Mums are incredible beings. This mum is such a genius. Her ability to embrace her obstacles and infuse them with love and compassion is beyond my understanding. Thank you for your lecture, for your effort, for your experimental parenting approach. Only a mum knows better what her son really needs. You inspire me to be a better and more patient mum.

I mean this in the best absolute way, because I lost my grandmother when I was young. But she was so dear to me, and this feels like advice she would give me… she was a mother of 6 turned into a preschool teacher.

One of my favourite quotes: "Those who judge, don't understand. Those who understand, don't judge!" - Mark Twain

In a way Toby is lucky, when the world is against him his mum's unconditional love is his only protection. I am so happy they went through hardship and comes out from a better end, and is now showing compassion and offering practical help to those in need. Amazing story, thank you Yvonne!

This woman is a hero.

Yvonne's journey of self-acceptance and compassion are incredible! 🙏

Yvonne ❤ cheers to Helen n doc. Ppl need to b kind to kids. Lots of energy n love n support to u n toby

Well done Yvonne. You achieved a serious note of understanding, and have inspired me with a love to be more compassionate and understanding.

Sweet woman. Big heart

Thank you for sharing this! I REALLY enjoyed it.

I love her strength and transparency. The healthcare systems seems, in my opinion, to want to keep people anxious and stressed. The parents need to be appreciated for seeking help, but then the help which is often received is a cause of more anxiety sometimes. What's helped my family and myself is learning that anxiety is essentially our fight-flight-or-freeze survival response gone wrong...but it's not our fault, it's been a survival response passed down through generations and through society. What's been helpful is correcting the survival response to not take rogue anxious thoughts and worries as too serious. Mindfulness meditation helps. We went through the book "30 Days to Reduce Anxiety" by Harper Daniels together and that helped, and then we practiced other things together like exercise and walks and enjoying cooking. To correct the anxiety response passed down from generations takes time and a lot of intentional effort. It's possible :)

This brought deeply held tears to mine eyes

I absolutely relate on so many levels 😢 My 8yr old son's name is Tory, who is also autistic.

Good grief this is phenomenal. What a power talk. Thank you TED.

Such a great talk. Thanks Yvonne I'm so glad I found you 💕💪

I can relate to resorting to wild and wacky methods of parenting sometimes too. There are limits as to how far having a healthy curiosity in us moms will go in helping to maintain good behavior in all the people around us including small children some of whom have a disability. Like when alone me spending way too much time online offering my own opinion to people many of whom might be offenced by it while hoping that somehow in a round about way it would help to protect my own offspring. Long after for example being confrronted by having to be aware of 2 grown men sitting in front of the T.V. in our living room sometimes who were watching the news after work to cheer while seeing signs of rockets flying in the air with muted sounds of bombs going off during the Gulf war. Later for one of them to congratulate one of his sons for according to him 'becoming' a man at boot camp to maybe later getting some of his limbs blown off too next in Afghanistan during the next century too. Nothing about that sort of thing made sense during the 1990's back then and during the earliest part of this century as well to me while I was being expected always to never be judge while being regarded as only an outsider always there. An outsider.only because I had according to them a human being weaker and more prone to be possessed by the demonic mind only because I am female. Now I am worrying again while my grandsons are getting closer to that same tender age when maybe being congratulated too next for going to 'become' men in boot camp too.

This goes out to so much else. Change yourself if you wish to "change" others. When you give yourself, you are able to enable others positively.

You need to change the title to "Toby"

First day watching TED Talk!

❤