If you're the parent of an autistic young adult, you may feel as though you're having the same conversation over and over again. We remind, they resist or withdraw. We become more worried. They feel more pressured. Everyone is trying, but nothing seems to change.
I'd like to offer families a different way to understand what's happening and a hopeful path forward for your family. The problem may not be a lack of love, effort, intelligence, or motivation. It may be that your family is dealing with too many surprises.
A surprise is something someone did not feel prepared to experience. It might be an unexpected reminder, a sudden request, a change in plans, an unclear expectation, a difficult conversation that begins without warning, pressure to answer before someone feels ready, or strong emotional reaction from someone they love.
When surprises keep happening, parents begin walking on eggshells. Young adults begin expecting criticism or disappointment. Everyone becomes more protective, and there's less energy available for listening, thinking clearly, and solving problems together.
Why can an ordinary conversation feel so overwhelming? Many autistic people register feel and carry experiences more intensely or for longer than other people expect. We call this sensory surplus.
Sensory surplus can include lights and sounds and textures and smells or crowded spaces, but it also may include emotional intensity, social uncertainty, unexpected demands, changes in tones, criticism, conflict, strong memories, or the feeling of being misunderstood.
That helps explain why something that feels small to one person may feel enormous to another. Too many surprises describe the problem. Sensory surplus helps explain why the surprises can carry so much weight.
Families need more than good intentions; they need a shared practice for responding when life becomes surprising, that practice is peace.
We pause. Hey, something feels off. Let's slow down before we react.
What we empathize. What are our worried or protective voices trying to tell us?
Align what matters to each of us, and what still feels uncertain.
Collaborate. Let's take turns offering options.
Experiment. The person taking the action chooses the one right side step, and the other person supports it.
Peace does not mean avoiding conflicts. It gives family a way to move through conflict without turning one another into the problem. When people feel safer and more accurately understood, collaboration becomes much more possible.
Peace helps families move through difficult moments, but families also need direction. That's where our life GPS comes in.
Our life GPS helps parents and young adults look at three pillars that shape adult life: energy, work, and connection. When we and then we add our signature strengths.
The goal is not to fix everything at once. The goal is to identify what matters now, what's already working, and what feels difficult, and what support might help, and what is the next right size step.
A life GPS keeps the family from becoming overwhelmed by the entire future. It helps all of us focus on the next meaningful step.
Most families have been taught to ask, "How do I get my young adult to change? or "How do I get my parents to stop pressuring me?
We ask a different question: How do we become a no surprises family?
A no surprises family does not eliminate every surprise. Life will always include change, disappointment, uncertainty, and conflict.
A no surprises family learns how to face those moments. Together, family members work to give helpful notice, make expectations clearer, listen before correcting, repair misunderstandings, and agree on the next right-sized step.
The goal is not a conflict-free family. The goal is a family that knows how to recover, repair, and move forward.
The result is not complete independence. That no one succeeds entirely alone. The goal is self-reliance through partnership.
Self-reliance means learning to understand what you need, communicate more clearly, make more of your own decisions, ask for help when needed, practice useful routines, recover from setbacks, participate in problem solving, and take the next right size step.
As this happens, parents move from managers to mentors. Young adults move from being managed to participating more actively in building their own lives. Support begins building capability instead of dependence.
This is the path we practice at the art of adulting. Too many surprises explains why families feel stuck. Sensory surplus helps us understand why these experiences can feel so intense.
Peace gives families a practical way to respond.
The life GPS helps each person identify where they want to go, no surprises. Families become the identity we build together, and self-reliance is the result. One conversation, one experiment, and one right side step at a time.
As families become more predictable and collaborative. Something begins to change. Parents feel less like police officers. Young adults feel less like disappointments. Expectations become clearer. Stressful conversations do not always come out of nowhere.
Problems become shared challenges instead of proof that someone is failing. Conflict may still happen, but conflict no longer controls the entire family. Together, the family becomes more capable of handling stressful moments and moving forward.
Listen, your family is not failing. You may simply be dealing with too many surprises.
So when families understand sensory surplus, practice peace, use our life GPS to find direction, and take one right size step at a time, they become no surprises families, and that's how lasting self-reliance grows.
If this message makes sense with you, I love to invite you to continue learning it in my free No Surprises Family Masterclass.
In this masterclass, you'll discover why the same painful conversations keep happening, how sensory surplus changes the way we understand autism, why reducing unnecessary surprises creates calmer conversations, and how families build stronger relationships and greater self-reliance together.
Click the link to begin the free No Surprises Family Masterclass now. Your journey to begin to becoming a no surprises family begins with the very first lesson.
See you there.
