Episode 22
What Having a Child with Autism Taught Me About Connection
How to Let Go of the Child You Expected
Guest: Craig Parks — camp director, musician and founder of Parenting Harmony
Episode Description
Craig Parks has spent 30 years working with other people’s children. He’s a camp director, a musician and a parenting coach.
When his son was diagnosed with autism at around 18 months, Craig and his wife had to readjust everything — the future they’d imagined, the social life they’d assumed, the milestones they’d expected. Their home became a place of constant therapy. They stopped going to gatherings. They became isolated. And Craig, for all his professional expertise with children, found himself learning that everything is harder with your own kids.
In this conversation, Craig talks about what that early diagnosis actually meant for the family — emotionally, spiritually, financially. About the fear of never hearing his son say ‘I love you’. About the years of letting go, slowly, of the child he’d imagined. And about what he found instead: a son who teaches skateboarding to kids, DJs parties, plays drums in one of Craig’s bands, and is — as Craig says simply — a shining soul in this world.
He also talks about the mundane moments that build a childhood — why the memories that last are almost never the big planned ones. About technology and how to navigate it with kids. About physical presence and what it does. And about his coaching work through Parenting Harmony, helping parents create a childhood both they and their children can look back on with gratitude rather than regret.
Timestamps
00:00 Cold Open — He Didn’t Get a High School Diploma. He Is a Shining Soul.
00:48 Show Description and Coming Up
01:37 Talk Ten — Quickfire Questions with Craig
02:50 Craig Welcome to Talk
02:57 30 Years Working With Other People’s Children — Is Your Own Easier?
07:26 The Early Autism Diagnosis
08:57 What Craig Had Imagined — And What Had to Change
10:21 The Home Becomes a Place of Constant Therapy
11:49 Isolation — Stopping Going to Gatherings
13:25 Letting Go of the Child You Expected
15:00 The Fear of Never Hearing ‘Daddy’ or ‘I Love You’
17:00 Grief — What Craig and His Wife Went Through
23:00 Technology and Kids — What the Research Shows
25:00 Physical Presence — Why Connection Requires the Body
27:00 The Mundane Moments — Where the Real Memories Are Made
29:00 Character Voices, Bedtime, Bathtime — Making the Ordinary Special
31:00 Relationships Are Built on Moments
33:00 Dom’s Experience — Being There for Sporting Fixtures
35:00 Parenting Harmony — What It Is and Who It’s For
38:00 Reactive Parenting — How to Catch Yourself
42:00 His Son Today — Group Home, Skateboarding Business, Drummer
44:43 The Fears That Came True — And Why They Don’t Define Him
46:58 Dom’s Closing Reflection
About Craig Parks
Craig Parks is a camp director, musician and the founder of Parenting Harmony — a coaching practice helping parents create deeper connection with their children and build a childhood both can look back on with gratitude. He has spent 30 years working with children of all ages and has 22 years of experience raising his autistic son Jonah alongside his daughter Nishama.
Craig is based in the United States. Find him and Parenting Harmony at [insert website / social handles].
You can find out about Craig and his work at
Parenting Harmony | Notice More. Create More.
All previous Torque episodes available at
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