If you’re navigating the complexities of school, burnout, and autonomy with your autistic child, youth, or young adult, you’re not alone. Many parents find themselves in the impossible position of wanting to support their child’s education while also witnessing firsthand how the system fails to meet their needs. Schools may superficially offer “flexibility” by handing over control to the child—but what happens when that control is still embedded in adult expectations?

As an autistic PDAer who has experienced multiple cycles of burnout in my life, I know firsthand that recovery isn’t about returning to how things were—it’s about creating a life that no longer requires constant exhaustion to participate. For many autistic children, what looks like “managing well” is often masking, suppressing distress, and existing in a constant state of survival—literally survival stress responses in the nervous system. The long-term impacts can include mental health difficulties and crisis, chronic stress-related health conditions, and a deep disconnect from ourselves.

The real goal is not just recovery, restoration, and replenishing energy but restructuring life in a way that supports authenticity, felt-safety, sensory and autonomy needs, and long-term well-being—which means living in unconventional, ND-affirming ways that may look very different from the expectations we may have started this journey with.

This shift requires a deep reimagining of what education and learning truly are. It’s a move away from traditional timelines, expectations, standards, and curricula toward something more sustainable, meaningful, and self-directed. And while this shift is complex, emotional, and often isolating, it is essential.

Many parents are navigating this alone—sometimes even without a co-parenting partner on board, adding layers of complexity and emotional labor. You are doing the best you can in a system that isn’t built for this level of individualization.

So how do we move forward? How do we step out of the boom-and-bust cycle and help our children reclaim autonomy and authentic learning in a way that offers felt-safety and sustainability?

Autonomy Must Be Co-Created, Not Imposed

Many schools—including brick-and-mortar, online, forest, and alternative models—try to support autistic learners by offering more “control” over their education, often through rote strategies that lack true connection, co-regulation or collaboration. So if the framework is still based on adult-led expectations, it isn’t true autonomy. Often, it just shifts the burden onto the child—and onto you, the caregiver—who is already stretched too far.

💛 True autonomy invites the child to be an active participant in shaping and co-creating what works for them, not simply being handed a plan that appears to involve them but is still structured around hidden adult expectations, rigidity, and pressures. It must be collaborative, responsive, and adaptable. It’s the adults who need to be flexible and adaptable, not the child.

💛 Baseline regulation and felt-safety must be priority. When the nervous system perceives felt-safety, we naturally shift into connection, exploration, creativity, and authentic engagement—without force or pressure. If a child is in burnout or experiencing chronic dysregulation, they likely won’t have the internal resources to take on responsibility—no matter how much “control” they’re given. Without felt-safety and regulation, autonomy can become just another demand on an already overwhelmed stress response system. Pressure, decision-making, and problem-solving all need to be drastically reduced or eliminated during this time to allow true recovery.

💛 If a child is not engaging, the next step is stepping back, not pushing forward. Toss out the idea of rigid consistency—it doesn’t work for autistic children in burnout. Instead, what they truly need is ongoing offers of felt-safety, co-regulation, and flexibility from the adults around them—without the adults expecting anything in return while they are in acute burnout.. As the nervous system restores, over time they will naturally engage and learn on their own timeline, in their own way. In acute burnout, truly responsive interventions often mean pausing everything and trusting that complete rest is the most important and effective support in the moment.

(Check out a graphic I made for Robyn Gobbel on felt-safety—it’s much different than just physical safety! - Click here)

Burnout Recovery is a Full Recalibration, Not Just a Break

One of the hardest shifts for parents is realizing that burnout recovery isn’t about “bouncing back” to how things were. Many autistic children have been operating in unsustainable survival mode for years and, as described in the article “Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”, autistic burnout is more than exhaustion—it’s the complete depletion of a person’s internal resources, with nothing left to rebuild from. and eventually collapsed into autistic burnout. If they “recover” just to be placed back into the same high-demand environment, the cycle will simply repeat.

💛 Recovery must include restructuring daily life to meet the child's neurodivergent needs and drastically reduce the need for masking. This means rethinking our approach, expectations, environments, routines, and social environments to center the child’s needs—not external pressures.

💛 The focus is on long-term sustainability, not quick fixes. While immediate progress is appealing, real recovery is slow, nonlinear, and deeply personal. Although some say it takes a month of recovery for every year in burnout, in my experience, it’s often much longer. Progress often looks like staying home, being on preferred tech, resting a lot, having boundaries respected (like saying “no”), and disengaging from most expectations for a time.

💛 We must honor and trust our child’s lived experience. Many parents feel pressure to get their child “back on track” because the world tells us that productivity equals success. However, healing happens when children are welcomed to exist as they are—without the pressure to perform or present themselves in a certain way.

Tangible Ways to Support Your Autistic Child Right Now

💛 Stop all conversations about school. Even asking, “How are you feeling about school?” can create stress and dysregulation. Removing it from daily conversation can be incredibly supportive.

💛 Focus on sensory needs and regulation. Support sensory needs with soft clothing, fidgets, quiet spaces, dim lighting, and movement-friendly environments (wobble seats, exercise balls, Lycra swings, or body socks—whatever they like!).

💛 Prioritize deep rest and replenishment. This often means social withdrawal, stimming, special interests, lots of hyper-focus opportunities, or simply existing with minimal demands.

💛 Engage in parallel connection time. Many autistic children feel safest in close-by connection rather than direct interaction. Sitting together while they watch a show, playing on your phone nearby, or engaging in a child-led shared interest for short periods can be supportive and help build trust.

💛 Let go of urgency. Burnout recovery can take months, and often years. It ebbs and flows—like climbing a mountain, sometimes passing through valleys. Trust that healing is happening even if it isn’t immediately visible.

You Are Not Alone

Stepping away from the boom-and-bust cycle means redefining success. Take a step back and reflect on what truly matters—connection, trust, mental well-being, knowing oneself, joy, self-trust—not external measures of progress.

💛 Your child is so much more than a 'student' who needs to meet academic expectations—they are a whole person, learning to honor their true ND needs, slowing down and resting for their well-being, and growing in their own way—just like you, always learning and evolving.

💛 You are doing deep, meaningful work. And you are not alone.