Shellie Mercier
Director of Marketing and Training
Autism Advisor, Trainer, Speaker, Community Resource
(pronounced [ mur-ser ])
I am a mom who is surrounded by Autism. I am also a writer, as well as a speaker. I train staff, unravel red tape and generally try to create a creative, hope-filled lifestyle for families with Autism. My time is divided between taking good care of my two boys, my husband of eleven years, and making sure others can do the same.
Life's Experiences Help
Although I did not know it at the time, working in the restaurant industry is excellent training for the parent of an Autistic child. After high school, I was nestled safely in the restaurant industry, moving up and around in hopes of owning my own site some day. To be successful, I had to learn to read people carefully and quickly.
Each day brought a new setting and new players. I had to determine whether or not customers still had good judgment when the time came for them to go home. If they didn't, it was up to me to step in and gently help them find another way to get home. I relied a lot on body language to help me tell the story of my customers; was she crying because of a proposal of marriage or did she dump the poor guy.
Marriage and Children
I met my husband in the restaurant business and he still works in that demanding industry. I however, had two young gentlemen to raise who happened to be on the autism spectrum.
With my first son, I knew immediately that my little boy was not the same as others. I did not know what it was called and sometimes I could not even give you an example. I knew what it looked like: crazy sensory needs; no language; and a single mindedness matched only by the world of insects (ants, bees or dung beetles).
I did not experience the same storm of emotions that many parents go through when their child is diagnosed. I had known it long before I knew the name. I was more intrigued by finding out the particulars and all of the new words, initials and acronyms that accompany an autism diagnosis: ASD, SI, OT, PT, RDI®, NT, MRRC, and the whopper, PDDNOS.
Among these new words, was the actual Spectrum itself. Speech and language. Sensory Motor and Social emotional. Okay, isn’t speech language? I guess not. No, he does not point but he “gets”. If you dare to walk by the boy who only stands still when he needs something, or he is sleeping, he will hunt you down and GET you. Probably bite your leg or a stray phlange. The advice from onlookers, “bite him back”! We tried visual schedules instead and the biting went bye-bye. Visual schedules? A planner for the guy who speaks not. Franklin Covey would be proud.
When parenting a person with Autism, I need to draw upon intuition, memories and communication skills to determine:
- Where is my child starting from?
- What part or parts did my child miss?
Parents’ Needs
Parents start to instantly isolate themselves from their peer group and then tragically, from each other. Ironically, that exact type of isolation is what harms our children. We are born to relate not only with ourselves but with one another. I definitely started whittling away at my circle of friends. I needed people who knew what I did. Or more importantly, what I did not!
The bizarre was now the daily. Going out for coffee was a quick walk around the house with cup in hand. If the boys were out with me, a long day outside drinking the cold coffee from the morning. I dreamed often of the long ago outhouses. Trying to get one of the boys in the house, or both, so that I could go to the bathroom was so offensive to the two of them that all of our neighbors started to “drop by” for a few minutes and I would run inside and bolt back out. I also learned that the local policemen called little people that run or escape are called "elopers". They encourage all who know one of these people to call their local police department ahead of time. This way they know who it is when Agnus ,the neighbor, calls 911 and says that their is a naked five year old in her pool. This was summer.
Winter was a complete revolt by the troops. No one saw them until the spring thaw. My husband and I would go out and build snowmen, have snowball fights and make snow angels. The little boys would stand in the window and watch, Winter gear laying there with the tags still on them! They both went to an Early Childhood Center, via the bus. We would wrap them in a blanket and hand them to the bus driver. We stopped giving the drivers their coats. We figured they knew we weren’t trying to freeze the boys and call social services.
Autism and Me, Now
Fast forward to the year 2000. I attended a workshop through the Minnesota Autism Society presented by a Doctor Stephen Gutstein. He was a man with a passion for children on the Autism Spectrum. Many doctors are, but they do not put together an intervention that may someday get your child to MOVE OUT or go to prom.
It was RDI®. Since that time I have infected many with my constant rant about the efficacy and impact RDI® can have on an autistic person’s life, not to mention their parents. I tried to learn from the first books he published, many of which are now outdated and a thing of the past. This is why you need a certified consultant to do RDI®. That RDI® is parent led and home based is crucial to its success and my own. I came up with the idea of a consultant in the family. Leanne. She did not want to play at first, I was persistent.
It took several years to convince her and she came up with many reasons why she could not possibly do that; she lived in Chicago, she had a job, she was going back to graduate school. She finished graduate school and finally agreed to join the fray, I was very persistent.
Together we make a great mixture of talents and passion. We can make an incredible difference in the lives of families living with Autism.