He Told Me He Wants to Get Married
My grandson is 11 years old. Pre-pubescent. Right on the edge of everything changing.
Yesterday, he told me he wants to marry a classmate.
Now, if you have a neurotypical kid, you might hear that and think it’s cute. Puppy love. A phase. You’d probably chuckle and move on.
However, when your child has autism, a moment like that hits different.
Here’s the thing. As a former afterschool administrator, I’ve seen this a hundred times with typical kids. I’ve witnessed the crushes, the “I’m going to marry so-and-so” declarations, and the big feelings they don’t know what to do with. I knew how to help those kids navigate it. We’d have conversations about feelings, about friendships, about what it means to like someone. Honestly, it was one of the parts of the job I enjoyed most.
But with my own ASD boy?
It’s completely different.
When Old Challenges Show Up in New Ways
Because here’s what else is happening. His genuine struggle with personal space, which has always been there, is suddenly showing up in new ways. These new situations involve girls and require conversations we weren’t planning to have yet. As a result, I’m realizing the supports that worked last year aren’t going to cut it anymore.
With a typical kid, you can say, “Give her some space,” and they get it. They might not like it, but they understand what you mean. In contrast, for my grandson, personal space has never been intuitive. It’s something we’ve worked on for years. And now that he’s having feelings for a classmate? That same challenge is showing up in a context where the stakes feel so much higher.
He’s not “getting worse.” Instead, he’s entering a new developmental stage. And that stage is revealing needs we didn’t know we’d have to address.
This is what I mean when I talk about what looks like regression.
“It Feels Like We’re Going Backward”
I hear this from families more often than you might think.
“It feels like they’re regressing.”
“The behaviors are worse than they’ve ever been.”
“It’s like we’re going backward.”
If this sounds familiar, I need you to know something: what looks like autism “getting worse” is almost always something else entirely.
And I say this as someone who has watched my grandson go through seasons that scared me. So I’m not saying this from a textbook. I’m saying it from experience. I’m living it right now.
What’s Really Going On
When our kids seem to be struggling more than before, we want answers. We want to know what changed. We want to fix it.
But the answer isn’t usually that autism is “getting worse.” In most cases, the answer is one of these things:
Increased Demands Without Increased Support
As kids get older, school gets harder. Socially. Academically. In terms of executive function demands. Meanwhile, the workload increases, the social dynamics get more complicated, and the expectations for independence go up.
If supports don’t grow WITH the demands, the gap widens. That gap looks like regression, but it’s actually the environment failing to keep up.
Think about it this way. In second grade, maybe your child was doing fine with a few accommodations. Now they’re in fifth grade, and suddenly everything is falling apart. Did your child change? Or did the demands change while the supports stayed the same?
Masking Fatigue
Many autistic children, especially girls and those diagnosed later, learn to mask. They hide their authentic selves to fit in. They study what other kids do and copy it. They hold everything together at school, only to fall apart the moment they get home.
This is exhausting. And eventually, the mask slips.
What looks like “getting worse” might actually be your child finally showing you how hard they’ve been working to hold it together. That’s not regression. That’s running out of gas.
Burnout
Yes, kids can experience burnout too.
When the demands of daily life exceed their capacity for too long, everything gets harder. Sleep falls apart. Eating becomes a battle. Emotional regulation disappears. Motivation tanks. As a result, the skills they used to have seem to have vanished.
I’ve seen this in my grandson. It’s real. And it’s terrifying to watch. But it’s not autism getting worse. Rather, it’s a system that’s been pushed past its limit.
Puberty and Hormonal Changes
This is where I’m living right now.
The pre-teen and teenage years bring changes that can intensify sensory sensitivities, emotional regulation challenges, and anxiety. Bodies are changing. Brains are reorganizing. Social dynamics are shifting. Feelings are bigger. In other words, everything is more intense.
And for kids who already struggle with things like personal space, body awareness, impulse control, or reading social cues? Puberty doesn’t just add new challenges. It amplifies the ones that were already there.
For example, my grandson’s struggle with personal space isn’t new. But now that he’s noticing girls and having feelings he doesn’t fully understand, that same struggle is showing up in ways that require completely different conversations and supports.
This isn’t regression. It’s a new developmental stage that requires updated support.
Co-Occurring Conditions Are Showing Up
Anxiety, depression, and ADHD often travel alongside autism and can become more apparent with age.
Sometimes what looks like autism getting worse is actually a co-occurring condition that needs its own attention. For instance, a child who seemed fine in elementary school might start showing significant anxiety in middle school. This doesn’t mean the autism changed. Instead, it means the anxiety was always there and is now being triggered by new demands.
Why This Matters for Your Child
Here’s what I need you to understand.
If your child seems to be struggling more, the answer isn’t to push harder. It’s not about expecting them to “get back to where they were.” And it’s definitely not about more consequences or tougher love.
The answer is to get curious. You need to look at the environment, the demands, and the supports, then figure out what needs to shift.
Something is causing this. Your job isn’t to fix your child. Your job is to figure out what’s happening and advocate for what they need.
What I’m Learning Right Now
I’ll be honest with you. Watching my grandson navigate pre-pubescence is teaching me things I didn’t expect.
I thought I was prepared. After all, I’ve been doing this work for years. I know the research on puberty and autism. I know the strategies. I’ve walked other families through this exact stage. Furthermore, I spent years as an afterschool administrator helping typical kids figure out their big feelings about crushes and friendships.
But when it’s your own kid? When you’re the one having the awkward conversations about bodies and boundaries and feelings? When you’re the one lying awake, wondering if you’re handling it right?
It’s different.
All that professional experience helps, of course. But it doesn’t make it easy. Because this isn’t someone else’s kid. This is MY kid. And the stakes feel completely different when it’s personal.
What I keep coming back to is this: he’s not broken. He’s not getting worse. He’s growing up. And growing up is hard for everyone. It’s just harder when your brain works differently, and the world wasn’t designed with you in mind.
My job isn’t to make him “normal.” My job is to help him understand himself, advocate for what he needs, and navigate a world that doesn’t always make sense to him.
That’s what I want for your child, too.
The Bottom Line
If you’re watching your child struggle more than before, you’re not imagining it.
And you’re not alone.
But please hear me when I say this: what you’re seeing probably isn’t autism getting worse. It’s probably a signal that something needs to change. Perhaps it’s the demands, or the supports, or the environment, or the expectations.
Your child is telling you something. The behavior is communication. The “regression” is information.
The question isn’t “why is my child getting worse?”
Instead, the question is “what does my child need that they’re not getting?”
That’s a different question. And it leads to very different answers.
Need Help Figuring This Out?
If you’re in the middle of one of these seasons, watching your child struggle and not sure what’s driving it or what to do about it, I can help you sort through it.
This is one of the things I talk through with families most often. Let’s figure out what’s really happening and what your next step should be.
From Chaos to Collaboration℠, Latina