a good day

My daughter took five-and-a-half years to sleep through the night with any real predictability. 

Many autistic individuals struggle with sleep lifelong. So, we feel pretty lucky here, that, at six-years-old, she can be comfortable at night and get the rest she needs for the activities she loves during the day. 

Even when she is up extra early or in the middle of the night, she’s fairly independent. No more 1-3am meltdown spirals… or at least they’re incredibly rare.

But, this morning, when she woke up, my girl immediately came and got my attention. 

I hadn’t had my coffee yet. This is very important to our story, for the record. 

“Mom…” she began, paused, yawned, stretched, shook, sang a few birdy notes, hmmmm’d, did a twirl… “Can you make a perfect day for me and I’ll make a perfect day for you?” 

I said, “Do you mean, can we have a nice day together?” 

“No… like yesterday,” she said. “Yesterday was a perfect day. I want to do that again. You make a perfect day for me and I’ll make a perfect day for you.” 

I almost corrected her. 

I almost went into a dissection of phrasing and nuance. 

I almost made a mistake.

Instead, I did something I rarely do… I stayed silent. 

Because I realized, in that moment, that she said exactly what she meant. And what she meant was something more profound than what I was prepared to tackle at 6am uncaffeinated. 

What I would have said, what I’d been in danger of correcting her to say…

“Let’s have a nice day together.” 

It misses the heart of her way of phrasing things, doesn’t it? 

In my way, the agency of creating a nice day is passive. 

It’s like saying, let’s exist in this goodness together. 

But then who manufactures that goodness? Who’s in charge of making it a good day? 

If I focus on making it a good day for you, and you focus on making it a good day for me, a few things happen: 

We know what our jobs are. The agency and responsibility of driving goodness is clear. Our roles are active. 

We both get our needs met. We each get to exist in a more predictable, less stressful environment of positivity, while also reducing perceived conflict.  

It lightens the burden on self-advocacy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think learning to express our wants and needs is one of the most important functions of communication. 

But follow me on this tangent for a second… 

It can be incredibly draining for an autistic person to request every need they have. This type of dynamic can lead to shutdown and masking, ultimately causing increased anxiety in relationships. 

While I’d argue that everybody would benefit from us each, all, simultaneously, directing our focus onto the needs of each other, this might be especially the case for those with autism and other neurodiversities. 

As society debates the extent to which bringing an autistic person “out into the world” is beneficial, or necessary for safety and self-help, this unique view from my daughter is one of the most outwardly focused things we could do. 

It’s a sense of social responsibility to affect an outcome.  

But for this to work, we have to be in it together. We have to do the good work together. 

You make it a perfect day for me and I’ll make it a perfect day for you. 

But, I would, perhaps, make one edit to this. My daughter often struggles with perfection. If the day is not “perfect,” then it must be terrible. We’re trying to work with her to see the trends of success, and not let perfect become the enemy of good. 

So, maybe, let’s try this…

You make it a good day for me, and I’ll make it a good day for you. 

And we’ll go into today knowing that our intentions are rooted in compassion for one another toward mutually beneficial outcomes.