Every 6 mths or so I do some casual babysitting if something comes up. There's a lady I worked with for about 6 weeks in 2016, she has three kids, one of whom was diagnosed with ASD (7 yr old boy) a few months before I came into the picture. She was reluctant to tell me his diagnosis because she refused to accept it. He had a lot of problems - sensory, motor, sleep, emotional, fixated interests and odd facial expressions/body language, he seemed to misbehave and ignore instructions/rules all the time and needed a lot of extra attention in order to feel secure and function normally. Occasional mild meltdowns and liked to have things his own way, rigid/literal thinking etc
She found him really difficult and would tell me he was just "a little sh**". I felt pretty bad on his behalf, because I could see he was a very sweet child - even if he didn't have a good understanding of or respect for 'arbitrary rules' (such as those set by his mum!). I spoke to her about his diagnosis a few times and she kept saying "it's not autism" - so at that point I finally disclosed. I didn't go into a whole lot of detail about my own diagnosis, but just wanted to normalise the issue - she obviously liked and respected me enough. And her son behaved for me, I would sit with him and let him talk to me about Pokemon for an hour when he wasn't able to sleep. I once heard his mum reprimanding him quietly and he yelled back at her, "I'm not like you!". That broke my heart a little - I don't think he knew his own diagnosis. He just knew he was different
Anyway, she has asked me a few times in recent months to come back and work for them. Very small/odd jobs, mostly haven't come to fruition but I am going tomorrow and maybe later this month, for an hour once a week
I don't know why but I have a feeling the topic of her son and ASD will come up. It's been a couple years since his diagnosis, if it is autism it will have become more apparent over time and she may have accepted it by now
I feel like there aren't enough resources for parents with children who are Level 1. I am wondering if you've found any particular blogs/websites/books/YouTube channels beneficial with regards to parenting a boy on the spectrum (maybe ones that would have been helpful to you when your son was younger) - most of my own personal research has focused on females/adults and I'm worried I wouldn't know how to relate to her (though I relate to him exceptionally well)