The is a tough one, and from talking to many other parents in our situation it seems that it is pretty common to keep putting it off because there is no one who we would trust with our children.

We have not one but two ASD children and our daughter is in residential. The issue is that my family is not an option because of some issues in the past, so that leaves my wife's siblings and that presents a problem because we feel we can trust one parent from the couples but not the other for various reasons. Also we do not want our children leaving the area we are in , and that is why we moved here and on top of that this district pays for our daughters residential.

This has made us think about having another child but we are both in our early forties and we also do not believe in having a child just to take care of the others, that just is not fair. I would honestly trust some of our children's teachers over anyone else so we are at a loss as to who we would leave them with.

We worried about this too. But I can say it wasn't a difficult decision for us. When we were struggling with services for our son and decided to make a move cross country for those services, my wife's sister didn't blink. She and her family moved with us. She's gone with us to appointments, learned what she needed to learn to deal with our son's behaviors, and loves our son like he's one of hers. She's the only person we'd trust with our son if something happens to us.

We had legal guardianship papers drawn up (cost about $300) naming my twin sister as the "first guardian" and then a best friend as the "second guardian". My husband's parents are deceased and my parents do not have the financial means to take care of my son. We've been encouraged to find someone from the "next generation" to also be named in guardianship/executor papers. We need to think of someone in the 25-40 years old age range. This is a very sobering topic and something I worry about a lot. Getting things done legally and in writing is something smart we can do for our kids. Good Luck and know we are thinking of you!

As of right now, our son would be taken in by his paternal grandparents because he knows them well enough to be comfortable with & they have spent more time with him (and learning all about autism) versus my mother. However, my mother would be the next candidate, then my older sister, oldest sister, then my brother. That is basically how we have figured out the order of guardianship would be with our son.

My parents are young enough (59 & 61) that they are named guardians. We have life insurance policies that would cover the cost of a SN nanny for afterschool and continuing on with biomedical treatment (which my mom is very supportive of). I'm actually more concerned about if only I died and DH was still alive. We live on the opposite side of the country from both my family and his so he'd have no support unless he moved (which wouldn't be easy given that most of the jobs in his industry are out here in the S.F. Bay Area).