From Survival to Sustainability: Autism Parenting and Long-Term Planning with Dr. Theresa Lyons

Episode Summary

In this powerful and deeply validating episode, Valerie is joined by Dr. Theresa Lyons—international autism educator, Ivy League scientist, and autism parent—for an honest conversation about the hidden toll of parenting a child with autism, the emerging science around parent PTSD, and the hope found in evidence-based supports.

Dr. Lyons shares her personal journey following her daughter’s autism diagnosis and reflects on the lack of clear guidance parents often receive—even years later. Together, Valerie and Dr. Lyons explore the reality of chronic stress, trauma, and nervous system dysregulation experienced by many parents, and why acknowledging this is not a failure of love, but an act of care.

Key Topics Covered

• New 2025 research linking autism parenting stress to PTSD diagnoses
• Why parent trauma remains a taboo topic—and why that must change
• How EMDR therapy helps parents process trauma and restore regulation
• The critical role of sleep, breathing, and nervous system support
• Leucovorin explained: the science, testing (FRAT), benefits, and controversy
• Evidence-based approaches vs. fear-driven decision-making
• Including children and young adults with disabilities in housing decisions
• Real-life examples of supported independence and forever homes
• The profound impact of AAC on communication, advocacy, and identity
• Letting go as an act of love: roots, wings, and dignity in adulthood

Notable Takeaways

• Trauma can occur without blame—and it can be healed
• Parents need support systems, not just child-focused interventions
• Independence often unlocks communication, confidence, and joy
• Planning a forever home creates continuity, security, and peace of mind
• Parenting may not look as imagined—but it can be even more meaningful

*** Listen to season 2 episode 13 to hear Ishan Manerikar’s story of moving out from his parents’ home.

Closing Reflection

This episode is a reminder that caring for yourself is not separate from caring for your child—and that with intention, planning, and support, families can move from survival to sustainability.

Connect Theresa Lyons

https://navigatingawetism.com/

https://awetism.net/

Connect with Valerie

info@foreverhomeconsulting.ca

Music Acknowledgement: Audio Coffee - Denys Kyshchuk

Editor: Scott Arbeau

Link for book: The S.H.I.N.E. Principle: The special needs mom's path to strength, hope and happiness by Valerie Arbeau

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CW18ZXGX (Canada)

https://a.co/d/03hFdZI4 (United States)

Learn more about your host at:
https://coachingwithvalerieanne.com/

Transcript

Theresa Lyons

When my daughter was diagnosed with autism, there was a research study and it said how the stress that an autism parent goes through is equivalent to a combat soldier. And I remember reading that research and thinking, yes, that is true, but it didn't really take it far enough, right? So, this latest research that was done in 2025 was, okay, the parents got the diagnosis, but then there was something to do about it. And I think that's the important part for parents to learn is… I think, we all know that raising a child with autism has more stress in general than raising a child without autism.

Valerie

Hello and welcome to Forever Home for Our Kids with Disabilities. I'm Valerie, mom to two with disabilities, one visible, one invisible. I'm a life coach and an author. This space has been created to help you navigate the journey of creating a secure, sustainable forever home for your child. We'll chat with parents on this path, realtors, financial planners, and other experts who can make the process easier. Why am I so passionate about this? Because seeing my eldest thrive living independent of us was a gift I didn't always know I could give. I want you to have the opportunity to explore giving that gift to your child. 

So, hello and welcome to today's show. I'm so glad you're here and I'm so grateful that you stopped by to listen. I also want to thank you, to those of you who share these episodes because it does mean a lot. 

I would love for you to meet Dr. Teresa Lyons. She is our guest for today. Dr. Lyons is an international autism educator, Ivy League scientist, and autism parent. Dr. Lyons is the founder and CEO of Navigating Awetism, and Awe is spelt A-W-E, a groundbreaking platform that transforms the overwhelming complexity of autism science into clear, actionable steps for families. With a PhD from Yale and a deeply personal mission, Dr. Lyons has worked with parents in over 21 countries, bringing evidence-based strategies that change lives. 

Welcome, Dr. Lyons.

Theresa Lyons

Thank you very much. I'm very excited to be here.

Valerie

And we are excited to have you here. So, tell us a little about your special needs mom's journey.

