Well, that's my philosophy, too, after 28 years of teaching and 23 years of parenting my neurodiverse kids. Just stick with this and you're golden!

Also, agree with the part about placing too much emphasis on how children behave. It's even more true for our ND kids. ABA and such are so damaging! Public school punitive practices/rewards - even under the guise of PBIS - are damaging to all kids. I'm connected with many educators on LinkedIn, mostly progressive and home school people, who believe education in whatever form should be almost entirely self-directed. Children should be leading and parent or teacher facilitating. So, kudos there as well.

A final note, a have an aunt who has muppets and children's book characters all over her house. She lives alone. She just remembers them from when her kids were small and she was barely an adult herself. She also loves children, runs a preschool, and teaches early childhood at a community college. I don't care if she hugs them to fall asleep at night! We should just let people be who they are.

I always thought that if the store didn't want the kids to play with the toys, they shouldn't have put them within reach. They know who their clientelle are!