Most of you are first generation immigrants like me who came to this country with lots of hopes and dreams, Like most of you, my goals and standards for life were pretty high. I wanted to excel in work, life and everything I did. I worked hard each day doing my very best. When I became a parent, I carried the same goals into my parenting as well. When I found out that one of my children had difficulty navigating the neuro-typical world, that was designed to work for most people, I was quite lost and didn’t know how to proceed. Living in an achievement oriented society like the California Bay Area can be daunting to a parent with a child who is different.

While I had some friends here, I did not have anyone that I could go to for help with the parenting challenge I was facing. Most of my friends were young parents like me. I did not know many people here and leave alone knowing how to navigate the medical and school systems to support a child who is different. Growing up in a culture where this was a taboo, I myself didn’t have much knowledge and background about this domain. I could not ask my parents either as they did not know the domain as well as the systems in the US. In the culture I grew up, people either brushed it off as a non-issue or never talked about it. So navigating this realm was pretty difficult for me.

There were a lot of possibilities for the root cause and lot of options that were available to me. I did not know exactly how to proceed or which problem to tackle. I was afraid to make the wrong decisions which could be life changing for my child. I had to figure out how to help my child while navigating my own emotions and fears.I was looking for some guidance or resources. You will be surprised at the amount of things you can google on the internet. But most of them won’t tell you exactly what will work for your child. Each child is different and what works for one will not work for the other. Searching for information without proper goals, was confusing and I was lost. There are many resources about different topics on the internet and books. What these resources lacked was to say what exactly my child needed to be successful.

Over a period of time, with a lot of trial and errors, I figured out what worked for my child. I wanted to create this resource that I as a parent was looking for years ago that could help other young parents who are in similar situations. Rediscovering what someone else already knows would be wasted energy and time that could be spent otherwise. This book was written to share my journey and wisdom that I gained parenting my child.

I once saw a funny quote that said: “You just have to find yourself and for everything else there is google!” While it is funny, there is a lot of wisdom in it. I think the same is true for parenting a child who is different. “You just have to find out what works for your child and for everything else there is google”. Interestingly the hardest part was to find out what worked for my child. The how to execute can mostly be researched. You as a parent know your child the best. No book or search engine can provide that information to you. I tried to capture more of how to get to the bottom of what issues you have to address in my book and how to find out what works for your child rather than how to go about executing them. I m no medical expert and there are other qualified resources for that.

One of my neighbors once said that your goal as a parent is to help your child reach his/her full potential and not the best that someone else’s child’s best. This was quite eye opening for me. I believe the goal of a parent is to help their child reach its best by providing the environment and support and motivation to be its best . Every child deservers to be in an environment where they can be their best and reach their full potential.

No matter what you hear from others, you as a parent are the one who knows your child, the best, You have the ability, resources and tools to help your child find a path forward to success and my book attempts to provide a step by step guide to parents to find that path forward.