Theresa Lyons

Oh, where to begin? Well, so my daughter was diagnosed with autism and she was three and a half and I had worked in the pharmaceutical industry. So before having her, I was in research and development in the pharmaceutical industry. My PhD in computational chemistry was really focusing on structure-based drug design. So understanding, okay, how do we optimize drugs to have a better impact on the interaction in that protein and then downstream have a larger impact on life. and then I also worked on the marketing side in the business of pharmaceuticals. And then when my daughter was diagnosed with autism I asked the question of okay now what and there really wasn't good answers which I thought was only relevant to back then but I still talk to parents and some of them are getting the exact same answers that I got 12 years ago. So it's really just important to ask good questions.

Valerie

Yes, thank you so much for sharing that. All right, so parenting, parenting not for the faint-hearted, especially if you're a parent of a child with differing abilities. So I remember interviewing a gentle release trauma specialist about a year ago. Her name is Ramona Kossowan, and that was in season one, episode 51. And that's where I realized that something that had never occurred to me before. As a mother of two with disabilities, I had experienced trauma. I can now appreciate that as parents, we may well be suffering from PTSD. So, can you speak to this phenomena?

Theresa Lyons

Sure. There was new research that was released this year. And researchers in the Netherlands were looking to understand PTSD and autism. And it was a small trial. And what they did was they found parents whose children had autism and emotional dysregulation. And, the parents themselves then qualified for a PTSD diagnosis just from the experience of raising that child with, what they call challenging behaviors. So, I think it's a terrible terminology. It should be traumatic experiences because it's traumatic for the child and the parent. And this is an important thing to talk about is that us as parents, we're not saying you traumatized us and you're bad and we don't love you. It's not that whatsoever. And this is why parents are so hesitant to talk about it because many times we think, well, if we say we had trauma from our child, will my child think that I don't love them? Or will they start to feel guilty about how I've been impacted? So it is definitely a very delicate topic. And research does show that parents whose children have autism, have an elevated risk of a PTSD diagnosis of about 20 to 30% than parents of a typical child, just because of these challenging behaviors. And challenging behaviors could be things like suicide attempts, could be things like punching a wall, head through glass, punching the parent, scratching, biting. These are all what gets termed into that challenging behaviors. And parents many times are in that crisis mode. So they're not even thinking about how this stuff is impacting them. Many parents, they love their children, right? So then they're just like, all right, I've got to get tougher. I've got to somehow just, you know, they're getting bigger. So I just need to maybe go work out or stuff like that. So there is a large denial of the actual situation. And then what happens is that stress and that trauma builds up. And then this is when someone becomes so stressed that, you know, they literally can't relax. They let things accumulate too much. And then a PTSD diagnosis can certainly be made.

Valerie

I thank you for sharing because that's quite interesting in the fact that I can recognize that I've probably been through trauma with my children. And as you say, it's not because of them, it's the circumstances around them is kind of how to put it. Yeah. And so parents, you do go into survival, right? You do whatever it takes to get through the day. And sometimes it is a day-to-day thing. And so I can see the trauma piece. I don't know that I would have gone to PTSD, but I can certainly acknowledge high cortisol levels and just moving on autopilot sometimes, just to get through the day. So this PTSD diagnosis, how is that landing for parents?

Theresa Lyons

I'm not really sure how many parents are, I think it's still a taboo topic in autism. So I don't really see this as a popular topic on, you know, TikTok and things like that. What I see as increasing in popularity is parents showing some of these challenging moments and saying, this is what we need you to understand about autism. So, I think in many ways, it's a sharing of what happens behind closed doors a lot, where many parents in the past, especially before social media, there really wasn't a way to communicate this to anyone. And so the conversation is really being more about these challenging behaviors. I don't think it's evolved to a point where there's an acknowledgement of, wow, we really need to help the parents from a system standpoint, right? So, when there's an autism diagnosis, it's about the child, what therapies for the child, and what do we do there, and how do we educate and stuff like that. But there really isn't that focus on the family of, okay, how do we make sure this family has the stamina to go through this entire process? So hopefully the conversation will talk about that a bit more. That clinical trial that I was referring to, it was only seven parents. I'm very excited that it was five moms and two dads. So, I don't want this to be written off as just kind of like a mom-only thing. It is not. It impacts parents. So whether you were a mom or a dad, and it's also important to understand, again, it was a small clinical trial. This is hopefully just the beginning, but so these parents had official PTSD diagnosis from raising a child with autism. And then they did five to seven EMDR sessions, and it was only one per week for 60 to 90 minutes. So this wasn't like an approach. And at the end of that clinical trial, all seven of those parents lost their PTSD diagnosis.

