sticks and stones: a father’s journey into autism

This rage is horrible, one of the worst. I watch as my son turns into a raging, spitting animal. Toys become weapons, pounding against my head as I force him to the ground and hold him there so he won’t hurt himself . . . and so he won’t hurt me. His teeth sink into my arm and my world becomes white heat, noise, and pain.

And then it is over. My son returns, shaken and scared by what has happened. It is strangely quiet now but for our ragged breath and soft tears.

Raising a child with autism in the early ’90’s, before autism was on the public’s radar like it is now, was most definitely a challenge. Life with my son Ian often felt like living between one rage and the next. But oh, those times in between! What magic and wonder there was to be discovered in that separate world of his. And so I began to wonder. Along with its burdens, had my son’s autism brought gifts as well, and would those gifts be enough to sustain us?

Without avoiding the grim realities, STICKS AND STONESis filled with love, humor, and most of all, optimism. At its heart, STICKS AND STONES is a love story betweena father and his son. It is hoped that readers everywhere will use its insights to help them relate to people with autism, be it someone already in their life, or someone they have yet to meet.