After sharing her struggles with her son’s invisible, yet severe disability online and in her book, “Forever Boy,” Swenson hopes to create a supportive community for other families with autistic children. A profoundly thought-provoking, funny, and hopeful memoir about learning to adapt when life doesn’t go to plan, redefining family, and creating your own path. And I'm just so happy to share his story and educate the unassuming person about how this is OK and it's OK to be different, and it's OK to say hi and share our life. So I've changed the way I speak about autism in a sense, but I really do try to stay true to myself.

How hard it is working and trying to keep up with all the different services that she needs to access, to help him. And when I asked, I had the developmental pediatrician and the psychologist from Children's Hospital in Philadelphia in the room. I have the husband with the nerves and patience of a saint while I am spiraling out of control, trying my hardest to just hang on and make it through each day. It was apparently just a little too heavy and scary because I outlined the death threats and kidnapping of my child, and I had to go to my kids' schools and show pictures and some very scary things.And I think we start to realize that stuff's really important for things like funding and helping, but it's kind of OK to tuck that down a little bit and just focus on our child as who they are because all those diagnoses get kind of heavy. Her mission is to create a safe space for families of children and teens with special needs to come together and laugh, cry and support each other.

So because I lost myself to autism for a lot of years and it took its toll on my career and my marriage and how I raised my other son, I still have a lot of guilt about my other son's early years, even though I'm sure was an exceptional mother to him. Her son Cooper was diagnosed with autism when he was three years old and since then life hasn’t slowed down. I would recommend this book not only to those with autistic children but anyone really, to learn about what we go through as parents and more importantly what our children go through and to help spread more acceptance and understanding in the world. Kate, I have been following your Facebook page for a very long time and therefore didn’t think I would learn a lot more from Forever Boy. But you know what I've learned over the years, like I did a video blog on can you tell how a two year old's going to do an eight or 18?I tried to be really respectful of Cooper, and in the beginning again, I didn't know that that many people were seeing my things. Kates book is a must read for anyone who has a child with or works with autism and even people without to this book can educate everyone . I think you know, I know our listeners like appreciating your writing and like every excerpt I've heard, is just more amazing than the first. As a parent, Kate struggled to find the reality of who her son was and to not relinquish all the dreams she had for Cooper. Kate dealt with the heartbreak of not being able to communicate with Cooper and watching behaviors escalate, all the while grasping for any opportunity to turn Cooper's story around.

Yeah, I know a lot of the guests that I've gotten on the podcast have been through Coops Troops and from some of your lives. We paid out of pocket for a lot of services that would’ve taken at least a year to get through the bureaucracy. So please know it's really a story like that to where it's really about Plan B and how important it is.

Thanks Kate for such a raw but honest account of your journey which in turn tells me that we’ll also be ok. Kate Swenson lives in Minnesota with her husband Jamie, and four children, Cooper, Sawyer, Harbor and Wynnie. The old saying 'a problem shared is a problem halved' rings true and it definitely works both ways - it helps both the sharer and the person being shared with.

And yesterday I said, turn it down probably 50 times because he was being very he had an anxious day, but the noise? Feeling that someone else understands your difficult times, really understands, because they have experienced similar, helps us to feel less alone and less isolated. There are some wonderful pearls of wisdom that Kate imparts that have both reassured me that I’m doing ok, and encouraged me to look at different approaches to what I’m currently doing. We have a thirst for knowledge, hoping someone will somehow show us the way forward, offer us suggestions of how to help our children maybe.Most of us don't have much time spare to read books because of the extra attention and care that our children need, but we try hard to make time. I've widened my sphere of interest to include ADHD and tics after these began to play a part in our life last year, and I do have other books still to review on the wider topics of autism - masking, girls, anxiety for example. I think I even have something on anxiety so we can link those in the show notes just for helpful information for people. Kate’s video, “The Last Time It’s Going To Be Okay,” was featured by The TODAY Show and has been viewed over 30 million times. Swenson describes her journey from denial to acceptance in a way that was realistic and forthright, compelling me to think about the repercussions that come in waves once a child is diagnosed with ASD.