Valerie

Oh, wow. Interesting!

Theresa Lyons

So it's, yeah, this is the important aspect to understand about trauma and about PTSD and just about the entire journey is the sense that you are going to go through trauma, but it doesn't have to stick and weight you down your entire life. It's important to, in many ways, process it. And that's what EMDR helps with. And the other aspect, which I haven't seen too much research on this, but the lack of sleep that many autism parents go through definitely impacts trauma, right? Because when we're sleeping, we have, you know, our sleep cycles, we have deep sleep, which helps restore our body. So, when we wake up and we're like, oh my goodness, my body, my body, right? You really want to focus on deep sleep. When you wake up and you're a bit more emotional in the sense of not being resilient, that's REM sleep. So REM sleep really helps us process our emotions, process our experiences, and helps us have that mindset. So, sleep is hugely tied to this in the sense of processing trauma. And that also is what can compound this even more for parents whose children aren't sleeping. So there's so many different related aspects to this that it's really important for parents. Maybe the trauma aspect is, I don't really want to acknowledge that, but if you start thinking about sleep and be like, okay, so you got me there. I haven't slept much. Okay, so that might be, you know, making it more difficult to process some of this. That might be a starting point for a parent.

Valerie

Yeah, I can certainly relate to the lack of sleep. But I think partly mine is the stage of life that I'm at as well. But I just want to take you back to EMDR, because I just want you to just if you don't mind just explaining what that stands for and just for our audience that may not appreciate what that is.

Theresa Lyons

Sure. So EMDR is one of the standard approaches. So it's evidence-based, it's eye desensitization. So what it is, is you're trying to stimulate both sides of the brain. And so with a therapist, sometimes they say, okay, you know, follow my hand. And so your eyes are just rapidly moving back and forth. Or sometimes it's an audio approach where you're having alternating noises on each side of your hemisphere of your brain, right? So, the whole idea is, and that's why I always talk about REM sleep is because we all know, oh, rapid eye movement, right? Why do we do that when we sleep, right? It's actually for our brain to process different things. And so that's what EMDR is doing, the actual technique is really to help process those experiences, so that when you think about them, you can still think about this, not as if you're trying to forget certain aspects or stuff, but you can think about the situation without the emotional charge being associated with it. And I mean, that's what wisdom is, right? So when you can start to think about situations without, you know, fear, right? So some, there was in the study, I believe there was a comment about how some parents after the EMDR felt much more comfortable being close to their child. And so some challenging behaviors happen when, you know, you might be holding your child and maybe they, they bite you or you start to have that like reaction of, OK, they need to stay away from me because I don't know what they're going to do. So, when that aspect gets processed, the researchers, there was this note about how there was less of a hesitancy for closeness, which is really important when you are raising a child.

Valerie

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sharing about that. I appreciate that. And just kind of going into that, almost taboo.

Theresa Lyons

I would definitely say it's taboo. And I think when my daughter was diagnosed with autism, there was a research study and it said how the stress that an autism parent goes through is equivalent to a combat soldier. And I remember reading that research and thinking, yes, that is true, but it didn't really take it far enough. Right. So, this latest research that was done in 2025 was, okay, the parents got the diagnosis, but then there was something to do about it. And I think that's the important part for parents to learn is… I think we all know that raising a child with autism has more stress in general than raising a child without autism. I think that is universally accepted, but then it's that whole piece of, okay, this, this accumulates as the child gets older, especially if the parent doesn't build into their own life, how do I unwind? How can I take care of myself? And if their child is always in this challenging crisis state, it's understandable for the parent to not focus on, okay, like, how do I unwind? You know, right? You have to be mindful of what the situation is, but you also have to be mindful of how much you yourself can tolerate before your nervous system is completely fried and you might be on edge all the time, and you might be very short with your child so you might be irritable and even when you don't want to be. So, these are all signs really to look at and to acknowledge for yourself and say okay how am I really feeling? How am I coping with this? 

Valerie

Because it's like you're on alert all the time as a parent, the opportunity to decompress to, as you say, calm your own nervous system. And that's something on this journey that I've been on to, sort of interviewing people and doing this podcast is yeah, I have a nervous system too, that needs to be regulated. And I don’t think we recognize that as parents.

