Parents Lose Savings to False ‘Miracle’ Cures for Autism

But first, CBS News visited a Queens, NY high school where, rather than fear AI in classrooms, some teachers are showing students tools of the past to ensure they develop critical thinking without AI, while also planning lessons that show them how AI might support their learning.

There is no cure for autism. That doesn’t stop parents from believing in one

For 15 years now, Dana Paduchowski has been parenting children with autism. All three of hers have been diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental condition and experience symptoms to varying degrees. Her eldest, Caleb, 15, is filled with energy and joy, but unable to engage in back-and-forth conversation; her music-loving middle child Emma, 13, is easily overstimulated, and her youngest, Ava, 11, is a cheerleader and less noticeably symptomatic, but still struggles to connect socially.

Paduchowski, who works as a special education teacher, told The Washington Post that she and her husband, a retail store manager, learned years after the children’s diagnoses that the pair carried a gene that increased the likelihood of their children being autistic. That didn’t stop them from spending more than $30,000 “they didn’t have” on treatments promising a cure.

“I just thought, ‘Oh, we’re gonna get this test, and then we’re gonna get results, and then we’re going to fix this one thing and then he’s going to talk and break out of his autism shell,’” she said, referring to Caleb. “But none of that has ever happened,” she said. The Paduchowskis share a predicament with many parents of autistic children. They’re left to traverse a minefield of conflicting and confusing advice, much of which promises some miracle therapy for an incurable condition. Experts say that only behavioral therapy shows evidence of addressing autism’s primary symptoms, while antidepressants or antipsychotics can treat co-occurring conditions like anxiety, irritability, or depression. 

But the Paduchowskis are among the many parents cheated by false autism cures, and Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s erroneous claims about causes of and cures for autism have only made the landscape more treacherous. Doctors told the Post that parents of autistic children often inquire about the efficacy of supplements or medications they’ve heard about online, including some – like enemas of diluted bleach solutions, raw camel’s milk and unproven stem cell treatments offered abroad – that would put their child’s health and wellbeing at risk. Despite research showing that alternative treatments aren’t very effective, research published earlier this year found that nearly 90% of autistic people had tried one.

“Parents are set up to fail here,” said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “They are not given a lot of scientific education, they are told to go home and do your own research. People are really susceptible to testimonials or inflated promises.”

Paduchowski was determined to try anything to cure her kids’ autism because of internalized guilt – part of her felt that their condition was caused by something she did wrong, and that she needed to correct for that. 

“I grew them in my body. I must have done something. I must have caused this,” she said, her voice quivering. “And I was like, ‘Well, if I caused it, I need to fix it.’ That’s why we went down all these avenues.” Over time, her thinking has changed. It’s no longer her children she needs to fix, she says. She just needs to secure the tools they require to live their best lives – a challenging task that the family will have to tackle on their own. 

“You’re left to piece all these things together,” Paduchowski concluded.

Also, see our recent MindSite News story “Trump Lambasted by Researchers for Alleging Tylenol-Austism Link.”

What’s the parenting paradox, and what might it tell us about how to be happy?

When my daughter was two weeks old, I made a Facebook post questioning the sanity of people who, having had a child, decided to turn right around and make another. My daughter had just gone on a nursing strike, refusing to latch to my breast. I hadn’t so much as opened a breast pump or washed a bottle before. It was an incredibly stressful time.

Four months passed before I began to enjoy parenting my kid. The hazing, a phase everyone else calls “newborn,” isn’t a time I’d like to revisit – even though I also believe it’s the easiest part of parenting! At 7, my kid still requires significant help getting to sleep every night, and wakes up at least once, needing the same support to go to sleep again. This means two things: She doesn’t get enough rest, which can lead to behavioral challenges during the day, and I have barely slept in the last 8 years. 

But my daughter is also the great love of my life. The thought of her brings me excitement and joy. She is creative, artistic, genuine, empathetic, hilarious, and is becoming a great critical thinker. She’s curious, outspoken, and brave. I look forward to admiring the woman she grows up to be. I am grateful for who she pushes me to become by existing. Put simply, I just love getting to love her. Her presence makes me want to live longer. I love being her mom. This is the parenting paradox. 

