Is It Rigidity—or a Nervous System Asking for Safety?

A Reflection on Seeing the Whole Child Beyond the Label

I was preparing for my son’s IEP meeting—a meeting layered with years of unresolved harm, missed timelines, and institutional silence. As I sat reflecting, I found myself thinking about my son. Not in the clinical sense. In the real sense. In the felt sense. The memory of him breathing differently. The return of small patterns. Holding his breath. Showing signs of stress in ways only a parent attuned to the nervous system would notice.

He’s always been a flexible child. Not just in routine, but in spirit. And yet, lately, I noticed something new—or maybe something old returning: rigidity. And for a moment, I almost accepted the easy explanation. “Well, he’s autistic. That’s what they say—rigidity is part of it.”

But then I paused. And a deeper truth emerged.

What if this rigidity wasn’t innate?
What if it wasn’t a fixed trait of who he is—but a response to a world that doesn’t know how to hold him properly?

Because when my son is met with understanding, when he’s supported, when the environment respects his needs—he’s fluid. Curious. Engaged. Adaptive.
But when the system begins to press, when pressure and unpredictability rise, when I’m advocating under stress and he feels the emotional static in the background—his body tightens. His patterns shift. His breath shortens.

That’s not dysfunction. That’s intelligence. That’s his nervous system doing what it can to survive.

And suddenly, the word “rigidity” doesn’t feel so diagnostic.
It feels like a misinterpretation. A simplification of something sacred.