Theresa Lyons

Oh my goodness. Yes. And we're talking sometimes it starts with simple breathing. So that is something that's very accessible. You could do it in four minutes or less at the time. And there's even free apps that have, you know, like the box breathing. So, there's many ways to really start. And when I first would read about that, I'm like, I am breathing, you know, whatever! You hear it. And you don't think like, it could be that impactful, but it really can. And that exhale is really when you get it so that it feels delicious, then you're doing it right and you'll be like, oh now I understand right so I've gotten to that delicious part where now I totally understand breathing.

Valerie

I never heard that term before delicious exhale. 

Theresa Lyons

That's not a scientific term, that's my term--that's what it feels like, it feels delicious!

Valerie

I love it! Thank you so much for sharing. 

So, as a doctor and a scientist, Theresa please share with us how our audience can know a little bit more about Leucovorin.

Theresa Lyons

Leucovorin. Yeah. 

Valerie

Yeah.

Theresa Lyons

So Leucovorin has been a hot topic in the past two months in mainstream media and the reason why is RFK Jr and President Trump announced that they were approving it as a treatment for autism. We can back up a little bit and understand the science in that. So the first thing to do is to understand who would this be relevant for? So 70% of kids with autism have antibodies in their brain that really interfere with folate and the brain's utilization of folate. Folate is like one of the most important nutrients in our brain. So that obviously is a large problem. And the researchers also were able to see that one of the main things that improves greatly when the brain is getting enough fully is speech. And that is vitally important for kids with autism and parents who really want to hear their child and know what are they thinking, and does something hurt, and why are you doing this, and how can I help, and are you hungry, and what do you want to eat, all of these questions. So, the main thing to do is something called a FRAT test. So, it's a blood test. A doctor can order it, and it will show if there are antibodies in the brain. If there are, then that is when Leucovorin is deemed quite appropriate because you then have a piece of paper that says, all right, there's an autoimmune problem in the brain that's preventing folate from being utilized. So Leucovorin is prescribed. Leucovorin is prescription vitamin B9. It's folinic acid. So, the formulation is specific. And it's been used, I think, over 50 years in oncology. It is not an oncology drug, but what it is, is it's vitamin B9. So, with oncology drugs, a lot of times vitamin B9 gets impacted. And so that's why folinic acid was developed. It's generic. So there's no pharmaceutical company that's making billions and billions off this. And as for the science, so the first clinical trial with Leucovorin was done about 20 years ago. And this is where it gets important to just understand the flow of scientific information. So, the first clinical trial was done about 20 years ago. And since then, there have been four more clinical trials looking at Leucovorin and, you know, FRAT tests and prescribing it, seeing what changes. And it's been throughout the world. So this is not just in the US. And so, two months ago, that's when RFK Jr. and President Trump said, okay, we're going to approve it. Now, some doctors, I want to just explain the controversy, right? Because I don't know, there seems to be nothing in autism that comes without controversy. So let me just explain the controversy. So usually the way science progresses, and it takes, you know, 20, 30 years or so. Different doctors practice and see how different things impact their patients. And when there seems to be a consensus, then maybe one or two doctors would do a clinical trial, maybe 10 patients, something along those lines, and then, you know, report the results. and other doctors listen to that and say, all right, you know what? That makes sense. I'm going to do a clinical trial. So, there are usually these small clinical trials. And so far there have been five done on kids with autism and they've been a hundred or less for each of the clinical trial. Usually then the next step would be, all right, let's do another clinical trial, but let's do maybe five clinical trials, each having a thousand patients, right? So you're trying to get a much larger understanding of the population and how they react and percentages and all things like that. What RFK did was they approved it before doing any of these really large clinical studies. And that's not to say these clinical studies aren't going to be ongoing, but they approved it. And I think the main reason is because the potential upside is so much greater than potential downside. So there's very small negative side effects that happen with Leucovorin. It's vitamin B9. So if it is a problem, you stop giving it. There's ways to titrate it up. So you never start with, you know, like the main dose or anything like that. You start small, you're impacting the brain. So this is not something you just want to blast with a lot of folate because the brain, the brain does not like that. So, there's a method of really titrating it up so that you don't see any of these potential negative side effects, which would include things like problem sleeping, hyperactivity, irritability. Those are the classic signs that there's just too much folate. And again, you always want to do lab testing for anything with autism, because if you know your child has those antibodies, and let's say you start giving them the Leucovorin and they start having these negative side effects, you know, okay, this is important to figure out. Okay. We started out too much. So let's reduce that by half, but it's important for them to get it. So we've got to do this slower and be more methodical. So that's the reason why you want to do lab testing so that you're not guessing, oh, is this needed? Is it not? So that's what's going on with Leucovorin.

