Profound Autism and Letting Go of Expectations with Autism Mom, Alyssa Sieira

About this episode

A conversation about the challenges and emotional complexities of parenting a child with profound autism.

What happens when autism parenting becomes physically, emotionally, and mentally consuming? In this episode of Inchstones, Sarah Kernion sits down with Alyssa Sierra for a raw conversation about profound autism, aggressive behaviors, caregiver exhaustion, sibling dynamics, and the emotional process of letting go of expectations. Alyssa shares the story of her son Gabriel’s autism diagnosis during the pandemic and the moment motherhood shifted from “typical” parenting into a completely different reality. Together, Sarah and Alyssa discuss profound autism, parenting autistic children with severe behaviors, autism family support, caregiver burnout, and the invisible emotional labor autism moms carry every single day. The conversation explores: the grief of realizing your parenting path looks differentnavigating aggressive and self-injurious autism behaviorsraising neurotypical siblings alongside autistic childrenthe emotional complexity of discipline in neurodivergent homeswhy profound autism parenting feels different even within autism communitiesfinding joy and beauty inside developmental differences Sarah and Alyssa also talk openly about survival mode, motherhood identity…

People in this episode

Host: Sarah Kernion

Guest: Alyssa Sieira

Topics covered

• profound autism
• caregiver exhaustion
• sibling dynamics
• letting go of expectations
• aggressive behaviors
• neurodiversity

Keywords

• autism parenting
• caregiver burnout
• neurodivergent children
• developmental delays
• emotional labor

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