A piece of advice for parents of high school age kids

Please do not wait until your child is graduating to start your search for a program after school. Talk to people, look on line for programs , get as much information as possible and you still may find that you have to kind of settle for a second or third choice until you can get the one you want. Take note that many of these programs end with the age of around 22 years old. This doesn't leave much time. By the way, I believe it is just silly to think that our children can learn all they need to be an adult in life by then! Many young adults don't even know what they want to do with their life at that age. How can we expect that our children with autism will by ready for adulthood? Obviously, I have been thinking about this a lot lately. We parents have so much to do no think about for our children/young adults that when things get in our head we need to vent! Haha... I am just a mom, I believe being a parent was all I've have ever been good at and I think we have done great with our children. The problem is when you have a child that needs more from the world than you can give, life becomes extremely frustrating. Raising children is hard enough without having to depend on the state/government to help give your child what they need to have a better life. I do understand that within the umbrella of autism there are many abilities and needs, I do not pretend that there are bigger issues and needs than what our son needs, but when you are in it and live it every day all you care about in that time is what your child needs. I know that is true for most every parent. One day things will get better and I hope someone reads this that can and will help all those touched by autism. I am doing what I can by trying to help the next family any way I can. That is my goal, I don't know how to help except to start a conversation and hope it goes somewhere... You are not alone, we are in this together, as a family. Lets help each other!