bright as the one he has today.

What will you do?