Our situation involves a 24 year old adopted son who has autism, DDMD, ID and severe anxiety. These cause his behavior to be dangerous to himself and others. He ran away from aides we hired and was hospitalized twice for mental health problems. In 2018, my husband quit his job to care for him full time. While he didn’t make as much money, the benefit to our son was amazing. Consistency and authority was much better with my husband in charge. We now live in a rural county in SWVA and no one would or COULD handle our son. He lives with us and has a stable situation that he has greatly benefitted from. This is the best way to handle a very difficult circumstance.  

How do you think our son would be better off if we brought on a different  caregiver? And who besides a loving parent would tolerate handling such a difficult young adult???

Barb Ferrell