Traditions and habits can be changed or broken and that’s not always bad. It doesn’t mean we didn’t learn or like what we did in the past, it just means that we moved on to something else and that’s okay too.

My heart broke the day my son stood in the bathroom crying. He handed me a pair of scissors and told me to just cut it. I told him how beautiful his hair was and how sad I would be to see him cut it.

I spent time feeling embarrassed—that somehow I had failed—because I had filed for divorce. It’s been over nine years now, and I wake up every single day happy with my decision.

My oldest child was confused: why would no one stop and help us? Even though people weren’t stopping to help us, my son said, he wanted to be more like me and stop to help someone anyway.

“It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a child with autism to raise the consciousness of the village.” —Elaine Hall, educator and parenting coach My three-year-old is almost completely nonverbal. Every day when she gets off the bus, I ask her the same question: I ask her how her day...