AUTISM. EVERYDAY LIFE. MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION.
Intentional Parenting
Bringing intention to everyday family life
1. Parents have a unique influence
Parents have a unique and evolving influence within everyday family life.
Through routines, relationships, activities, responsibilities, community experiences, and ordinary moments, parents continually make choices about how to prepare, guide, support, respond, wait, adapt, and participate alongside their child.
Intentional Parenting means becoming thoughtful about that influence — while allowing the child to increasingly know, do, and participate for themselves.
2. See Everyday Family Life Through a New Lens
Everyday family life is filled with meaningful opportunities for participation and development — getting ready, sharing meals, helping at home, going places, spending time together, making choices, taking responsibility, and participating in the community.
Intentional Parenting begins by noticing the everyday family life you already share.
Consider:
What matters to our family?
Where and how does my child participate now?
What strengths, interests, preferences, and abilities does my child bring?
Where might one little part be worth looking at more closely?
Begin with one little part.
3. Plan for the Moment. Respond to the Moment You've Got.
Intentional Parenting includes both planning and responsiveness.
We can think ahead about what matters, what participation might look like, and what could help. But everyday life does not
always unfold according to plan.
Being intentional also means noticing what is actually happening and adapting our influence and support to the moment we have.
A Simple Process for the supporting adult
REFLECT → PRIME → RESPOND → REINFORCE → CONTINUE ↻
REFLECT Think about the opportunity.
PRIME Help your child get oriented to it.
As the opportunity arrives, help them notice what is happening,
what matters, or what comes next. Use cues and supports as helpful.
RESPOND Work with what actually happens.
REINFORCE Strengthen meaningful participation.
CONTINUE Within the moment. Across similar moments. Into new moments.
Continue does not mean repeating the same response.
It means returning to the process of intentional, responsive engagement.
*WITHIN THE MOMENT — Keep noticing and responding as the moment changes.
*ACROSS SIMILAR MOMENTS — Everyday life brings another opportunity.
Repeated participation gives experience somewhere to accumulate.
*INTO NEW MOMENTS — Notice where else participation might become possible.
What develops in one place may help inform participation somewhere new.
4. Build Over Time
Everyday family life changes over time. Children grow, abilities develop, routines and responsibilities change,
and new settings and opportunities emerge.
Intentional Parenting is not about following the same plan throughout childhood and adulthood.
It is about carrying this way of thinking forward
— adapting adult influence, supports, and opportunities as the person and life evolves.
What we do today can become part of what is possible tomorrow.
5. Try it Within Your Own Family Life
Parent PlannerThe free Parent Planner offers a simple way to bring these ideas into one meaningful everyday activity within your own family life.
Parent Consultation
Sometimes it helps to think through an activity, routine, transition, goal, or recurring challenge with someone else.
Individualized Parent Consultation is available when it would be useful.