"You Don't Want to Go For A Ride: Our Journey with Autism

In the early ‘90s, John and Tamara Harpster became the parents of an active, inquisitive baby boy. As he grew from an infant into a toddler, he began to exhibit signs he was different from other children his age. When he attended preschool, his parents discovered his remoteness, tantrums and speech delays were due to autism. After his journey to adulthood his parents realized sharing their experiences in the book “You Don’t Want to Go for a Ride” might help new parents know they are not alone. Their story reveals a family dealing with the demands and issues of autism. Read of their struggle in first bridging the critical ability to communicate with their son using artwork and LEGO bricks to build his speech. Then read about their challenges when they discovered that even speech wasn’t always enough as his verbal skills improved. Get an intimate look into day-to-day life of a family dealing with safety, temper, isolation and hopeless days as they desperately try to connect and understand the little boy trapped inside. Along the way, they learned the crucial bond of family and appreciating normal moments of home life that most people take for granted. Learn of their experiences with homeschooling, meltdowns, special interests, and isolation from others and within the family. Their firsthand account tells of their mistakes and the decisions where they found unique ways to break through and connect with their son in his world. In addition, each chapter gives readers lessons learned along with reference information for that phase of life from other books and studies. Both parents tell this compelling story and the details of their experiences with family, their son and the world of autism.

John M. Harpster was born in Ft. Worth, Texas and raised in Arlington. After several years of odd jobs, he went back to college and got his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from California State University in Northridge, CA. His first job after college was in Fort Worth, Texas at General Dynamics. He met and started dating Tamara Stensland, also a software engineer at General Dynamics, and they were married in Dallas, Texas. Before the birth of their son he wrote articles for a computer magazine but put that aside when he became the father of an autistic boy. He and his family live in Lakeside, California with their son John. John returned to writing with his debut book of for the Dancing with the Universe Series, "Doing the E.T. Tango". He is working on additional books for the Dancing with the Universe series and other ideas. He is currently writing on other books, including another satire called "Elijah". He is also building a wooden robot that he can put in the front seat of his car to enable him to drive in the HOV lanes on the freeway.

Tamara Harpster was born December 5, 1962, which is also Walt Disney's birthday and the day Mozart died, two facts she has been trying to reconcile ever since she found them out. Her child hood was spent in various cities in the Midwest as her family moved around for her father's job. After graduating from Oklahoma State University she got her first job and met her husband to be on her first project. They married a year later and are still together some 30 years later. In that time she has been a software engineer, motel owner/manager, web developer, project manager and is currently part owner of another small business. In her spare time she works with her husband John to polish up his novels, and do her own writing for blog entries and essays. She is working on a fantasy series "Hero Lottery" and a science fiction novel "Year 2038 Bug". The book "Year 2038 Bug" will be published as a serial on their website.