Lies You’ve Been Told About Autism: It’s genetic.
Genetic means something is hereditary and that it can be passed from parents to their children. Genetic disorders occur at a stable rate due to only a certain amount of people carrying genes.
Autism in our society has increased 417% since 2000. Population has not. What does that tell you?
Autism is not genetic.
Instead, we must understand that there are many variables that have worked together to weaken our children’s immune systems to create the problems that we have today. Even science is beginning to allude to the fact that changes in the last few decades have very real consequences for our health and our children are the most vulnerable, showing the earliest signs of the impact.
Our food has changed. The products we put on our skin are not regulated. We bring many things into our home that work against us instead of for us. We’ve even changed in other ways that aren’t things we either put on our skin or in our body but affect our emotional health which impacts our overall health. Our schedule continues to quicken, our stresses continue to increase. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that we don’t teach our kids how to slow down, play, and regulate nervous systems but to wreck them instead. All these changes can create a cycle of dysfunction in our children’s bodies (and ours!) and cause real issues for our children.
Then when we add epigenetics in—how our own choices either turn on or off specific genes—that’s where the REAL part of genetics comes into play. We TEACH our kids through our own choices—emotional ones, too. Even generational trauma can cause destruction within the body. So, in a way, we DO pass down the potential for disease, but we can break the cycles and teach our kids how to make better choices that benefit their health instead of destroying it.
So, no, autism isn’t genetic—it comes down to the choices we’ve made to create an environment in which they will either thrive or suffer in.