Autism Parenting Wins: Trusting the Transition

Tomorrow, we go back to school. And if you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that sentence alone used to be enough to send my nervous system into full dress rehearsal mode. The night before a transition, my brain would start working overtime. Running scenarios. Solving problems that had not happened yet. Carrying the emotional weight of tomorrow before today was even done. That’s the thing about high-functioning anxiety. On the outside, you look prepared. Responsible. On top of things. On the inside, you’re quietly sprinting through every possible outcome like it’s an Olympic sport. Parenting a kiddo who needs support only amplified that tendency. Because now it wasn’t just about me. It was about him. His routine. His comfort. His ability to transition. His day going well. So I tried to control the future with worry. Spoiler alert: It never worked. What has changed over the years is not that transitions suddenly got easy. They didn’t. It’s that I started noticing something important. We’ve practiced hard things. We’ve had bumpy mornings and survived them. We’ve learned how to reset when things don’t go as planned. And maybe most importantly, I’ve learned that my anxiety doesn’t actually protect us. It just exhausts me. So this year, on the day before we head back into routine, I’m doing something that feels radical in its simplicity. I’m letting today be today. No preemptive panic. No borrowing stress from tomorrow. No assuming the transition will be rough before it even begins. That doesn’t mean I’m careless. It means I trust our skills now. I trust our ability to regroup. I trust that even if tomorrow is imperfect, we will still be okay. That’s a huge shift for me. Not because I stopped caring, but because I stopped trying to outthink the future. So today, we’re enjoying today. And tomorrow, we’ll meet it as it comes. For someone who used to live ten steps ahead, that feels like real growth. If you’re on a similar path, balancing anxiety, caregiving, and the constant transitions of life, here’s your reminder: You don’t have to rehearse every possible outcome to be a good parent. Sometimes the win is simply staying present long enough to notice how far you’ve come. And that absolutely counts.