If you could give one parenting tip?

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#2 is such an excellent reminder!! ! and of course #s 1 and 3, I hope, people would pay attention to!

As said before, they aren't you. Well, I'm not a parent but one of the worst things to hear as an autistic child is "what's wrong with you" and "What you're doing is weird".
If what we are doing is weird, tell us what you are expecting us to do. It's not like we act weird on purpose, what was weird to you was normal to us.

It is very important that a parent understands that "stupid" and "smart" can reside in the same body / brain. Don't say to a kid: "You can do 'this', why can't you do 'that'?" We don't know why we can do certain things, but can't do others----that's just the way, it is!!

I don't think anyone's prepared to have a kid until they have one. Even planned children generally surprise parents with the reality of what it takes to raise a child.

Don't raise your voice at your autistic child, if they've been talking about their special interest longer than you would like them to. That's verbal abuse. Explain to them calmly that people like to make small talk about a variety of subjects. My parents raised their voice at me over that issue, and I haven't spoken to them about any of my special interests since the year that I was 10, 30 years ago. I'm able to do small talk with them. I have fun with them that way, instead.

Sorry , got two here

Push them, but beware of their boundaries. If they are allowed to stay in their comfort zone, they do not grow.

Also, remember the ultimate goal is to nurture a child into a self-sustaining adult. Let them fail, and be aware of it, and call them out when you know they aren't doing their best, its a hard lesson when they hit the real world without Parent's goggles.

Excellent points! I spoke with autism and anti-bullying advocate, Anthony Ianni, about these very points in my interview with him --> http://goo.gl/wMFmGs

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

One of my favorite quotes! Thank you.

Beware of tips. No one knows your unique child like you do.

Still, it's better planned then not. Sadly though. Most children are born into this world by accident. All because a couple of young adults in love, decide to just have sex without think about the consequences of what might happen. Hell, even the threat of getting an STD isn't much of a deterrent ether. I know. I was born into this world because my parents decided to have sex on the beach during spring break, and never really had plans to get married and live with each other.

The best advice is to not have kids at all. Seems like unesscesary responsibility and stress added to life.

The OP specifically stated that he was seeking advice for parents. How does this advice benefit people who already have children?

I guess the main advice would be that all kids are different and you need to adapt your parenting to their individual needs.
There are only a few hard rules that should be pretty obvious to any decent person anyway (e.g. don't hit your kids) but other than these absolutes good parenting really needs to be a bit fluid and molded to the kids need. This is particularly true with autistic kids because the conventional wisdom on how one "should" parent generally can not be applied so well. This is often very frustrating and bewildering for parents because what they are told should be working does not. I remember trying to naughty step my autistic child prior to his diagnosis, a total and utter waste of time! But all the parenting guides and advice I had been given told me this should work so despite the evidence in front of my I persisted and of course it still didn't bloody work!! ! I felt like a total failure, like a bad dad. I saw other parents with their well behaved kids and just wondered what the hell was going on. Now that I understand my son better I know better and we use other methods when he needs to be disciplined. BUT with my NT son naughty stepping works an absolute treat!!

I guess the point I am making is that you need to trust your instincts and don't be afraid to ignore the conventional wisdom if it does not seem to fit with your child. Also don't be afraid to differentiate your parenting between your kids. I parent my autistic child very differently to my NT child because they respond to different things. Part of the reason most parents of autistic kids struggle is not that the autism makes things harder its just that they are applying the wrong tools for the job! Parenting techniques designed for kids that are NT may not work at all for autistic kids or they may need some serious adaptations. The problem is that autistic kids are incredibly varied so there are no manuals that will tell you what to do. You need to piece together clues from books, other parents and talking to adults with autism. But most importantly of all you need to observe your own child and how they respond and trust your instincts. Once you learn what your kids different brain responds to then parenting autistic kids isn't intrinsically any harder than parenting NT kids. But if, for example, you trying and use techniques like the naughty step on a child that does not really give a s**t about being isolated from the group then you are going to have a hard time!

Don't on any account accept your child being teased or bullied by the other children because of their differences/difficulties. I was picked on pretty much throughout school and a lot of the time I suffered in silence because I was ashamed. As I got older I never told any adults, because I thought it was my own fault and I thought that they would see it that way too. I thought they would just tell me I was bringing it on myself by not making more of an effort to be sociable.

don't be overbearing. I firmly believe that my parents are both autistic, they are very unconventional leading them to chose an unusual region and be very idealistic about it, expecting me to be the same. I found it hard enough to navigate the world as it was and this put an extra strain on me, in that I was expected to be different from everyone else when I was already different. I dealt with it by forming my personality completely outside of my family, which has caused me problems ever since.

This is probably a very specific example, I guess what I am getting at is that the passive autistic child, and stubborn idealistic autistic parents can be a problematic mix. People with autism need people to be very sensitive but people with autism can be very insensitive.