@Supposenot @autisticbookclub @actuallyautistic honestly? Finding something that is compatible with your kid's needs and desires, regardless of your own expectations and vicarious dreams for them.
I was "gifted", right up until I wasn't anymore because I couldn't cope.
My mother continued pushing me to "achieve more", with tales of how "you will never get anywhere in life without a degree". So I did what she wanted, and dropped out after 6 months, with multiple suicide attempts to my name by that point.
I did not have the benefit of knowing I was autistic, and I did not have a parent who would cut me slack to figure out what would work for *me*.
She is a narcissist, so perhaps a little different to your situation.
I eventually figured out a life that I could cope with, and managed to fall into a career despite not having a degree.
Is this what I wanted from my life? No.
Did achieving "success" come at increasingly large cost to my health and ability to operate successfully? Yes.
Does your kid actually want to go to college?
Does your kid actually want a career?
Are they only saying yes because you expect them to achieve these things as a projection of your "type a personality"?
It's a doozy, but what they want and what you want may be two very different things. You can either support them in achieving what *they want*, in whatever format achieving it looks like, or, you can arrive at a burnt out kid, who wants to turn the world off after failing at something they never really wanted anyway, and potentially, a kid who never talks to you again (my mother falls into these latter categories).
If your kid's loftiest goal is to make coffee or work in a library, and that screams failure, please learn to celebrate them for it.
If their goal is a life of research, celebrate that too.
If they don't have any idea what they want, accept that.
But let *them* choose a path of harm reduction within capitalistic exploitation.