Things you wish your aid knew about you/your child

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I've been working with adults with a wide variety of disabilities for the last 25 years. Most recently I've been working in an administrative function running adult residential facilities. I'm soon going to be leaving my current job as direct care and the work I get to do as part of a team creating and adapting behavior plans, ISPs and the like makes up far too small a part of my job. In the current stage of my job search I'm finding that most of the jobs I am interested in involve working with children and teens with ASD. I have worked with numerous adults with Autism (ranging from 30s-70s) but never children and rarely teens. What I would love to know, before I apply for even one job, is this:

What do you wish your aide/support staff/team member or your child's aide/support staff/team knew? What bits of information have you found would greatly help someone looking to work with you/your child, yet doesn't seem to be as widespread as you feel it should be?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

I wish they knew that no matter how much experience they have with autism, I know more about my own abilities and needs than anyone else can ever possibly know.

So if I say I can't do that, or that the cost of doing that is too high, believe me. I need to find an alternative, not to have my support person dismiss my needs as just stubbornness.

If you can learn this lesson, you'll be better than every autism support person I've had so far.

I can promise you that your advice is something I will be taking with me in whatever job I take next. As somebody who has been trained to "work through resistant behavior" I can sadly see it being possible to fall into the sort of disrespect that has obviously frustrated you. Your words are a strong reminder of how important the skill of truly listening is, as well as how important it is to always be open to exploring alternatives.

Thanks for the powerful advice, it won't be forgotten.

I'd advice posting a copy of this in the parent's board, as you're more likely to find someone with a children with an aid of some sort, as as far as I know most the adult's here don't have any sort of aid. Also, since you said you're like working with teenagers, I'd go to the adolescence board as well and post something geared just to them.