Valerie

Okay. Well, thank you. Now is Leucovorin available everywhere or is that just in the United States?

Theresa Lyons

No, it is available in different countries. There's also, I know, many Canadians who get it filled in the US and have it shipped over to Canada. I know there's lots of border stuff going on, but there's possibility of having it filled either in Canada or actually in the US and having it shipped. It gets shipped to other countries as well. 

Valerie

Thank you so much for sharing that. Who knew? Learning stuff all the time.

Theresa Lyons

And in some countries, Leucovorin is not prescription, but in the U.S. it is.

Valerie

Okay.

Theresa Lyons

There's always differences.

Valerie

All right. Good to know. Good to know. Okay. So I know in your work that you shared earlier with me that you have done some work with families and you've had an opportunity to see some of the different setups that some families have created for their child with a disability. Could you share some of those situations that you've seen? 

Theresa Lyons

Sure. So I've seen parents come at this in many different ways. So, some parents like to keep their child close. And sometimes the child's like, listen, I want to move out. And they can communicate in a variety of different ways. So, whether it's speech, whether it's on an AAC device with buttons or Proloquo2go or things like that, or spelling to communicate. So a lot of times it's important to involve the child with whatever level that they can participate is really important. I will say just to begin all this, I pretty much see most kids really enjoying moving out of the house. As much as there's safety and there's, you know, just the known, you know, your parents and things like that. I see so many kids are just happy to do that. Even when they understand, okay, I might not ever live independently, have my own apartment. I might need different supports, whether that's living in a group home or having 24-hour care, but in their own apartment. It's something that many kids think about that I don't think their parents really realize. So, I think a lot of parents hold on and think, well, they're not ever going to be able to leave. But I think it's important to have a good perspective and really ask the child, the adult child, really.

Valerie

Absolutely. So we have set up our oldest in her forever home, which happens to be our family home. Myself my husband and our youngest child moved out. And yeah, yes we were the ones that moved and that was because the home that our oldest Melody-Anne is in, was set up for her. It's a wheelchair accessible home with a massive bedroom and a beautiful ensuite and it's… all the doors were 36 inches so it just made it a whole lot easier to move her around in a wheelchair, get the furniture her in and out. So that's what we did. And her first roommate, so she has two roommates, there's three of them that live there. So her first roommate was actually the one who is also very similar to Melody-Anne in a wheelchair, G-tube fed, uses a communication device and has cerebral palsy. So both of them knew each other in elementary school which was kind of amazing. But what was interesting was this young lady had initiated, even though she can't verbalize, she used her communication device, to let her parents know she wanted to move out too.

Theresa Lyons

YES!

Valerie

Her older sister moved out of the home was married was starting to have her own family and she's like I want to move out too! 

Theresa Lyons

Yes, yes, yes! I think that's what most parents don't understand for just because there are different limitations on children, it doesn't mean that they don't want to fly the nest and do things on their own. They might've been thinking about that since they were a child. And so it's so great when parents are able to create a situation where that can happen because it's so beneficial to the adult child.

Valerie

Absolutely. And on a podcast, I'm not sure which episode it is, but I'll put it in the show notes. We recently interviewed a young gentleman who also initiated moving out. He has SMA. And so he moved out and he sort of talked about his journey when he first realized he didn't want to live with his parents anymore.

Theresa Lyons

It's such a great topic to talk about. It really is. It doesn't get enough attention and understanding. And I think many times parents feel like we have to protect our child. you know, at all costs and it really limits their life. And they have such a smaller world when they have to depend only on us to, you know, go about the world. So, I think it's so important to really talk to our kids.

Valerie

Yes. And this is why I do the work that I do. Just bringing awareness to the parents… is a possibility. You can orchestrate or architect your child's future. You don't have to leave it to chance. And I totally get it. I was one of those parents. Well, I'm going to be looking after my child until, you know, I die.

Theresa Lyons

Right.

Valerie

The gift, the biggest gift that we've been able to give to Melody-Anne is the fact that she can have her life. If anything happens to Scott and I, which it will.

Theresa Lyons

Right.