The parenting paradox – the observable fact that many parents report more stress and lower day-to-day mood but greater overall life satisfaction than nonparents – can be explained by how the brain and mind separate short-term emotion from long-term meaning, Scientific American reports. Parenthood means serious stress – but for many, it also deepens the sense that life has purpose and meaning. That sense can mean resilience in the face of future hardship. But, it turns out, becoming a parent doesn’t guarantee you find it.

In a study of 88 first-time fathers, roughly half reported greater meaning in life six months after their child’s birth. Brain scans revealed that fathers who experienced parenting positively showed connectivity changes in regions linked to empathy and self-control, while those who struggled showed changes in areas potentially tied to sensory overload. Fathers whose sense of purpose grew displayed stronger connectivity in regions that integrate emotions with identity, suggesting that those who can weave parenting’s chaos into a coherent internal story – putting daily stress into context – thrive despite difficulty.

But another study found that nonparents are, proportionally, about as satisfied with their lives as those who have kids. In that study, well-being correlated less with parenting status and more with how intently young adults aspired to having kids. 

Many parents find child-rearing tough but worth it, because it’s the sum of years, not an individual day, that counts. They frame their experiences, joy and frustration alike, within a personal narrative of purpose, reconciling stress with satisfaction. In other words, becoming a parent isn’t some code to life fulfillment and purpose. That’s born of connection with others, a feeling that life “makes sense,” and the ability to see struggle as part of something worthwhile.

Rural Northern California school district sues Trump administration for axing $7 million, five-year mental health grant

On behalf of McKinleyville Unified School District in rural Humboldt County, California Public Counsel Morrison Foerster and the California Tribal Families Coalition have filed a federal lawsuit, challenging the Trump administration’s decision to immediately discontinue a $7 million, five-year school mental health grant.

Specifically, the filing alleges the government stopped issuing funds illegally – not due to grantee performance or mismanagement, as the law would allow, but because of shifting political priorities. The suit simply asks that the administration be made to follow its own rules. 

At present, McKinleyville schools have just one counselor for their 850 students. The grant was supposed to pay for two more licensed professionals and the development of evidence-based strategies for student support. The loss of funding threatens access to mental health care for hundreds of students in low-income households as well as Indigenous youth, in an area already facing severe provider shortages and high rates of trauma. Indigenous youth, in particular, are at a higher risk of facing mental health issues, with harmful federal policy to blame, in part, for ongoing intergenerational trauma.

“This funding is a life-or-death issue for the kids in our rural corner of California,” District Superintendent Julie Giannini-Previde said in a press release. “This funding could change hundreds of lives by providing mental health services to students who literally can’t get it anywhere else.”

In other news…

Moldova moves away from its troubled orphanage system. For two years after her mother’s death, Milena Malanciuc lived in two orphanages, one in her native Ukraine and another in neighboring Moldova, which she remembers as like “a cold prison.” Staff there were often aggressive toward the children, Malanciuc told Reasons To Be Cheerful. She remembers getting to leave the grounds only twice: once to visit a playground and the time she tried running away. “You miss freedom, privacy and normal communication. You don’t see anything outside the institution walls. I missed love, attention and care,” she said. 

Her characterization of the experience aligns with what’s been documented. Before the year 2000, more than 17,000 children in Moldova lived in residential institutions, as orphanages there are called, many offering little educational support and base-level care in harsh facilities. Many children were there despite not being orphaned – families were either so poor they couldn’t afford to keep the children, or could not manage their special needs. Single mothers were regularly pushed to turn over their babies. Childhoods spent under such conditions meant scores of young adults emerging from orphanages with little education and poor social skills, leading to issues like addiction and homelessness.

That’s what makes Moldova’s latest data on orphanages so exciting. The Moldovan government, UNICEF, and nonprofits in the country like Lumos Foundation have been working on a shift away from residential care – keeping families together when they can, with social support, and otherwise building a network of caring foster families. Over the past two decades, the nation has shrunk the number of children in residential institutions from 17,000 to 700 – by 2027, the aim is for that number to be zero.