Consistency: A Lesson I Learned Side by Side With My Son
I grew up without a guidebook for life.
In a country torn apart by war and a family torn apart by alcohol, I was raised by a single mother who could barely lead herself, let alone someone else. When she was just 18, she threw herself in front of a train and lost her arm. She gave birth to me at 25.
By the time I hit my teenage years, I was wild—scattered in all directions. My superpower was dreaming up ideas and concepts that no one else could see, but my greatest weakness was my inability to connect with people in a healthy way. Every day felt like it existed in isolation, untethered from the one before or after.
And then autism slammed the door shut, and I was left standing there, frozen.
I didn’t grow up with stability. I didn’t grow up with order. Consistency was never part of the story—not even as a word.
I still remember standing in the hallway of the clinic I was taking my son to. A psychologist was speaking to another mother. She said, “Consistency is crucial when it comes to autism. If something wouldn’t be appropriate at age 30, then it’s not funny or acceptable at age 3 either.”
The whole way home, that sentence echoed in my mind.
Autism doesn’t learn spontaneously. So why would we teach a child that something inappropriate is okay just because they’re small? What are we preparing them for?
A few days later, my son boarded a bus. He was sweet, innocent, adorable. He looked at a seated man and casually gestured with his hand for him to get up. And the man stood. No questions asked.
That moment hit me like lightning.
Physically, my son looked like any other child. But I imagined him at 16, or 18—doing the same gesture. Expecting someone to get up and offer him a seat. I imagined the look he might get from a stranger. And I froze with fear.
Right then, I recalibrated everything.
Consistency stopped being just about teaching him what’s appropriate. It became a demand for me to live it, to model it. For every “No,” I offered a “Yes.” For every “Not like that,” I immediately demonstrated: “Like this.”
Persistence and consistency—in word and action.
I made a thousand mistakes along the way. But I was learning and doing at the same time. I worked on myself as much as I worked with my child. We became a team. I took the position that we were both learning what life looks like—and how to live it.
No delays. No abstractions. We learned in real-time.
We practiced immediately.
We grew together.