Valerie

Her life will continue. I don't have to stress now about what's going to happen to her and try to get everything in place. I know now her life will continue. The staff that work with her know her well and the other beautiful thing you mentioned AAC earlier so I'm an AAC champion, Melody-Anne uses an accent 1400 and so one of the things that we've done is create a camp for kids using a communication device and what has been beautiful is Melody-Anne's communication has gone up like a thousand percent, because now nobody else is anticipating what she's going to say, so she has to say all the words, create the sentence so that she can be understood by the staff. And so that's been the hugest thing for us. And then the other beautiful thing, she advocates for herself. Oh, my goodness. She got a new communication device because hers was given us a lot of grief and it was time to replace it. And she, like most of us, don't like anything new, even though it's the same device with a backup of everything that was on her previous device, it's now on the new one. So she puts on a device, “Communication device, put in garbage truck tomorrow morning.”

Theresa Lyons

Oh my goodness. You get to see her humor.

Valerie

Exactly. Exactly. I get to see her as a person. So, I just want to say that it has been such an awesome thing that we have been able to do to gift her the ability to be independent of us, to improve her ability to communicate, and for her to advocate for herself we would never have known these things had she not been living in her forever home.

Theresa Lyons

Yeah! And it probably was scary for you to do to just have that separation right but that's the goal. You have roots and wings and everyone kind of flies differently. But most, most kids want to at least give that try. I want to… yeah. And then like you have been able to see your daughter grow in so many ways that wouldn't have been possible. Like those opportunities for her to step up wouldn't have been there, even though you might've thought, okay, I'm doing what's best. She's got to stay with me, and I can provide the best care. And she's just really able to blossom. And you actually are giving her the best care by letting her live on her own.

Valerie

Yeah. Yeah. And not just Melody-Anne, her roommates as well. It's just been lovely to see them develop and grow in independence and be able to advocate for themselves too.

Theresa Lyons

And have friends and community. And that's, that is awesome! That is exactly, you know, what parents want for their kids. And it looks differently for different kids, but it's definitely important to give that opportunity for someone who's interested, and really to step back and let them grow. Because I'm sure there are many times where you had to kind of catch yourself like okay let me just let me not say anything, let me not anticipate, let me not interrupt you, like...

Valerie

Absolutely, absolutely and just to touch very briefly the emotional side. it was extremely difficult and that will be an episode for another time. But yes, it is not easy to let go. My child was only, she was just coming up to 16, so I felt like I was the worst parent ever because here I am abandoning my child. But now it's been, we're coming up for eight years at the beginning of spring of next year, it'll be eight years since she's been living independent of us. And I wouldn't change it, I would not change it, it's been lovely.

Theresa Lyons

Fantastic

Valereie

So, Teresa where can our audience go to find out more about you?

Theresa Lyons

I have a YouTube channel for over 10 years so there's plenty of videos on YouTube for parents who are interested, especially learning more about science. There are videos on Leucovorin and I have a website awetism.net, you can certainly find me there as well I'm pretty easy to find. I've been working in the autism space for quite a while so a lot of times parents will have found me and they didn't mean to.

Valerie

Thank you so much! So, before we conclude our conversation today I'd love to hear, and I'm sure our audience would too, some words of encouragement from you to them as they continue on their journey to give them hope and inspiration.

Theresa Lyons

I think it's important to just remember what parenting is all about and how we might have had in our mind what we thought parenting was going to be. And I know I certainly did. And when I was in a situation, which was not at all like what I had dreamed of, just being able to really still appreciate who my daughter is and why I wanted to become a parent. And I used to tell her when I was pregnant, I rubbed my belly. I would tell her, I can't wait to show you the world. And the world is, there's so much to the world. And so if I only kept that one kind of perspective, that one linear way that I thought parenting was going to be, I'd be miserable. And I wouldn't really fully appreciate everything that my daughter has brought to my life. So, I think it's important to just remember why we became parents and that it's probably not going to be the way we thought it would be, but that it could be even better.

Valerie

Absolutely. And we can still enjoy the journey.

Theresa Lyons

Oh, definitely.

Valerie

All right. Well, Theresa, thank you so much for being here with us today. It's been lovely to hear your perspective on things. And thank you so much for sharing all that you did. Really, really appreciate it.

Theresa Lyons

Thank you. It's a pleasure being here.

Valerie

All right. So audience, I want you to remember, Live with Intention, Embrace the Journey.

Thanks for joining me today on Forever Home for our kids with disabilities. I hope today's episode gave you something new to think about and it increased your confidence on your journey. If you found this episode helpful, do tell others about it. Use the text feature to let me know your questions. Tell me what you want to know. 

Until next time, take care and keep building your child's future.