Join us for a Dialogue with Jerome Poudevigne, a parent-by-choice of an autistic young man

AMW2021 ONLINE Dialogue #3: The "Happiness Approach": An Underrated Autism Treatment

Thursday, May 27th 2021 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM, SGD5 (all proceeds go to A Mother's Wish)

https://autismhappinessjeromep.peatix.com/ (Google Meet link sent 15 minutes before the session)

Sebastien and Jerome in 2013

Despite the big response to what I wrote about Jerome in my previous post, we have only managed to garner two attendees to date. One possibility could be that the adoption of a “Happiness Approach” sounds like a piece of cake. But the reality is that for most of us, adopting the happiness approach with an autistic child is harder than what one may think…

For it requires you to suspend your parental expectations of “daddy or mummy knows best” and the conventional tendency to believe that subscribing to mainstream norms is the best for everyone.

Instead, you have to be willing to be open to a state of not knowing what is going on, not being in control. To truly put your autistic child’s happiness uppermost in your priorities means navigating in the parenting realm in a state of humility and respect for his/her difference.

This is why so many of us parents of autistic kids and other special needs kids could stand to benefit from Jerome's "gems" of wisdom of how he does this "Happiness Approach", seemingly without effort and with generous doses of love and acceptance.

Hope to see you all there! Thank you! Register: https://autismhappinessjeromep.peatix.com/